Learn How to Dehydrate Eggs Step by Step
I’m sure there are many of us looking for new ways to save money on groceries now in preparation for the continued inflation that plagues our country; learning how to dehydrate eggs can be one method of preserving eggs at today’s cost instead of paying the inflationary cost later.
I’m sure many of you remember last year, in 2023, the crazy high price for a dozen of sad eggs. I refer to sad eggs as the absolute cheapest in price, poorest in quality, and worst treatment of hens. These would be caged birds fed only grain with no enjoyable life. It is sad. I remember that these sad eggs could be bought for $0.49 a dozen at Aldi not too many years ago and even within the past 4 years, they were $1.00 a dozen. However in 2023, these sad eggs varied in price across the country. I saw them locally for $5.62/dozen. Absolutely crazy. I also read where “better eggs” were being sold for $18/dozen. Remember the good ol days when eggs were one of the cheapest foods we could eat? Remember when they were so cheap, we’d feed one mixed in with our dog or cat’s food or we’d beat the egg whites up and use as a face mask? I could go on and on, but you get the point.
Before we continue and get to the step-by-step directions on how to dehydrate eggs, here is an article on another way to preserve eggs; it’s called water glassing; in case that’s something you’d be interested in. By the way, I still water glass eggs too; and I don’t plan to ever quit.
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 1:
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 1: Decide how many eggs you need. Please note that each dehydrator may be different sizes and each egg can be different sizes; both of which can affect the quantity of eggs you can get on each dehydrating sheet versus another person. I have the Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator and the silicone mats with the lipped edge, and each tray can hold 8 of our backyard laid eggs.
Once you decide how many eggs you wish to dehydrate, crack them into a large bowl and whisk well. I use an immersion blender, but you could use a fork or whisk or blender. Just be sure that you thoroughly blend the yolk and egg white together. Frothiness does not matter, but I personally feel that thorough incorporation does.
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 2:
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 2: Once you have your eggs thoroughly blended there is no need to add any seasoning or water or milk, place your walled or lipped dehydrator solid mats on your dehydrator trays (if you have a sheet that sits on the frame of your tray, be sure to use that for added support. See my white one in the picture above) and slide each tray IN the dehydrator; slide about halfway in. Support the tray with one hand and SLOWLY pour the blended eggs in the tray with the other hand. Start pouring in the middle of the tray and with your support hand, gently lift the tray, if necessary, to help evenly disperse the eggs.
We want the eggs to be evenly distributed throughout the tray. This helps them to dry evenly and faster.
Technically I could get about 9 eggs on each of my trays, but it would take longer to dry, and I would run the risk of making a mess as the tray would be quite full.
Once you gently slide the dehydrating sheets into the dehydrator, shut the door, and turn the dehydrator on between a temperature of 125-135 degrees Fahrenheit and let it dry for a minimum of 10 hours. Anywhere between that temperature is just fine. The closer you go to 140 degrees, the more likely you are to actually cook your eggs. By keeping the temp lower, we are able to keep our eggs in the raw state, which allows us to use them in more ways later on. Depending on the quality and design of your dehydrator, they may need only 10 hours or they may need 18 hours, just be sure to watch them.
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 3:
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 3: After about 12-15 hours, my eggs are fully dehydrated. You can see in the previous two photos how they naturally start to crack on their own and notice the oily sheen to the egg. This is simply the fats in the eggs; it’s perfectly normal and is just fine.
Once the eggs are fully dry and crumble in my fingers; I place them a blender cup and pulse until they are powdered. Then, as an added security, I go ahead and place them back on the dehydrating sheet and dry for another hour or two. I want to be more certain they are completely dry.
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 4:
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 4: Once your eggs are fully powdered and dried, let them sit for a few hours to allow them to come to room temperature. This helps to remove any excess moisture due from the heat of dehydrating. I like to place a fine strainer over a funnel and place the funnel over a glass mason jar, pictured is a quart jar. I use a spoon to stir the egg powder around so I can filter out the bigger pieces of egg, which allows the smaller and finer particles to pass through the strainer and into the jar. This step is not necessary, but I personally like the idea of my egg powder being completely uniform in size. Any larger pieces that didn’t fit through the strainer, I place back in the blender cup and pulse until a powder.
