1,529 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...

Preserving egg yolks

If you're using only the egg whites in a recipe (such as meringues ), you'll need to store the yolks until you're ready to use them again.
There's nothing very complicated about this in principle - all you have to do is chill them, but there are a few pitfalls to be avoided in practice.

7,803 5/5 (35 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Yolk Egg Storage Fridge Cold

Last modified on: June 18^th 2024

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Preserving egg yolks

Intact yolks if possible

Here's something to keep in mind: whole, or intact, yolks keep much better than if they're punctured, or liquid.
This is because the thin film that forms them, the membrane, also protects them from the outside, and prevents them from drying out.
So, as long as possible, keep them in their intact form, even if in your next recipe you'll have to crack them to incorporate them. It's best to do this at the last minute.

The enemy of yolks: dryness

The simplest and most natural way to chill yolks is to put them in a ramekin (or other small container), and place it in the fridge.

jaunes d'oeufs récipient frigo

But there are two small errors here: yolks fear dryness, and as the membrane is very fragile and thin, it will quickly dry out and stick, especially if left in the open air, and even more so if left in the cold, which tends to dry everything out.

Well-preserved yolks

So how do you keep your yolks in good condition?
You just need to do 2 things:

1) Put 1 teaspoon of neutral oil or even water in the bottom of the container before the yolks, then pour in the yolks.

jaunes d’œufs huilés pour le frigo

This will prevent them from drying out on contact with the container and sticking to the bottom.

2) Wrap the container with the yolks at all costs, or use a container with a lid, to isolate them from the air as much as possible.

Don't worry either, if you get one or more yolks punctured, it's no big deal, just a little less easy to handle, as the liquid yolks are very thick and sticky, and you'll have a bit of trouble emptying the container completely without loss (a maryse will be almost indispensable).

jaunes d'oeufs crevés et intacts

To sum up: try to keep your yolks intact, in a filmed or closed container, over a teaspoon of oil or water to prevent them from sticking.

Lasts posts

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20251,6125

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20256,9643

The grease spray

As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26^th 20256,4115

Cake moulds

When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25^th 20256,5165

Thinning out herbs

If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8^th 20254,6345

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 201766 K 24.2

Steam for baking bread

What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16^th 2021146 K4.5

What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?

This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .
February 7^th 2017133 K 14.1

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021283 K 23.8

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 202136 K4.5