9 Ways To Preserve Eggs (Safely) - The Purposeful Pantry

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Preserve eggs with one of these safe and effective methods to make them last months and even years longer – whether storebought or farm-fresh! There’s no such thing as too many eggs any longer!

When you have an overabundance of eggs from a new store sale, Easter clear outs (check out the sales cycle list here), or just not eating as quickly as your hens are producing, you need to find ways to preserve those eggs without wasting the poor chicken’s hard work.

Eggs are usually never a food associated with stocking up a pantry unless you’re ready to invest in the #10 can of dehydrated eggs.

But you don’t have to rely on simply hard-boiling eggs as a snack when your family is feeling a little peckish. You have a variety of ways to make eggs work for you beyond a quick scramble for dinner or egg salad forever. Let me help you hatch a few ideas to make your eggs work better for you!

How to Store Eggs

Before we start, if you have fresh farm eggs from your own chickens, you can store them on the counter (without washing!). The membrane coating on them called “bloom” keeps the egg naturally protected in the nest, and it works on your counter, too! Simply brush off any debris before placing on your counter. If it’s any dirtier than that, follow these cleaning steps.

9 Ways to Preserve Eggs

1. Freeze Eggs

To me, this is the easiest way to preserve eggs. Little fuss or muss.

Ice Cube Tray Method to Freeze Eggs

1. Crack eggs into bowl
2. Lightly scramble
3. Pour into ice cube trays. I love these silicone ice cube trays I recently purchased from Amazon. But I will warn you, the tops don’t ‘snap’ on, so don’t tip them too much!

You will want to test your particular ice cube trays to ensure that your conversion is correct. In a standard tray, 1 “cube” equals 1/4 cup of scramble equals one egg. However, ice cube trays come in all sizes and shapes, so test yours first to ensure they fit. The silicone trays that I listed above only hold about 1/2 an egg per square – but I’m good with that* – I make sure to label my zip-top bag with the equivalent measurement in the bag.

*Turns out, I wasn’t good with only 1/2 egg. I switched to this silicone ice cube tray (in the photo above) and LOVE it. 1 cube = 2 eggs, but I generally do just 1 egg per cube now. It also works great for freezing herbs and more!

Muffin Tin Method to Freeze Eggs

Put your eggs into muffin tins!

1. Crack eggs into a bowl;
2. Lightly scramble;
3. Pour into muffin tin trays.

This example is my smaller muffin tin which is 1 egg = 3-4 TB = 1 puck. However, if you have larger muffin tins, you may be able to do 2-3 eggs if that’s a better number for you.

I freeze the trays, then double-seal the egg pucks in zip-top bags (removing all the air with a straw), and place them in the freezer.

TIP: Remember, while store-bought eggs may be listed as large, sizes and volumes do still vary. I still use the 1 large egg = 4 TB rule to help me pour into molds. In general, it won’t matter if you are a little off in your baking unless you’re working with an egg-specific dish, in which case I wouldn’t use frozen eggs. These are more for quick scrambles, baking, etc.

Freezing Eggs Video

2. Dehydrate Eggs

Eggs can be safely dried if they are cooked fully before the dehydrating process. And remember, they are best stored in the freezer for long-term storage because the fats may go rancid over time.

“…eggs are not recommended for home drying because of the high risk of food poisoning. Commercially dried milk and egg products are processed rapidly at temperatures high enough to prevent bacterial contamination. Home dryers cannot duplicate this process, and the safety of home-dried milk and egg products cannot be guaranteed.”

• How to Dehydrate Eggs (or not) by The Prairie Homestead (And after talking to Jill on her podcast a few months ago, she still has the same opinion of doing raw eggs — don’t.
• How to Make Powdered Eggs by One Good Thing by Jillee

Now, the difference is…. dehydrating raw eggs vs dehydrating cooked eggs. With raw eggs, you have issues with where the eggs are sourced from, whether they are pasteurized, the risk of salmonella poisoning, etc. Raw eggs can be left at unsafe temperatures for too long during the dehydrating process, making them a risk.

