Egg Preservation

How we Save our Summer Eggs for Winter

 

Despite the cold, wet, dreary days, we KNOW that spring is coming. Because ~ look!

Eggs, eggs, and more eggs!

The Winter Egg Famine

As the daylight hours decrease in late fall, the number of eggs that hens lay will also naturally decrease… quite dramatically. Our 20+ laying hens supply us with approximately a bazillion eggs in the summer months. By late November, we’re looking at about two per day. By January, possibly one egg every few days.

This is the age- old homestead dilemma. How many laying hens do we really need to supply fresh eggs for our family? Well, in August we’d need about five. In mid-winter, more like a hundred. So what’s a girl to do?

This year we survived the winter egg famine without having to purchase ANY eggs for our famly of 8! That’s a win for sure!

Once you get accustomed to collecting your own fresh eggs everyday it can be really painful to have to buy them, not to mention expensive!

This year we used a combination of two strategies to preserve our summer abundance so that it would last us through the winter.

Egg Preservation Strategy #1 ~ Freezing Eggs for Baking

As soon as we had a consistent supply of extra eggs in late spring, we made the decision to freeze them instead of selling them. We finally realized the stupidity of selling our organic, non-soy, pastured eggs for $3.50/dozen all through the summer, only to turn around and purchase lower quality eggs for just as much or more all through the winter.

So now, instead of selling our abundance in the summer, we take two dozen eggs per week and freeze them for winter use.

Because, YES! It’s true!

You really can freeze eggs.

Is there a catch?

Yes..

These frozen eggs will really only be good for use in baking. We have a large family, so we freeze them by the dozen and use the entire bag for things like a double batch of baked oatmeal or peanut butter breakfast cookies. If you’d rather, of course, you can freeze them in smaller amounts, whatever will be most convenient for your winter baking. Just don’t plan on cooking them up for your Saturday scramble or omelettes… unless you enjoy chewing rubbery egg bits.

Directions ~

So easy!

• Wash Eggs thoroughly in warm water.
• Whisk the desired number of eggs together in a bowl.
• Add approx 1/2 teaspoon salt per cup of eggs. (I just add 1/2 teaspoon per dozen and it has worked out just fine.)

 

• Stir it together and carefully pour into a Ziploc bag or other freezer storage container. (One year I poured them into ice cube trays, but found that to be way too much fuss and clean up.)
• Make sure to label how many eggs and how much salt is in each bag.
• Lay the bag flat to freeze.

• Once frozen, we store ours upright in a box to keep things tidy in the freezer.

• Thaw the bag COMPLETELY before adding to your recipe.
• Add those eggs right into your recipe as usual- just don’t forget to adjust for the salt! And yes, the salt really is necessary. I’ve tried it without and the result is less than ideal. ~ Think rubbery egg bits distributed all throughout your baked oatmeal.

Egg Preservation Strategy #2 ~ Stockpiling Extra Fall Eggs in the Garage Fridge

Now, as I said, our frozen egg supply keeps us in baked goods through the winter, but frozen eggs just aren’t so tasty for hard-boiling or frying up in a skillet.

Now, we knew we could successfully freeze eggs with salt – that’s a thing, but as for simply stockpiling a fridge-full of eggs and hoping that they last through the winter… well hey, we had extra eggs anyway and the garage fridge doesn’t get much use in the winter. Why not give it a shot?

The only real strategy involved here is that we were very careful to add new eggs to the bottom shelf of the fridge and take the oldest eggs from the top. We would continue in this way until the quality of the oldest eggs became less desirable (not dangerous! … just not as appealing.) Then we’d throw out a dozen or two of the oldest eggs until we got to some that were still good quality. Funny thing was, this wasn’t even necessary until we got to late February. This crazy plan actually worked out just fine.

Important Tips ~

• Do not pre-wash your eggs! I know they’re not pretty, but they will last a lot longer if you leave the bloom (protective coating) in tact. Feel free to brush off excess dirt, but DON’T WASH THEM!
• Make sure that the eggs you plan to store for winter go straight into the fridge. Don’t let them sit out for too long. It’s generally fine not to refrigerate your fresh eggs, but if you are planning to store them long term, get them in the fridge as soon as possible.
• Before adding a stored egg to the pan, or a recipe, crack it into a bowl first to make sure it’s still good. I’m not too fussy about this. To me, if it smells fine and the color is normal, we use it. – We have a lot of people to feed around here after all! But I did get one or two that had just started to turn and I was glad that I hadn’t cracked them right into the pan!
• These stored eggs cook up just fine either scrambled or hard-boiled, but they do not work well if you like what we call “dippy eggs” … surely there is a proper name for this. Over-easy? I have no idea. The point is, old yolks will break every. single. time. If that bothers you, you’ll just have to do what I do and hide the one or two fresh eggs that continue to trail in through the winter and keep them for yourself.

There are actually a few other methods for preserving eggs, which we have not been brave enough to try. Have you ever buried your eggs in salt, pickled them, or used any other storing methods? Please share about it in the comments if you have.

And of course, if you give your chickens artificial light you may be able to avoid the winter egg famine all together, but we like to give our hens a break. Besides, we don’t have electricity out at the barn anyway. And with these strategies we were able to make it through the winter… not that I’m not SUPER excited for fresh spring eggs!!

Much love,