Sydney Acres
Songster
I have been doing that for years now, and it works great. I originally found a recipe in an old farming book. I'm majorly behind this year, as I have about 30 dozen chicken eggs and 15 dozen turkey eggs waiting to go into the freezer right now. Just bought a new box of one quart, Ziplock brand freezer bags, which I think work the best..
If storing egg whites alone, they don't need a stabilizer. If storing yolks alone, or whole eggs, they need a stabilizer or they become hard and pasty when thawing. To stabilize, I use 1 teaspoon honey per cup of yolks (about 12 yolks/cup) or per cup of whole eggs (about 5 average chicken eggs per cup). The yolks must be broken and the honey stirred in well with a fork. They don't have to be thoroughly whipped, as that adds too much air, which increases freezer damage to food. You can also strain the whole eggs through a strainer with large holes and then gently stir, which adds no air at all. I haven't tried this last method, as I've been happy with my current method of stirring with a fork, which adds a little air but not too much. It is easiest if the eggs are room temperature, as honey hardens when it's mixed into cold things, and becomes harder to mix. I have read that you can also use the same volume of either sugar or salt instead of honey and get the same results, but I have not tried that as I have my own bee hives. I would not recommend multiplying out the recipe and mixing large batches, especially if using honey, as honey does not mix thoroughly, and you might end up with some really sweet portions, and some really gummy portions.
After I mix up a cup, I put it in a one quart ziplock freezer bag. remove all the air from the bag, and lay the bag flat on a cookie sheet. After the cookie sheet is covered, I put it in the freezer. Do not stack multiple layers. The purpose of the single, flat, thin bags on the cookie sheet is that the eggs will freeze very fast. That minimizes freezer damage, so the eggs taste better. They also freeze in a very flat, equal shape, which makes storage easier. After the bags are frozen solid, I remove them and stand them upright in a box that is the perfect height and width, kind of like 4X6" cards in an old fashioned recipe box. That stores the eggs very efficiently, taking up a minimum of space in the freezer, and allows you to easily "file" them with the oldest in front and the newest in back for appropriate rotation of food. Different sources say that eggs can be stored this way for either 6 months or 1 year, but it may be longer. I use them for omelets and cooking, where large numbers of eggs are required. I put the frozen bag in a bowl of cool water for 20 minutes to thaw, then cut the corner off the plastic bag and squeeze the contents into a bowl. Easy, and no mess.
You can also freeze the whole, stabilized, well mixed eggs in an ice cube tray. Spray the tray with Pam first to make the cubes slide out easily. After they're frozen solid, put the cubes in a plastic bag and remove as much air as possible. Each average sized cube equals approximately one egg, so that can be very handy for cooking when you don't need a large number of eggs.
One important detail -- be sure to label the bag with what type of stabilizer you use, as the extra honey, salt, or sugar could significant affect the flavor of your food. I haven't tried the salt option yet, but the honey option works great for omelets -- not at all overly sweet or weird tasting.