You run less risk with cooked eggs, but they aren’t as versatile as doing raw eggs.

Why Eggs are Not Recommended for Dehydrating

“Dairy and eggs are not recommended for home drying because of the high risk of food poisoning. Commercially dried milk and egg products are processed rapidly at temperatures high enough to prevent bacterial contamination. Home dryers cannot duplicate this process, and the safety of home-dried milk and egg products cannot be guaranteed.”National Center for Home Food Preservation

► Looking for a dehydrator or other tools that you might need? I’ve got a lot of recommendations here.

Salmonella Risks

Statement from the FDA on salmonella in eggs in the US market:

FDA requires all cartons of shell eggs that have not been treated to destroy Salmonella to carry this safe handling statement:

Eggs that have been treated to destroy Salmonella–by in-shell pasteurization, for example–are not required to carry safe handling instructions, but the labeling will usually say that they have been treated.

—Food and Drug Administration

Safe Temperature for Dehydrating Eggs

As with the information above, if you choose to dehydrate eggs at home, please don’t follow the typical recommendation of 140°F/60°C that you may see on so many sites. This won’t kill the harmful bacteria that the National Center for Home Food Preservation warns against.

Choose to use the 165°F/72°C temperature to help mitigate that risk.

How are Commercial Dried Eggs Made?

Eggs sourced by companies like Augason Farms are dehydrated, but unlike home dehydrators, they are done in a different manner.

Eggs are pasteurized, then sprayed into a heated room in a thin layer, and the water evaporates immediately.

3. Mineral Oil Preserved Eggs

There was a way to preserve your farm-fresh eggs if you coated them in food-grade mineral oil, put them back into a container, and let them sit. Who knew it could be that easy? But does it work? Check out Jamie’s year-long experiment to see.

However, you’ll want to read this information to see the ramifications of this method.Basic Steps:

1. Warm food-grade mineral oil slightly (you can pick it up from Amazon here. This is an affiliate link)
2. Coat eggs in mineral oil
3. Put egg pointy side down in carton
4. Rotate monthly – flip the carton (not the eggs)
5. Store for up to 9 months in cool (65-68F / 75%humidity), or in fridge for longer storage

Read the full instructions here

4. Freeze Dry Eggs

Granted, to do this one, you’re going to have to own a freeze dryer. But if you do, you can freeze dry both raw and cooked eggs.

“[…] raw eggs can be whisked, freeze-dried and kept in their powdered form to used in all baking and cooking recipes (2 tablespoons of egg powder equals one egg). Or, eggs can be freeze-dried in their scrambled state and easily re-hydrated with a little water in a hot skillet.” Check out this post by Harvest Right on 4 unique foods you can freeze dry, which includes eggs!

5. Freeze Scrambled Eggs

A great standby for almost any food is to cook it and freeze it so that it is ready to eat after a warm-up. This is a super easy way to preserve eggs and build your ready-to-eat stockpile for meal planning.

You can lightly scramble eggs and freeze them in serving-sized portions, then gently warm them up (slightly undercooking them will allow them to taste better one heated up). You can also create omelets, breakfast casseroles, and breakfast tacos, and egg muffins.

Darcy’s Tip

TIP: If you don’t like how soggy tortillas can be after coming out from the freezer and microwave, consider freezing only the ‘guts’ of your breakfast tacos, then adding a freshly toasted tortilla to the thawed mixture for breakfast tacos that are awesome!

6. Hard Boiled Eggs

While hard-boiled eggs aren’t as versatile as frozen raw eggs, they are still good to have on hand. They are good for about seven days, but can extend the life of those eggs you think are just about to be done.

Here are ways you can use hard-boiled eggs.

