How To Preserve Eggs – The Safest And Best Ways

You never have to worry about having too many eggs at home if you know the best and safest way to preserve them.

Whether your hens have produced too many eggs for you to keep up, or you found some great deals on eggs at the local grocery store, there is no need for them to go to waste.

Most of us use eggs fresh and don’t buy them in bulk and preserve them for a later date, but it is something that you can look into doing, and there are some great ways to preserve eggs safely to enjoy at a later stage.

What are the safest and best ways to preserve eggs? There are a few methods that you can choose to safely preserve eggs, such as freezing the eggs, preserving them in lime water, or simply hard-boiling them.

Which option you use will depend on what you have available at home, and what you like your eggs to taste like.

Keep reading to find out more about all the different ways you can preserve your eggs at home, so no egg goes to waste!

Storing Fresh Eggs

Before preserving your eggs, it does help to know how long you can store fresh eggs so that you’ll know if you actually need to preserve the eggs you have.

Store-bought Eggs

Keep store-bought eggs in the body of the refrigerator, and not the fridge door. This helps to keep the eggs at a constant temperature.

You should also leave the eggs in the carton they were sold in. These egg cartons help to prevent the eggs from picking up odors and flavors from food nearby, and you will also be able to see the “best by” date clearly on the carton.

Freshly Laid Eggs

If you have hens of your own and they have laid some eggs, you can keep these on the kitchen counter, as there is a membrane coating on the egg which keeps the eggs protected.

Use these eggs within 3-4 days to ensure they are fresh and safe to eat, and clean off any extra debris on the egg.

How To Preserve Eggs

Not everyone wants to preserve their eggs the same way, so below is a list of different ways to safely preserve eggs at home, which you can use to keep your eggs fresher for longer.

When choosing which method to use, think about the ingredients and tools you have available, and what type of preserved egg you won’t mind eating. There is no point pickling your eggs if you don’t like the taste of pickled food!

As eggs can spoil and even make you quite sick, make sure to follow the correct safety guides to avoid this and to ensure that you follow the safest possible way of preserving your eggs at home.

Preserving Eggs By Freezing

Preserving eggs by freezing is possibly one of the easiest ways to do so, and is the most accessible method to most people.

When freezing your eggs, there are different ways to do so, but the eggs do fare better when they are scrambled lightly before being frozen—so don’t expect to be able to make fried eggs later on.

Freezing Eggs In A Muffin Tray

If you are using a standard muffin tin, you should be able to use 1 egg per muffin well.

You can add the eggs in one by one if you want to keep track of the quantity, or you can crack all of the eggs into one bowl and pour in enough eggs into each well so that it is around ¾ way full.

1. Start by lightly spraying the muffin tray with non-stick oil.
2. Crack the eggs into a bowl and lightly scramble them (you can do this one at a time if you are wanting the freeze the eggs on their own)
3. Pour the egg into the wells of the muffin tray, filling them about ¾ of the way up.
4. Place the muffin tray into the freezer until the egg has frozen solid.
5. Pop the frozen egg cups out of the muffin tray, and place them in a plastic freezer bag.
6. Squeeze out as much air from the freezer bag as possible and seal tight. Double bag the eggs if you feel it is necessary.
7. Write down the date of freezing.

Freezing Eggs In An Ice Tray

Freezing eggs in an ice tray is pretty much the same thing as freezing eggs in a muffin tray, just on a smaller scale.

As there are so many different shapes and sizes of ice cube trays around, you will need to test out a few to see which measurements work out best.

Look for an ice cube tray that has molds that can hold either ½ an egg or 1 whole egg, as this makes measuring the eggs later on much easier. 

It helps writing the measurement on the freezer bag, so you know how many cubes equals 1 egg when you finally get to use the egg.

Follow the same steps as above with the muffin tray method, just using an ice cube tray instead.

When it is time to use the egg, just open the plastic freezer container and grab as many egg cubes as you want. 

Use the frozen eggs within 4 months of freezing to ensure the best quality!

Preserving Eggs By Hard Boiling

If you don’t need to keep your eggs preserved for too long, and only need a few days or a week of extra preserving for your eggs, you could consider hard boiling them.

Hard boiling eggs will only keep the eggs good for about 7 days, but it does help to extend the shelf life of eggs and is the easiest option if you are not wanting to go through the trouble of preserving your eggs another way.

You can boil a good amount of eggs at one time if you have a large enough pot, and this only takes an extra few minutes of your day to do. Once the eggs have boiled, they can be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days.

It is important to make sure that you hard boil the eggs so that the white and yolk are all cooked through properly.

Here are some ideas on what you can do with hard-boiled eggs:

• Eat the eggs as a snack during the day
• Make egg salad for sandwiches
• Chop up the egg and add it to salads
• Make deviled eggs for when guests are over

Preserving Eggs In Lime Water

Preserving eggs in lime water is possibly the best long-term preserving solution for eggs. Done this way, you can preserve whole eggs for up to a year or longer.

While you will be using pickling lime, you won’t actually be pickling the eggs.

