Learn how to make freeze dried eggs for short and long-term storage. This is the best way to preserve eggs for long periods of time and is a great way to stock up your emergency food supply.
Eggs are one of those things that are a little harder to preserve. You can freeze eggs for a few months, water glass them up to 18 months, or make homemade sourdough pasta which lasts about a year. But the only way to store them long term is to freeze dry them.
Freeze-drying eggs makes having fresh eggs a possibility in your long-term food storage, and you can use them in all of your favorite recipes. Add them into baked goods like sourdough chocolate chip cookies, lemon poppy seed muffins, and sourdough Bundt cake. You can even whip them up into indulgent cottage cheese scrambled eggs.
Why You’ll Love Freeze Dried Eggs
Simple food preservation – Freeze drying food makes food preservation super simple, it can last up to 20 years, and it’s one of the best ways to keep the nutritional value of the food.
Peace of mind – Having shelf-stable food like dry egg powder can give you great peace of mind knowing that you have healthy whole food ingredients in your emergency preparedness stash.
Easy to use – Freeze dried eggs are an extremely versatile option to have on hand, and are simple to incorporate into everyday cooking.
Tools You May Need
- Freeze dryer – I have the medium Harvest Right Freeze Dryer
- Blender
How to Freeze Dry Eggs
Step 1: Push start on the freeze dryer. It will give you the prompt to allow the vacuum chamber to cool for 15 minutes. Also, make sure the valve is closed at the bottom. Crack eggs and place into a blender. Blend until smooth. This can also be done with a large bowl and a whisk. I like to make a dozen eggs at a time.
Step 2: Pour into the freeze dryer trays and cover. The pans will fit a dozen eggs per pan. Place into the freezer and freeze until solid. You can skip this step and go straight into the freeze dryer, but this saves about 8-10 hours in the freeze dryer and wastes less electricity.
Step 3: Add the trays into the freeze dryer. Close the door, and seal. Sit and wait for the freeze dryer to work its magic. This takes anywhere from 16-24 hours, depending on the amount of eggs you use per tray. Once the freeze dryer turns off, check the eggs. If they still feel wet, place them back into the freeze dryer and do the process again. Hit the “more time” button.
Step 4: Take the eggs out of the trays and transfer them into glass jars (for shorter term storage) or into mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long term storage (up to 20 years).
How To Make Powdered Eggs
Step 1: To make powdered eggs, transfer the freeze dried eggs into a high speed blender. Make sure the blender doesn’t have any moisture in it or else the eggs will absorb it and they can go bad.
Step 2: Blend until they turn into a powder.
Step 3: Store in a glass jar for short term storage or a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber for long term storage.
How To Use Freeze Dried Eggs
One egg equals 2 tablespoons of freeze dried eggs mixed with 2 tablespoons of water. Freeze-dried egg powder can be used in any baking recipe. You can also rehydrate the egg powder and use it to make scrambled eggs.
Tips
- Blend the eggs before placing them into the trays. This is required due to the fat content.
- Freeze the trays with the eggs in them before placing them into the freeze dryer. This makes the process go much faster and wastes less electricity.
- After the freeze dried eggs are done processing in the freeze dryer, transfer them right away. If you let them sit out very long, they may start absorbing the liquid in the atmosphere around them.
- For easy clean up, you can line the trays with parchment paper.
- If you have older eggs that you aren’t sure of the date that they were laid, you can do the float test to make sure they are still good. Fill a bowl of water and add eggs. If the eggs float they are bad.
Recipe FAQs
Freeze dried eggs will last anywhere from 10-25 years when prepared and stored properly in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.
For shorter term storage they will last 1-2 years in mason jars with oxygen absorbers or 6-12 months without the absorbers.
Make sure your freeze dried eggs are stored in a cool, dry place and use them within 6-12 months once they have been opened.
Yes. Raw eggs or cooked eggs can be freeze dried. I prefer to blend my raw eggs first, then place them in the freeze drying trays. I then stick them in the freezer until frozen, and place them in the freeze dryer.
