It’s either feast or famine when it comes to eggs around our homestead…
After the long, egg-less wait while our chicks matured, we are currently slammed with eggs. Blue ones, brown ones, little ones, big ones, double yolkers… Eggs everywhere.
But eventually our chickens will molt and we will be hard pressed to find enough eggs to make breakfast on a Sunday morning… So what to do?
There are a lot of different schools of thought when it comes to preserving eggs. Obviously, our homesteading ancestors had this same dilemma, and worked to find ways to save their eggs for later.
You can use a method called waterglassing, which immerses fresh eggs in a chemical called sodium silicate. However, that can reportedly prevent the eggs from being boiled later (the shells will be too soft) and the whites no longer will become fluffy after beating. Plus, you risk ingesting some sodium silicate, since egg shells are so porous. No thanks.
You can also smother your eggs by packing them in large quantities of salt, or by rubbing them with lard, grease, boric acid, or a lime/water solution. The idea is that if you clog up the egg’s pores and make them airtight, you can slow down the aging process. But from what I can tell, all of those methods have inconsistent results.
But I have a freezer. And freezing eggs seems to be one of the most simple ways to preserve them.
How to Freeze Your Eggs
1. Select the freshest eggs that you can.
2. You can choose to freeze yolks and whites separately, or together. I chose to freeze the whole egg together.
3. Crack as many eggs as you wish into a freezer safe container (I used a tupperware-style plastic container with lid). Eggs cannot be frozen in the shell since they will expand and break. For this batch of eggs, I froze 2 cups of whole eggs per container.
4. GENTLY stir the yolks and whites together. Try not to beat a lot of extra air into the mixture.
5. *Optional Step* Add 1/2 teaspoon of honey OR salt to each cup of whole eggs. This is said to help to stabilize the yolk after thawing. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I added salt to mine. Be sure to mark what you used in the label so you can adjust your recipes accordingly, if need be.
6. Label and freeze for up to 6 months (I’d bet you could go longer, but this is what the “experts” recommend. I like to push the limits, though. 
) Labeling might seem like a waste of time to you. But do it. Trust me. You have no idea how many times I’ve come across a mystery item in my freezer. At the time of freezing it, I was SURE I would remember what it was…
7. When you are ready to use your eggs, allow them to thaw in the fridge.
3 Tablespoons of the egg mixture = 1 egg in recipes
***Alternate freezing method*** You can also pour the scrambled egg mixture into individual ice cube trays. Just pop out a couple cubes anytime you need just an egg or two for a recipe.
I still plan to look into more off-grid egg preservation methods, but for now, I’m happy to use my freezer.
How do you preserve your eggs?
A few more posts from the coop:
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This post is a part of Fight Back Friday, The Homestead Barn Hop, Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday, Gluten Free Wednesdays, Simple Lives Thursday, Living Well Blog Hop, Topsy Turvy Tuesdays
About Jill Winger
what? wow!
Great post!
Do they thaw well to eat for scrambled eggs? Or are they best used for recipes where texture is not an issue?
Lea, they should be just fine for scrambled eggs or baking.
I have seen too where you can use an ice cube tray to freeze, then pop them into a ziplock bag! Each cube = 1 egg!! Too fun! Thanks for reminding me!
I have been experimenting with this!~ I have frozen them in ice cube trays, I have put fresh eggs into our extra fridge, and I have packed them in salt. I am curently using the ones I packed in salt. So far, so good! I am breaking them into another bowl first, but no problems yet! The ones I am using now are from July/August. I used plain stock salt to pack in, as it is inexpensive at bulk prices. Then, we can just feed it to the animals when done. I packed them into a Rubbermaid tub, layer by layer. One tub held 114 eggs. i love the freexing idea, too, but if we lose power (not uncommon) I wanted to be able to save some eggs. Also, we love “Belly” eggs for breakfast! Thank you for your post…just joined and look forward to searching your site! Blessings!