You want to choose the right sized jar. The right size would be the jar that will have the least amount of empty headspace. The last thing I do before vacuum sealing my jar, is I place a piece of coffee filter on top of the powdered eggs. The coffee filter helps to keep the powdered eggs down so it’s not being pulled up by the vacuum sealer to where it gets in between the jar mouth and lid, which would prevent a good seal.
Vacuuming sealing your jars is not absolutely necessary, but just understand that the longer you can keep oxygen and moisture out of and away from your powdered eggs, the longer they will last.
Once you have the powdered eggs in the jars whether or not you’re going to vacuum seal them; leave them out for a couple days where you’ll remember to check them. If you notice any moisture building up inside the jar or the powder sticking together or to the inside of the jar, the eggs are not fully dried; dry them again. This time is also good for checking that your vacuum sealed lid was successful.
Questions and Answers
Q: What about Salmonella?
A: Salmonella is a food borne illness caused by a harmful bacteria. Raw or uncooked eggs may contain salmonella. Yes, these eggs that we just dehydrated are still in their raw form and they may contain salmonella, but here’s the thing. We are NOT going to eat these eggs, these powdered eggs, in their current form. We’re NOT going to sprinkle these powdered eggs in our cereal or in our smoothies and consume. No way. We’re going to be cooking these powdered eggs, which will kill the salmonella, if fully cooked. In that sense, there’s not really a difference between using a fresh raw egg that may contain salmonella and using a dehydrated powdered egg that may contain salmonella since they are both getting fully cooked. Please note, salmonella is found in other types of foods as well, not just eggs.
Q: Why do the dehydrated eggs have a shiny oily appearance?
A: The oily shine or sheen to the dried eggs can be seen and even felt. It’ll feel a bit slick, but it will not leave any residue on your finger. This is simply the fat from the egg. This is perfectly fine and normal when drying eggs in their raw form.
Q: Can you use these powdered eggs to make omelets and scrambled eggs?
A: Yes, you can. I have a video on how to use these dehydrated powdered eggs to make scrambled eggs. In the video, I even compare them to a fresh egg.
Q: I hear using powdered eggs to make scrambled eggs makes the eggs gritty or grainy.
A: I’m not sure why people say that. I don’t know if they are dehydrating them at a higher temperature or if they get their proportions off when rehydrating them, but I have not found that to be true at all. In fact, I have been very critical and tried to find the faintest hint of grit or grain in my scrambled eggs, and I simply cannot detect it. There’s not hardly a difference between fresh and dehydrated scrambled eggs.
Q: How long will the dehydrated eggs last?
A: When people ask how long certain preserved foods last, I always answer, “it depends” because it’s true.
Are these people really asking:
-How long does it last before it GOES BAD as in it’ll make me sick?
-How long before it loses its NUTRITION?
-How long will it TAKE me to ACTUALLY work through these eggs?
Believe it or not there really is a difference between these questions.
Let’s go over the following, which will in turn answer the questions.
As with anything starting off with QUALITY ingredients AND CLEAN equipment will go a long way in preventing food from going bad to where it’ll make you sick.
Keeping food stored OUT of sunlight, AWAY from heat, and in a DRY environment will go a long way in helping it retain its nutrients for a longer period of time. That means keep in a dark, cool, dry place. Yes, you can store these powdered eggs in the freezer if you’d like.
Q: How many eggs should I dehydrate?
A: The number of eggs you should dehydrate will depend on how many you want to have put up on the shelf? For example. If I want to store eggs to last for one year (52 weeks) and we go through an average of 2 dozen (24) eggs a week that means I would need to dehydrate 1248 eggs (52 weeks x 24 eggs/week=1248 eggs) so just decide how many eggs you need for a week and multiply that by the number of weeks you would like to store eggs for. In reality for my family, I don’t plan to store dehydrated eggs for one year because we have access to our own farm fresh backyard eggs year round AND I also water glass eggs too, which is another form of egg preservation.
Q: How much space do the powdered eggs take up?
A: Again, it depends on the size of the egg starting out, but once my eggs are dried and powdered, I am able to get 16 powdered eggs per pint jar and 32 powdered eggs per quart jar.
How to Dehydrate Eggs Step 5: Rehydrating and Using as Scrambled Eggs
There you have it, the information you need to know to get started dehydrating your own eggs to preserve for future use.
It seems that your real secret is low temperature and making sure there are no chunks when done!
The low temperature keeps them in their raw state, which makes it to where you can use them for anything you’d use a fresh raw egg for except for a fried egg of course.