1,504 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

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.

8,784 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

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 20253035

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 20252,105 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 20251,9495

The thermometer is your friend

There are many recipes or foods that require a (very) precise cooking temperature: foie gras, sugar for caramel, meats and fish, and not forgetting pastries. For these few examples, getting the cooking temperature wrong can spoil the whole recipe or dish: undercooked, it's no good or misses the...
April 10^th 20252,2815

Travel cakes

You may have come across the term "travel cakes" ("gateaux de voyage" in french) for certain pastries, so let's take a look at what they're all about.
January 27^th 20253,747

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Candied fruits: don't get ripped off

Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.
June 21^th 201762 K 24.2

Should I believe my oven?

Can you really trust your oven? This is an important question as we are always tempted to take the temperature indicated as gospel truth and, unfortunately, this is rarely very precise. .
July 4^th 201130 K4.6

The different cooking modes

In cooking, cooking means bringing food into contact with a source of heat, to transform it: improving its taste, and sometimes its texture. This contact with the heat source can be achieved in a number of ways: these are the cooking methods, and let's take a look at the main ones.
July 24^th 20246,0654.7

Foie gras service

For the upcoming christmas meals you too may be sacrificing to the tradition of foie gras? If so, I suggest you take a look at everything that revolves around serving foie gras: how to serve it, and what to eat and drink with it.
December 23^th 201713 K4.9

85 grams of eggs?

Some time ago, I already spoke to you about the difference between baking and pastry-making, I emphasized, among other things, the precision of pastry-making which requires grams, cm, degrees and minutes. That's why, on the one hand, you have baking and cooking, where a certain tolerance is...
November 26^th 201851 K4.6