Judi, this really piqued my interest! Now I’m going to have to try the salt method- and I love the idea of giving the salt to your critters when you’re done with it. Thanks for sharing this!
When you say you salt them….you just have a bin full of salt {layer by layer} with eggs? That simple? I just want to make sure
I’m new at the ‘homesteading’ arena and learning as much as I can. Thank You for Sharing.
Did you find that the eggs you stored in salt had a strong salt flavor when you ate them?
What a fantastic and timely post!
Although my daughter is severely allergic to eggs, I have found it is one of the only protein sources my son WILL eat so we go through dozens each month. Our (population-dense) city has recently allowed some “test” hens, but it is still very hard to find reasonable high-quality eggs in our area. I am supremely jealous of your “real” eggs! Thanks for the great info… perhaps if we travel further into the country we can find a larger supply of high quality eggs and preserve them this way.
I think it’s great that your city is allowing “test” hens. At least it’s a step in the right direction! I bet if you keep looking you’ll be able to find a source of farm fresh eggs in your area soon!
I had no idea! Thank you for sharing this, I’ve got to pin it
Awesome, I was just looking up ways to preserve eggs without electricity. Just trying to be prepared. Please keep us posted on what you discover on that issue. I have done the freezer wiht ice cube trays, popped them into a baggy. They turn out really good scrambled eggs. But…then I forgot they were in the freezer.
Have never had a bad egg even when I had my own. I keep eggs for 5 months or more so can normally wait til they begin to lay once more. I have found a way to dehydrate them and that will be my choice since freezers can go out and freezers can burn items too. Thanks for sharing this, might be the one way folks can keep their eggs.
Hmmm… haven’t looked into dehydrating yet. Might be worth a try!
i freeze them in little plastic containers and when they are frozen i pop them out and vaccume seal them
I love to freeze eggs too. I oil a muffin tray then crack one fresh egg per muffin hole.
Once they are frozen I take them out, they slide out easily, then put them all in a container together.
Need one egg? Just pop one out the night before!
Hi Lisa. Do you have to break the yolk to freeze eggs in muffin holes? I hope not. I like the idea of being able to separate the whites and yolks after defrosting.
Good Morning SJ
Please tell me that you have tried to freeze the whole egg in a muffen pan and baked it as an egg, and the taste and look was the same as a real fresh egg?
I’m from South Africa and it is so hot, we can’t store eggs that long.
Please help by answering me by e-mail.
Have a good day
Mariana
If you rub an egg with a thin layer of vasaline you can store eggs for about two years. You just wash it off with warm soapy water. Eggs you get at a grocery store are several months old anyways.
Yikes, rubbing vaseline on the eggs is not a good idea. Vaseline is a petrochemical so it’s almos like rubbing motor oil on your eggs. You can expect to have the chemical in your eggs and you would be consuming that. Not good for your bealth.
I think a better option for preserving eggs is to ferment or pickle them. It would put probiotics into them which is very healthy. To ferment them, you hard boil them first. You should be able to find recipes online for fermented or pickled eggs.
Great idea. I will have to write this down so I don’t forget!
Loved reading this, never knew you could freeze eggs!
This is great info for making it through the winter when the silly chickens stop laying! I wonder how much longer I’ve got. . .
I never knew that you could freeze eggs. Are they good scrambled or just for putting into baked goods etc.?
Thanks for sharing this idea! I can’t wait until we get our chicks in the spring and start getting our own eggs.
We don’t have chickens yet (hopefully next spring), so I don’t really have a need for preserving an abundance of eggs, but I think this is a great post anyways! I have heard about preserving eggs with lard, and I’m not entirely sure I would feel safe with that. Back in the day my mom used to buy egg beaters which we would use instead of eggs, since eggs were so “bad” for you. Do you typically only use the eggs in recipes, or do you thaw them for scrambled eggs as well? Just wondering if there is a large difference in taste
Heather- they should work for either scrambled eggs or in recipes.
