How to Freeze Eggs for Cooking

You Can Save Whole Eggs, Yolks, or Just the Egg Whites

Separate eggs

The Spruce Eats / Ulyana Verbytska

Eggs will last for quite a while in your refrigerator—up to five weeks or even longer if they were particularly fresh when you purchased them. However, if you're stuck with more eggs than you can use in the next month or more, freezing them is a great option.

You can freeze whole eggs, yolks, or whites. Depending on your needs, you may decide to separate your eggs to freeze them: This gives you more flexibility, and you can always remix the egg parts once you've defrosted them if your recipe calls for whole eggs rather than separate parts.

How to Freeze Whole Eggs

Separate eggs
The Spruce / Julia Hartbeck

Freezing whole eggs is simple. You'll need a bowl, ice cube trays, a beater, and, of course, your eggs. Then follow these simple directions to freeze your eggs:

  1. Crack open the shells and drop your eggs into a bowl.
  2. Gently beat the whites and the yolks until they're just barely mixed. Take care not to introduce more than a little air into the mixture.
  3. Pour the beaten egg mixture into the ice cube tray. This allows you to freeze servings that are approximately half egg-sized.
  4. Place the ice cube tray or trays in the freezer until the eggs are frozen. Once the egg "cubes" are hard, remove them from the tray and store them in a ziplock plastic bag.

Unfortunately, you can't freeze eggs in the shell, and you can't freeze them with their yolks intact. Therefore, you can't use your frozen eggs to make breakfast with eggs sunny-side up. However, you can use them for virtually any other recipe, including omelets and scrambled eggs. (We consider this a major win!)

How to Freeze Separated Eggs

Separate eggs
The Spruce Eats / Teena Agnel

Freezing Egg Yolks

Freezing egg yolks is a little trickier since egg yolks by themselves have a tendency to thicken. You can use sugar or salt to prevent this problem.

  1. Crack open the shells and separate the yolks from the eggs. Drop your yolks into a bowl.
  2. Gently beat the yolks until they're liquid.
  3. If your yolks will be used in savory dishes, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt for every cup of yolks.
  4. If you're planning to use the eggs for dessert recipes, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar for every cup of yolks.
  5. Freeze the yokes in an ice cube tray, just as you did with whole eggs.

One cube is the equivalent of two egg yolks.

Freezing Egg Whites

Freezing egg whites, on the other hand, is even simpler: Once your eggs are separated, simply pour the whites into an ice cube tray.

One cube is the equivalent of one egg white.

Using Frozen Eggs

Eggs frozen in this way will keep in your freezer for a year. When you have a recipe that calls for eggs, simply remove the correct number of egg cubes from your freezer storage, using the guidelines described previously and allow them to defrost in your refrigerator for a day before using them.