Freezing Eggs

I don't know what made me think I could go through 40 eggs in a month.  The sale was two 20-packs for $4, or 10¢ each.  I'm still paranoid about egg prices since the bird flu shortage.  I tried baking and adding them to other dishes, but I only have breakfast at home 4-5 days per week.  Plus, I was about to go on vacation for a week.  It was time to look for other ways of preserving them.

You can't freeze hard-boiled eggs.  It turns the whites into water.  You can dehydrate yolks, and the new dehydrator came with a recipe.  You salt-cure them first, then dry into something similar to a cheese that is then grated.  Not something I'm interested in.  That left freezing them uncooked.

You can freeze the yolks and whites of raw eggs separately.  The whites will not be usable for meringues, but you can scramble them up.  The yolks will still have their thickening power.  The majority of the eggs I use are for omelets and whole in baked goods, so I went the scrambled route.

The process is very easy.  Crack into a bowl and scramble.  You can add a pinch of salt and/or pepper to make seasoned eggs.  Not knowing the final use, I opted for plain.  Pour the egg into ice cube trays or silicone muffin cups.  Freeze, pop out, repeat until you've made as many as you want.

The frozen eggs can then be transferred to a freezer bag or other container and kept frozen.  To use, bring out desired number and thaw overnight in the fridge.  Scramble them back up to redistribute the water content and you're good to go.  The bags will be a loss, as I don't reuse plastic bags that have held foods requiring cooking.  I could have used the FoodSaver, but I wanted to be able to store many in one bag and pull out one or two as needed.

I'm not going to do this all the time, but it was a solution to the problem on this day.  It turns the eggs into a long-term food item, with a storage time of up to three months.  And I will watch my urge to get a good deal in the future.