Call me crazy, but I have NEVER realized you could freeze eggs before! I’m so looking forward to having my own chickens one day soon, so this is good to know!
Wow, what a great idea! Thank you!
I didn’t know you can freeze eggs. Great! We recently started to purchase eggs from a farm near us. So as not to have to go every week, we wanted to buy a couple week’s worth if possible. We didn’t know how long they would be good in the fridge. When we asked the farmer, he said they would be good in the fridge for about a year! Seeing the dates on cartons at the store gives some perspective on their age. So thankful we have a truly fresh source. Maybe some day we will have our own chickens.
I haven’t had the chance to freeze ANY! Not getting enough around here. Having said that I do have about 3 cups of whites I need to do something with but keep not doing anything with (leftover from making birthday ice cream). I was thinking about macaroons but it’s been a few days and I keep not getting around to it… should probably freeze them.
Yum…. macaroons! The perfect way to use up extra egg whites.
With 9 of us we don’t have a lot of extra eggs – but I think I might freeze some now – and maybe cut back a bit on what we are eating – so we will have our own yummy eggs this winter! I am glad you posted this!
Will these eggs fry up ok if you freeze them individually in muffin tins or ice cube trays? Or will the texture be off? This is a great post! Thank you.
They should be just fine for scrambled eggs. Not sure about other types of frying. Let me know if you try it!
I always wondered if I could freeze eggs! huh! Excellent post!
This is wonderful! Thanks for the post. We have the Homestead Blessings series in our home and they suggest pickling your eggs. It sounds strange, but they say it is great to use on salads, in potato salad and just sliced to eat. I’m interested in finding different ways to preserve our eggs too, freezing sounds great and I’m very interested in the dehydrating, and the salt method is great too, but pickling is another option
They use large mouth pint jars, so you don’t end up with too many, but if you family really likes it I’m sure you could use quart jars 
Yes, pickling is another great option, although I’m not sure if my family would go for that right now… Maybe in a few years after their tastebuds have “matured” a bit!
LOL to #6 (“I was sure I would know what it was”) me too!
so many times!
Thanks for linking your great post to FAT TUESDAY. This was very interesting! Hope to see you next week!
Be sure to visit RealFoodForager.com on Sunday for Sunday Snippets – your post from Fat Tuesday may be featured there!
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/10/fat-tuesday-october-25-2011/
If you have grain-free recipes please visit my Grain-Free Linky Carnival in support of my 28 day grain-free challenge! It will be open until November 2.
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/10/grain-free-real-food-linky-carnival/
We do freeze them in the shell. Yes they crack,but we put them in baggies after they are frozen and figure the shell offers additional insulation from the cold. The cool things we’ve found is that you can rinse a frozen egg with the shell on in cold water and the shell comes off really easily. This leaves you with a frozen egg (in egg shape) We just pull out how many we need, rinse them and let them thaw.
Dana that is great! Certainly makes sense that the shell would provide protection from frost.
This is a great idea. I’m going to forward the link to my aunt and dad. There’s a farm that sells organic eggs…and now that we can freeze them, it’s now worth the trip out there to buy quite a few dozen eggs
Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 
Wow that is a good idea didn’t know you could freeze eggs!! Will have to try it
What a great post, thanks! Unfortunately I do not have my own chickens, so all my eggs still come from the grocery store, but with just me and my husband I am almost always throwing out expired eggs. Now when I go through my food to check expiration dates, if my eggs are getting close I will just freeze them and then always have some handy when I get that urge to bake!