• Salads – just chop up and add to your salads
• Eating as protein shots
• Egg salad
• Deviled eggs (step up your game with these Fermented Jalapeno Deviled Eggs from Traditional Cooking School).
• 25 Ways to use up hard-boiled eggs

Try this way of smoking eggs!

When you have an overabundance, any way to repurpose them comes in handy! You can boil on the stovetop, use your Instant Pot (this is my favorite method), and even bake eggs per Alton Brown. And if you need a little help on the many ways you can hard-boil and which methods work the best, check out this post on hard boiling eggs from my friend, Laurie @ Common Sense Home

7. Water Glass Storage

Victoria from A Modern Homestead shows how to water glass eggs that can last for a year on your pantry shelf. And here’s an update on how water glass eggs taste a year later. You can also download the printable instructions on water glassing eggs A Modern Homestead.

The ingredient that is important to remember is to use pickling lime (hydrated lime) as Janet from Timercreek Farm shows in her tutorial on how to water glass farm fresh eggs.

SAFETY CONCERN: This is NOT a preservation method for storebought eggs in the US. Per the National Center for Home Food Preservation guidelines, it is not recommended to water glass eggs for preserving.

Research shows that Salmonella enteritidis can contaminate eggs as “Eggs are among the most nutritious and cheapest protein foods on earth and can be part of a healthy diet. However, they are perishable just like raw meat, poultry, and fish. Unbroken, clean, fresh shell eggs may contain Salmonella enteritidis (SE) bacteria that can cause foodborne illness. While the number of eggs affected is quite small, there have been cases of foodborne illness in the last few years. To be safe, eggs must be safely handled, promptly refrigerated, and thoroughly cooked.” Source: Food Safety and Inspection Service, 2019 2 they are formed inside the hen’s reproductive organs, and there is no way a person can know if it is there.

Utah State Univeristy Extension

8. Pickling Eggs

I’ll be honest: I’ve been too chicken to try pickled eggs (I have a gross visual of the guy in Dances with Wolves digging into a jar full of pickled eggs. Besides, I’m not a fan of the taste of most pickled things. I need to overcome it, but I’m not going to start with eggs, trust me!) BUT…it may be a preservation method that you’ll learn to love! Here are 4 ways to pickle eggs that you might want to try!

Pickling Quail Eggs

9. Salting Eggs

Preserving eggs in salt is a technique from China that preserves eggs outside of the shell in salt to use for later cooking methods. You crack open an egg into salt, preserve it in layers of salt and wine and let it sit for months. It’s intriguing and I know people are doing it in the food industry commercially for restaurants, etc. On Hunter, Angler Gardener, Cook, he does it with egg yolks and adds it to noodles. Here’s another version on how to salt cure egg yolks. Will this work for you? You’ll have to decide and give it a try.

Use Egg Substitutes for Baking

• Powdered Eggs – While powdered eggs may not be the best at replacing scrambled eggs in a meal, in a pinch they can. They’re best used to replace eggs in recipes where they can blend in with the local crowd. You can get them here on Amazon or try any of the other food storage companies like Auguson Farms, Emergency Essentials, etc.
• Flax Seed or Chia Seed – you can soak flax or chia seed in water to create a gelatinous ‘goo’ that is a good egg replacement, especially for baked goods.

Here are 50+ Ways to Use Eggs with The Prairie Homestead that can help you focus your recipes to using up your abundance of eggs.

Crossing the Road to Preserve Eggs

Hopefully, you’ll forgive the fowl puns, but I couldn’t help myself!

Remember that in your quest to extend your food storage with eggs, find a technique that you’re comfortable with, get some eggs stored. Some of the techniques listed here may be a little outside of your comfort zone, but they are methods that have been used for years by others. I am partial to freezing eggs to make them most versatile for me in cooking and baking down the road, but I have a stash of commercially dried eggs saved for a rainy day.

Do you have a way that you preserve eggs that I haven’t listed? Which one do you think you might try? I’d love to hear your comments below!

Check out more in the Preserving Series: