I’m always looking for a ways to preserve food and recently I’ve been experimenting with freezing chicken eggs.
When I was growing up, my grandmother kept chickens at her farmhouse and would always bring us a large boxes full of fresh chicken eggs. Now, I realised I’ve been eating organic free range eggs before it was even a ‘thing’!
At the time, my mum was less grateful for such gifts because it meant that either most of it would go off before we had the chance to eat it (it was only tree of us – my mum and my little brother) or we had to dedicate a whole day for pickling, bottling and preserving.
It wasn’t just the eggs my grandmother would bring, it was usually a whole sack of flour (like 15 kg!!), bags of fresh vegetables, crates of fruits and three or four rabbits!
She would always turned up without any warning (I mean, there were no mobile phones in those days…) and we had to drop everything we were doing or planning to do and get to work!
But I digress! Back in the days, we would preserve them in a large bottle filled with water and some sort of lime powder. This would keep them for months, stored in cold pantry. We didn’t have much freezer space and I guess my mum never realised that you could freeze eggs.
Nowadays, I like to buy fresh eggs when I need them, but if I do preserve them in any way, it’s usually by freezing. I like to preserve my food when I can from freezing potatoes, roasted vegetables, breakfast smoothies to freezing potato soups.
So, let me share with you my top tips on how to freeze (chicken) eggs.
What’s the easiest way to freeze eggs?
The easiest way to freeze eggs is to crack them into a clean muffin tin (one per one muffin mould) and leave them (as they are, not covered) to freeze in your deep freezer.
To make things a little easier (for transferring your eggs) you can line the muffin tin with a plastic film. After about 3-4 hrs the eggs are set enough so that you can tip them out and place them in an airtight container with a lid and put them back to your freezer.
Now you have individually frozen chicken eggs ready any time you need them.
What’s the best (and safe) way to defrost frozen eggs?
You’ll need to think a little ahead, but the best way to defrost your eggs is to take them out 24 hrs before you need them and put them in the fridge to defrost slowly.
Make sure you take out only what you need and if the recipe calls for 2 eggs you can place them in the same bowl or container to defrost. If you need your eggs separately, make sure you defrost them separately too.
Extra tips for freezing eggs
How to freeze egg whites or egg yolks
It’s worth mentioning that a lot of recipes call for just egg whites (for example macarons) or egg yolks (enriched bread dough, like brioche). Unless you are very organised and you always have a good recipe for the part of the egg you don’t need in your main recipe, it’s handy to have your eggs frozen separately.
To save yourself the headache of weighing up the egg whites or guessing how much to add in to your recipe, I suggest you follow the same process as for freezing the whole eggs, but you separate them individually.
Find extra tins and as you separate each egg put the egg yolk in one compartment and the egg white in another. Freeze everything (uncovered as before) first and then put into a separate airtight containers and place back into a freezer.
Can you freeze hard-boiled eggs?
Yes, the short answer is that you can freeze hard-boiled eggs. But, you have to bear in mind, that after defrosting, your hard-boiled eggs are not going to be exactly the same as if they are freshly hard-boiled.
They could become a bit rubbery and change their texture (they will crumble). It’s not a problem if you want to use such eggs for egg sandwich spread recipe or crumble it into soups or use as a salad garnish.
To freeze them, simply hard-boil your eggs, leave to cool down, peel off the egg shells and first freeze individually and then add to a container to keep for up to 3 months.
To defrost your hard-boiled eggs, simply take out what you need and leave in the fridge to defrost slowly overnight. Make sure that you eat your defrosted eggs within 2 days, but ideally on the same day as when you defrost them. It’s not a good idea to keep them for very long.
Recipes which can be made with previously frozen eggs
Savoury Recipes
- Mini Omelettes >>
- Egg white turkey omelette >>
- Traditional Irish Potato Omelette >>
- Pizza Omelette with Vegetables >>
- Tofu & Scrambled Vegetables >>
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