1,505 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Egg whites management

Quite often, in cooking or pastry-making, we have recipes that use only egg yolks: gâteau breton (brittany butter cake), confectioner's custard, spaghetti carbonara, etc. And so, inevitably, we end up with unused egg whites that will have to be used elsewhere, in another recipe, and certainly later, for meringues, macaroons, Pavlova, etc.

And so, inevitably, we end up with unused egg whites that we will have to use elsewhere, in another recipe, and most certainly later, for perhaps meringues, macarons, a pavlova, a frozen nougat, and many others.

8,842 4.9/5 (14 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Egg white Use Conservation Usage

Last modified on: June 12^th 2021

For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend

Egg whites management

Is this a problem?

No, not so much, because egg whites keep for a long time, you can very well put them in a bowl or a container, which you film and keep in the fridge.
As egg whites are only water and proteins, they keep very well, they don't go mouldy and they keep all their qualities (well, they have almost no taste anyway).
Better still, for certain recipes such as macaroons, you will succeed more easily if you use "old" whites, the pastry chefs say "dry whites", which contain less water than fresh whites.

egg whites bowls

At home, for example, I have, perhaps like you, a whites bowl in which I take or add whites as I produce or consume them. It is just filmed to protect them from the air, and the whites keep in it for 3 weeks easily.

And for longer?

If you are worried about keeping them in the fridge for a long time, you can also freeze them very well.
But it would be a mistake to freeze 6 whites at once for example, you will be forced to defrost all 6 at once as well, which is not very flexible.

That's the trick, you have to freeze them individually by pouring them 1 by 1 into a silicone mould or ice cube tray:

silicon mould ice cube tray

The shape doesn't matter, it just needs to fit a whole white (about 50-60g).
If you have several whites in a bowl, because of their viscous aspect, they will not be easy to pour individually into the moulds.
So to make it easier you can give them a few whacks with a whisk, or even a quick blast with a mixer (2 or 3 seconds), this will make them more liquid and easier to pour/mould.

Then put in the freezer overnight to set, unmould into a freezer bag, and scoop in as you need to.

In summary: Egg whites keep well in the fridge, but they also freeze well, and in this case it's best to freeze each white individually so you can then scoop out just what you need.

Lasts posts

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20255825

Always secure your cutting board

When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1^st 20257965

Cherry clafoutis, with or without pits?

When it comes to cherry clafoutis recipes, there's often a camp of those who argue that you absolutely have to leave the stones in because it tastes better, and the other camp (myself included) who prefer cherries without stones, which makes a much more pleasant clafoutis to eat. But is it true...
June 29^th 20257875

Should potatoes be washed twice?

Let's say you have to make a recipe that includes potatoes, let's say sliced, you'll most likely proceed as follows: Peel the potatoes, wash them, slice them, wash them again, pat them dry and add them to your recipe. But there's a "but": depending on the recipe, the second washing may be a bad...
May 19^th 20252,421 15

Grilled bacon is much better in the oven

Some recipes call for thin slices of bacon to be cooked and added to the recipe, or to prepare one of those delicious breakfasts known as "à l'Anglaise".
April 25^th 20252,1295

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

The 3 kinds of meringue

Meringue – what could be simpler? Just beaten egg whites with sugar added. This makes a fairly stiff mixture which can then be cooked in a cool oven to create those lovely, light confections. But in the world of professional patisserie, meringue comes in three different kinds. Even if the...
June 14^th 201361 K4.5

The "caves" in the bakery and pastry shop

Maybe you've already done this? You want to make a brioche or a cake with fruit inside, you decide to proceed with your usual recipe, but also to add in the dough pieces of fresh and raw fruit, or whole fruit, for example pieces of apples or pears, good idea. When you bake it, everything seems to...
March 27^th 20219,1604.9

The so-called "nervous" meats

You've probably heard this before, we're talking about "nervous" meat, or meat with nerves, to describe what is indicated by the blue arrow on the left. This is a piece of beef, and what we call a nerve is not a nerve, it is in fact collagen (chemists sometimes call it a "collagen sink"), a...
April 16^th 202131 K4.5

Don't throw away your pizza crusts

You've probably already noticed that at the end of a pizza meal, at least half of the participants have left the crusts in the boxes or on the plates that many don't eat. Naturally, one would tend to put them "to the birds", or worse, to throw them away, and it's a shame because they are in fact...
April 22^th 20237,1174.9

Half milk, half cream

In a multitude of recipes, savoury or sweet, milk is used as the main ingredient, or at least as the main liquid ingredient. Milk is used instead of water, for example, because milk contains a proportion of fat, which adds roundness and softness to the recipe. This mellowness is very pleasant on...
February 27^th 20246,8785