Have you ever had an abundance of eggs, or seen a great deal on eggs and wished you could stock up, but didn’t because you thought they’d go bad before you could use them? I have! Here’s an alternative that can be helpful.
Crack your eggs, slightly beat them, (edited to add – and sprinkle a tiny bit of salt in), and pour them into ice cube trays. (Pay attention to how many you use so you can do the math on how many eggs are in each cube.) Once they’re frozen, pour them into a zip lock bag. Put them in the freezer until you need them. When you’re ready to use them, defrost the amount of cubes you need in your fridge, and use them in whatever recipes you want to make. And here’s where the math comes in: one cube equals – xxx eggs.
Do you have any other practical and easy ways to store eggs long term (except for keeping them in the fridge!)? Have you ever used this strategy or something similar for eggs?
Avivah
“Scramble” in a frying pan, or do you mean to beat them?
Thanks!
As in to beat them, definitely not to cook them first! Thanks for asking for clarification, and I’ll change the wording above.
Thank you!
Just a friendly reminder that eggs have a din of linas laila, so leaving them overnight once they’ve been cracked open might be a problem. (If you’ve inquired and been told otherwise, I respectfully take this back.)
I never thought to ask about it, since they aren’t being left overnight, but are in the freezer. I’ll have to check it out, thanks for bringing this to my attention.
I know that leaving them overnight in the fridge is a problem. I don’t know if the freezer is any different though.
According to what I learned too, it would be a problem – if they aren’t part of a food/dish yet, but just eggs, it doesn’t matter if they are covered. Possibly it might work to put eggshells on top (if they wouldn’t fall in!). Also, there might be other opinions, so everyone needs to ask their own rav.
Can you beat these for using in cakes afterwards, or just for scrambled eggs or pies/ kugels?
Okay, so I guess a person could just sprinkle a little salt in, which was actually part of the original instructions I saw!
You can use these for baking and cooking, pretty much anyway you would use them fresh, as long as you don’t need them to be whole. 😛
Isn’t that only an issue of being uncovered? You could freeze them, bag them, and then be ok…
As far as I know, it’s an issue even if it’s covered unless it’s mixed with something. So if, for example, I want to peel hard boiled eggs before Shabbos for serving Shabbos morning, it’s not enough to put them into a container or a bag overnight, but if I add mayonnaise to it, then it’s fine.
I’m by no means an expert in these halachos and am not at all saying this as a psak. Just raising the issue so anyone who wants to do it can find out for themselves whether or not it’s a problem.
Fantastic tip! I constantly have the issue of too many eggs/no eggs.
I am usually happy to leave fresh pastured eggs out in my pantry for a couple weeks. Do you not do that because you don’t think it is safe?
I do leave my eggs out for a month with no problem. But sometimes you get an amazing deal and you want to take advantage of it, but it’s during the summer so it’s too hot to leave them out for long, or it’s more than you can use.
For example, I once got pastured eggs, about 60 dozen, for .79 a dozen because there was an overstock and they needed to get rid of them! At other times, I’ve seen eggs discounted because they’re close to the expiration date (only seen this at the discount stores, though).
Aviva, in terms of leaving the eggs alone, I think it has to do with commercial use vs not, in terms of being allowed. Commercial is allowed, but at home isn’t. You can sprinkle in a drop of salt to take care of the issue.