Yes! Almost all of the nutrients remain in eggs that have been freeze dried. Freeze drying is one of the healthiest food preservation methods because it maintains the majority of the nutrients.
More Egg Recipes from the Farmhouse
- Easy Mini Quiche Recipe
- Best Deviled Eggs Recipe
- Perfect Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs
- Sourdough Breakfast Strata
- Sourdough Dutch Baby Pancake
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you could come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone.
Freeze Dried Eggs
Equipment
- 1 Blender
Ingredients
- Eggs, up to 48 eggs with medium sized freeze dryers
Instructions
- Push start of the freeze dryer. It will give you the prompt to allow the vacuum chamber to cool for 15 minutes. Also, make sure the valve is closed at the bottom.
- Crack eggs and place into a blender. Blend until smooth. This can also be done with a large bowl and a whisk. I like to blend a dozen eggs at a time.
- Pour into the freeze dryer pans. The pans will fit a dozen eggs per pan.
- Place into the freezer and freeze until solid. You can skip this step and go straight into the freeze dryer, but this takes less time and wastes less electricity.
- Add the trays into the freeze dryer. Close the door, and seal
- Sit and wait for the freeze dryer to work its magic.
- This takes anywhere from 16-24 hours, depending on the amount of eggs you use per tray.
- Once the freeze dryer turns off, check the eggs. If they still feel wet, place them back into the freeze dryer and do the process again. Hit the "more time" button.
- Take the eggs out of the trays and transfer them into glass jars (for shorter term storage) or into mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long term (up to 20 years) storage.
Notes
- Blend the eggs before placing them into the trays. This is due to the fat content.
- Freeze the trays with the eggs in them before placing them into the freeze dryer. This makes the process go much faster and waste less electricity.
- After the freeze dried eggs are done processing in the freeze dryer, transfer them right away. If you let them sit out very long, they may start absorbing the liquid in the atmosphere around them.
- For easy clean up, you can line the trays with parchment paper.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
For short-term storage of the eggs, do you need to remove the oxygen every time you open the jar and use the contents? If not, approximately how long will the freeze dried eggs last in a mason jar for regular use?
6 months to a year!
Do you add the egg powder and water separately in the recipe or do you reconstitute it first? I’ve seen recipes that say to reconstitute it first but didn’t know if that is necessary.
I like to reconstitute it first.
Just learning to do this so I’m confused about the order of the instructions. If the eggs need to be pre-frozen (assuming in a regular freezer not the freeze dryer) then shouldn’t steps 2-4 occur before step 1? Wouldn’t it take at least an hour or more to pre-freeze the eggs before you start the freeze dryer?
I blend the eggs again, in a dry blender of course, after freeze drying. It makes them easier to measure out and reconstitute imho.
You say the jars are for short term storage and the mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long term storage. Why not use the jar with oxygen absorbers and vacuum seal the jars? I have bay leaves that I vacuum sealed in jars 12 years ago, and when I opened them, they smelled fresher than any store bought bay leaves! The leaves were fresh from a co-op.
Another way you may already use up eggs, especially with your large family, is making “egg bites” and freezing them. They reheat well and make great snacks or quick breakfast.
Great idea!
What temperature did you use to FD the frozen trays of eggs? And how much extra dry time did you add?
Usually 24-40 hours if they are frozen, at the same temperature.
Great blog post! I’ve been looking into freeze-drying my eggs for a while now, and this post has given me theTools and information I need to get started. I’m excited to try this method and see how well it works for preserving my homegrown eggs. Thanks for sharing!
If you do not use all of the egg powder after opening your jar, how do you preserve the remaining powder so that it stays fresh?
Store it in an air tight jar with a moisture absorbing packet.
if you have a food saver you can just pull all the air out with that machine. I use it for so much.
Do you do the same with sour cream?
I’ve never tried to freeze dry sour cream before.