1,526 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

How to beat egg whites

Name: How to beat egg whites
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 4 eggs whites
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 4 egg whites; ½ teaspoon lemon juice

Beat egg whites is very common in cooking and pastry, here are some tips to get there easily.

570 K 3.5/5 (109 reviews)

5 min.

Easy

0.40 €

4 eggs whites

2 Ingredients

Last modified on: February 21^th 2011

For 4 eggs whites, you will need:

1 4 egg whites
2 ½ teaspoon lemon juice (optional)
Total weight: 120 grams

Times for this recipe

Preparation: 5 min.

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - ⌛ 5 min.

Whisk at high speed.

You can add a teaspoon of lemon juice before you start beating to prevent them from "graining" (forming small grains), which can happen with very fresh egg whites.

If the egg whites are to be sweetened (for meringues, for example), add 2 tablespoons of the sugar halfway through the whipping, to support them and help them rise.

Stage 2

Beating egg whites incorporates air, which creates a foam made up of ever smaller bubbles of air and drops of white (albumen + water), see the microscope photo on right.

This fact give us some rules for egg whites:

Fresh egg whites give better results that old ones, because they contain more water.
If you add water or a liquid which contains some (fruit juice, ...) to egg whites to be beaten, you will have a greater volume of foam.
Fat is the enemy when beating egg whites, because it obstructs or prevents the formation of foam, so it's necessary to be sure that the egg whites contain no traces of yolk (not a drop), and that the container that you're going to use is completely clean (be particularly careful with plastic bowls).

Remarks

Contrary to popular belief, adding a pinch of salt to the egg whites before beating them doesn't help.

Keeping: 1 hour bfore use.

Source: Home made.

Nutritional information

	Proteins (gr)	Carbohydrates (gr)	Fats (gr)	Energy value (in k-calories)	Energy value (in k-joules)
Whole recipe	6 RDI=2 %	0	0	30 RDI=1 %	110 RDI: 1 %
Per 100 g	5 RDI=2 %	0	0	20 RDI=1 %	90 RDI: 1 %
Per egg whites	1 RDI=1 %	0	0	6 RDI=0 %	30 RDI: 0 %

Possible allergens in this recipe: egg

How much will it cost?

For 4 eggs whites : 0.35 €
Per egg whites : 0.10 €

Change currency:

Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

This recipe uses (among others)

Egg white

Like these other recipes: Butter cream, Royal icing, Pistachio powder or paste, Chocolate madeleines, Almond macaroon cake, ... See them all 52

Other recipes you may also like

How to prepare spinach

For most people (and me most of all), spinach brings back bad memories of canteens... But, well prepared, it's a fine and delicate vegetable which goes remarkably well with scrambled eggs, fish, and many another things. Here are two ways of preparing it.

June 5^th 20153.41 M3.5 1 hour 9 min.

Hollandaise sauce

This sauce is quite similar to Béarnaise sauce, but with a light lemon flavour. It can be used hot, warm or cold on several things: vegetables, fish, eggs... Not easy to get right, like all "emulsified warm sauces" (Béarnaise, Hollandaise, etc.), but you will find all the tips you need here.

July 25^th 2019254 K 14.7 25 min.

Chestnut cake

This delightful cake is doubly chestnutty: it contains chestnut flour, and sweet chestnut purée.

August 28^th 2025352 K5 1 hour 15 min.

Nanou's chocolate cake

A moist melting cake, very very chocolaty...

June 22^th 2013295 K4.6 1 hour 45 min.

Passion fruit jellies

Usually to make fruit jellies or (fruit "paste"), it's like jam but you need to cook fruit pulp and sugar much longer. Unfortunately, this long cooking is bad for both vitamins and flavour. In this recipe we use a special jam gelling agent, to reduce cooking time as much as possible .

July 4^th 2018346 K4 2 hours 30 min.

News list of cooking-ez.com

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.