The method just helps to preserve the eggs in the same state over an extended period of time, and once you remove the egg from the lime water, you can use it just as you would a fresh egg, with no added tastes or flavors.

Pickling lime is what is used to firm up vegetables before they are actually pickled; it does not actually pickle the vegetables on its own.

When used for eggs, it helps to firm up the eggshells, which closes the large pores and seals the eggs well for preserving.

Preserving eggs in lime water does take some work, and you will probably need to watch a few tutorials on how to do so, but here is a quick rundown on how it can be done:

1. Make a lime-water solution of around 1 ounce of lime powder to 1 quart of water.
2. Shake the container to mix the powder and the water. It should create a milky white liquid, and some of the powder might settle, but that is fine.
3. Pick out fresh eggs that are very clean and free from cracks or imperfections. The fresher the eggs the better.
4. Place the eggs into a large, sterilized jar. Pour the lime-water solution over the eggs, ensuring that all of the eggs are completely submerged and the jar is full.
5. Tightly cap the jar and label the jar with the date of preservation.
6. Store the jar in a cool, dry environment, such as a pantry cupboard or in the basement.

This should keep the eggs preserved for 1 year or longer. When it comes time to use the eggs, remove as many eggs from the jar as you need, using clean tongs or washing your hands before.

Rinse the egg under running water to remove the lime water from the surface.

Crack the egg and use as you would normally—the egg will taste just the same as it would fresh (as long as you do not get lime water into the egg), and you can even whip the egg white into stiff peaks!

Preserving Eggs In Salt

Eggs can be preserved in salt and grease, which will help them stay fresh for an extended period of time.

The process is fairly simple, but it can be tough to find space to keep the eggs in the salt if you do not have too much spare space in your home.

To preserve eggs in salt, you will need a foam cooler or similar container, large amounts of rock salt, shortening or lard, and your fresh eggs.

1. Pour a good amount of rock salt into the container, forming a fairly thick layer at the bottom.
2. Coat each egg with grease, either shortening or lard, making sure all parts of the egg are well coated.
3. Place the eggs into the salt, burying them down and ensuring they are completely covered with salt.
4. If you want to add more eggs in at a later stage, you can simply pour more salt into the container and repeat the process.
5. Keep the container in a dry environment.

Once the eggs have been preserved in salt and grease, they do change slightly. The yolk is usually quite hard and the egg white can be slightly runny. This is still fine to use and cook with, but does not make for a good scrambled egg!

Preserving Eggs In Water Glass

Preserving eggs in water glass, or water-glassing eggs, has been around for quite some time and uses liquid sodium silicate to keep eggs fresh past their “best by” date. 

While it works to keep eggs in their original state, it is worth noting that water glass is also used as a sealer for concrete floors, as a cleaning product, and can be used at full strength as an adhesive.

The popularity of water-glassing eggs has decreased as there are concerns that the chemicals seep through the pores of the eggshell, and when you finally eat the egg, there are traces of liquid sodium silicate in the actual egg.

Stored in an unopened bucket, water glass eggs can last up to 3 years, and in an opened bucket, water glass eggs can last up to 18 months.

Here is how to preserve eggs in water glass:

1. Mix 11 parts of water to 1 part of water glass in a safe container, combining well.
2. Pick out fresh and clean eggs. Make sure that these eggs have been wiped clean, but not washed.
3. Place the eggs into the water glass solution, leaving at least 2-inches of liquid above the eggs.
4. Seal the container and leave to sit.

When you are ready, remove however many eggs you may need from the water glass solution, and wash the eggs well to remove any of the coatings on the surface before use.

So, What Is The Best Way To Preserve Eggs?

The best way to preserve eggs depends on how long you want to preserve your eggs for!

If you only need the eggs preserved for a few months, and do not want to go through too much hassle preserving them, it is best to scramble the eggs slightly and freeze them in an ice cube tray or muffin tin.

After that, then you can transfer the portions into a sealable plastic freezer bag. Done this way, eggs can be kept in the freezer for up to 4 months.

If you are looking for longer-term storage, you could preserve the eggs in lime water. This is a safe way to preserve eggs and can help to keep the eggs in a fresh state for over 1 year.

You just need some lime pickle, a large clean jar, and some fresh eggs! The lime water will also not add any extra flavors to the eggs if the eggs are washed well before use.

Related Questions

Now that we’ve gone over the absolute best ways to preserve eggs, let’s take a look at a few related questions on the subject!

Does coating eggs in oil preserve them?

There is the option of coating eggs in mineral oil, as this replicates the bloom layer that eggs are naturally laid with.

This protective layer is washed off eggs before they are sold in-store, which greatly reduces their shelf life, but by applying some mineral oil to the egg, you can keep them fresher for longer.

Can you freeze a raw egg in its shell?

It is not advised to freeze a raw egg in its shell, as the liquid contents inside the shell will expand when frozen, and then likely cause the shell to crack. This could cause quite a mess in your freezer. 

How long can I keep unwashed eggs for?

Unwashed eggs can be kept at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. If you are not planning on eating them before this, you should place them in the refrigerator.

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