Most definitely! It’s a great way to prevent wasting food!
i’m a new reader to your blog and i’m in love with it! you have inspired me to declutter and simplify my life, how much of the STUFF that sits around the house do we all really use anyway? prob not enough of it to justify keeping it….I had no idea you could freeze eggs i have a dozen in my fridge right now that expire on the 15th of feb and i prob would have thrown most away (we go through phases of eating alot and not hardly eating any) i’m gonna use my leftover breastmilk storage bags to freeze the eggs i hate tossing them when i paid for them and if they are good enough to store breastmilk then i’m sure they are good enough to store eggs and it will save me from spending money right now to buy containers. I have also bought all the ingredients to make my own laundry soap(i’m just waiting to finish the supply i have) and i cant wait till spring so my husband can put up a clothesline for me…. i just wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to write about all these things i feel relieved just thinking about all the stuff i’m going to get rid of
Great info…I never knew! Ive been toying with the idea of freezing eggs. With the turbulent times I think is approaching it would be vital to store up as much as possible. Thanks :0)
How do you feel about rubbing the eggs with mineral oil for long term storage. I assume, since the eggs is porous that it may soak up the flavor.?
I have tried freezing eggs and find them not to be my taste when thawed. The texture is off and they just don’t seem to work in baked things, course I am baking gluten free which doesn’t always work anyway. Fresh eggs keep for months in the fridge. I just finished up eggs that were purchased in October. Previously I have kept fresh ones until March. I’ll try the vaseline coating, maybe I can keep them until late April or May that way. Can’t eat chicken eggs, so use duck eggs which are hard to come by, so I buy as much as I can get in the summer and hope they last until fresh ones are available again.
Instead of lard or anything like that if you take and wash the eggs and put a little mineral oil in your hand and roll the eggs in that, make sure they are totally covered and can store them without refridgeration for 9-12 months in a cool dark area
My heart is smiling! I am so tickled to see that you made this post, to bring the awareness to so many that they can freeze their eggs. Especially now when most hens are laying more and more with good weather coming forth. I have been freezing eggs for over 30 years now. I freeze in several different quanities. Smaller amount to use while baking, 1/2 dzn for quiches, full dozen whites for angel food cakes, etc.
When egg production slows down, and it will, whether you have the chickens or friends, or farmers market, you wil always have wonderfull free range or cage free eggs to use in your recipes. 3 teaspoons of mixed egg = 1 egg
I’d read that you can preserve eggs by rubbing them with mineral oil, too. We can’t raise chickens since I live in the suburbs, but sometimes I do buy a lot of eggs when they’re on sale. I’ll give this method a try! It’s certainly more waistline friendly than my previous method of preserving them (by making a bunch of creme brulee and freezing it without browning the top).
I wish I had thought of this or known this a few years back when we kept layers. We are getting chickens again next spring and I might get some layers to keep (we usually do meat birds) for eggs now that I know I won’t be faced with way too many eggs in my fridge. There are only so many batches of noodles you can make. LOL
When I find a good sale on eggs here in the city I will usually but several dozen then using my blender set on the slowest setting crack a dozen at a time with a teaspoon of kosher salt added per dozen blend till smoothly mixed. Then I have about 4 dozen Tupperware hamburger containers with lids that stack I will pore the eggs into them till just a 1/2 inch below the rim and snap 3 together with 1 lid till I have used up all the eggs I plan to freeze. Each container equals approximately 2 whole scrambled eggs total. I picked up the containers at yard sales, flee markets, and thrift shops for about a total of maybe $10.00 along with 1 hamburger press that I never uses being a vegetarian. I have used this method for about 20 years now and it works great for me.
Dawn
Great idea Dawn!
And here I thought eggs went bad when frozen! when I was a kid our fridge would always tend to over cool and my mom would throw out all teh half frozen ones saying they were inedible…learn something new everyday lol!
Thanks for the great information. I think I will try each of these methods and decide which will work best for us. I appreciate the time everyone took to contribute to this post! :0)
Thanks for all of the great ideas on preserving eggs. I am giong to try the various ways and see which works best for us. We have 24 chickens who have just started laying this last month or so. Now I am not going to worry about if we sell them roadside. I will freeze them for the winter when they are not producing as well. The Vaseline idea is very cool and will be a great science experiment for us. So, I will be sure to do that with the kids as well. Who will be the guinnea pig when it comes to test?? Thank you.
Yes- definitely a good experiment for the kiddos! You’ll have to let me know how it goes.
I can tell you from experience that egg yolks do not freeze worth a darn, so how well they come out after being scrambled, I can’t say. I had five egg yolks but no recipe to use them up as I collected them, until I had enough for a custard. I let them defrost for three days in the fridge, and then left them on my kitchen counter for a few hours to get them room temperature. When I went to use them, they stuck like glue to the bottom of the container. As I mixed them with a few fresh yolks, I noticed that the frozen yolks behaved badly in that they tended to congeal like dried/fried egg yolks regardless of how much they were whisked (I could see small chunky bits clinging to the side of the bowl before they were tempered with the hot milk). In the end, I was thankful I strained the custard while it was still hot as I had a ton of egg yolk bits in it. Result: my custard was tasty enough, but was a bit on the grainy side, and I suspect that was because of the frozen eggs.
I just read elsewhere that you have to use the egg within 24 hours of thawing it.
I am OBSESSED with freezing things. I NEVER though I could freeze eggs! This is genius!
I prefer using muffin tins (regular, giant, and mini sizes!) to freeze convenient little plops of liquids – soups juice cubes to avoid watering down, and milk. I am going to try this in various tins for various sizes, it’s great because once they are frozen, you can toss them all in a ziplock and they fit in my packed freezer a lot better!
THANKS!!!!!
For non freezing how about dipping the eggs in wax to seal the eggs? I am looking into raising chickens so this is real interesting
I never tried freezing eggs, would like to try it when I have too much eggs at home. What I have done before to preserve eggs is by putting eggs in a jar, fill with water and salt as much as how salty you want your eggs to be. Let the jar sits in a room temperature for about 2-3 weeks. Throw the brine, boil the eggs and you’ll get salty eggs.
I’ve only ever frozen egg whites and then forgot all about them, even though they were labeled – ha! Never thought you could freeze the entire egg – like the idea of putting them into muffin pans and freezing them like that. Eggs are so darn expensive these days. Wish we could grow chickens here but you need all kinds of permits for everything *sigh* – Got some local growers but they cost a fortune…but will be keeping this in mind for sure.
Thanks for sharing your tip!
Linda
Yes, I definitely like the muffin tin idea too!
My name Sarah.
I love the eggs. The eggs…. The eggs. I sometimes like to stick the pores of the eggs on my pores….. my pores. Seeping… squishing…. eggs… Sarah.
My friend rubs eggs in vegetable oil then says they keep for months.
I’ve accidently frozen whole eggs on several occasions; the back of the fridge just gets to cold. While the shell does split (which can’t be good if left to long) , once thawed the egg turns out normal. Never had any problems, so I probably personally wouldn’t be adding any extra to purposely frozen eggs.
I read somewhere that eggs can be dipped in wax thereby preserving them indefinitely….
Hmmm… I would be interested in trying the wax. I don’t really care for the mineral oil idea that some folks use– since it’s a petroleum derivative.
I froze some eggs yesterday according to your method. (freezer safe ziploc bags) today, i took them out to relocate to bigger freezer. i noticed that they are a very very dark orange/yellow color. is this normal. I am using them for a camping trip and would hate to get there and thaw out “bad eggs”
I think that mine ended up being pretty dark as well– they should be ok.
Two years ago, I tried to “freeze whole egg in the muffin cup” method of preserving and found the texture of the frozen egg, particularly the yolk, to be altered. The white and yolk didn’t emulsify together very well and I found that even in baking, there were chunks of egg in my muffins. Anyone have any suggestions for this? I am overwhelmed with eggs and need a way to preserve them mainly for baking but my experiment with freezing wasn’t particularly satisfactory.
We have a over abundance of eggs right now and I loved this post and discussion. We are going to try freezing some so we have them in the winter when our hens slow down their production. Thanks!