How to stretch eggs

[tvguy]

There weren’t any eggs of any brand at my Publix when I went shopping last week. I still had eggs that are well in date, so I didn’t need any, but I thought it was surprising that there weren’t any at all. I have seen them out of Egglands or out of store brand, but not out of everything. I won’t be going grocery shopping again until the beginning of the month, so hopefully there will be some available by then.

What was funny at Walmart was they were fully stocked in plastic wrapped packages containing two cartons of 18 eggs each......so 36 eggs.......and with the 60 egg box of eggs. Both Great Value brand.

 

[LSUmiss]

LOL. We're buying eggs to stretch our meat budget. There are empty slots at the store for sure, but Egglands best were on sale for $4.44 a dozen at the store yesterday. We frequently have breakfast for dinner, and at those prices, 4 eggs for dinner for 2 people works out to $1.48, still cheap protein compared to beef, pork, chicken and fish.

I was just going to ask. I’ve seen the memes & jokes, but is there a shortage & you can’t find them or are they just expensive compared to what they used to be? There are just 4 of us in our household & DS doesn’t eat eggs at all. But we rarely use eggs except maybe to bake occasionally so it’s nothing that has affected us.

 

[tvguy]

I was just going to ask. I’ve seen the memes & jokes, but is there a shortage & you can’t find them or are they just expensive compared to what they used to be? There are just 4 of us in our household & DS doesn’t eat eggs at all. But we rarely use eggs except maybe to bake occasionally so it’s nothing that has affected us.

There appears to be a shortage that varies from region to region due to avian flu, and yes, they are expensive in the stores that have them..

 

[dez1978]

Weird thought but here we are, not enough eggs to go around so tricks and recipes much appreciated. Guess making protein a guest at meals is healthier anyway so I've decided to just go with it. Strange that I keep finding myself living like my grandparents did during the Depression in the 30s for no apparent reason.



I read that cornstarch could replace eggs in a recipe and wonder if it works, are there other tricks?


Grew up having simple meals for no meat Fridays so frying up a pan full of potatoes and dropping some scrambled eggs on top then slicing it up for sandwiches is very good.

Frozen onions and peppers sauteed' are amazing on a sandwich with a bit of egg scrambled with some milk.

I make a lot of quiche and frittata & picked up the habit of increasing taste and fluffiness by adding a good amount of ricotta and milk to the eggs.

Wait… isn’t protein good for you? I thought you were supposed to eat more protein? it’s super filling so you eat less often.

I did low carb/dirty keto for a couple years so maybe I missed the memo about less protein being healthier. We tend to eat a lot of it bc my kids are into sports and one is trying to bulk up bc he’s skinny and the other is a bit under tall for his weight, so protein is something that works for both of their goals.

 

[ronandannette]

LOL. We're buying eggs to stretch our meat budget. There are empty slots at the store for sure, but Egglands best were on sale for $4.44 a dozen at the store yesterday. We frequently have breakfast for dinner, and at those prices, 4 eggs for dinner for 2 people works out to $1.48, still cheap protein compared to beef, pork, chicken and fish.

Same, and it's always been that way. Eggs are the basic alternate protein to meat. They definitely have gone up in price but there is absolutely no shortage. At about $4.00/dozen, we get almost 2 meals out of a dozen (7 per meal, using them for poached, fried or scrambled). That's less than $0.34 cents per egg or $2.31 per meal. There's absolutely no meat I know of that I could stretch that far. Not only do I have no clue how to stretch eggs, it would never occur to me to try.

 

[auntfrannie]

Silly Putty!
Sorry. Couldn't help myself!

 

[theluckyrabbit]

... I'm wasteful and eat mostly egg whites so I throw away half the egg but since they keep going up in price I've just been eating less.

Egg yolks (and whites!) can be frozen to be used later! Whites freeze well as is, but yolks need a little help:
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/5748-freezing-egg-yolks (uses sugar)
OR
https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-freeze-eggs (uses salt)

 

[mrodgers]

As an individual, you probably don't.

If I make eggs for my fam of 6, it's 18 eggs minimum (that's lunch - dinner would be 20-24), although probably not much more toast. If they want eggs, they wants eggs...and at current prices, they aren't getting as many egg-focused meals...in 2023, chicken (which has been loss leading) has actually been cheaper as a main meal protein than eggs for them, and I can't remember the last time I've ever said that...

Ok, it just doesn't compute for me. I have no idea what the heck you would be making with 20-24 eggs.

Number of people doesn't matter, as I said, with 2 eggs being typically what one would eat, 2 eggs and 2 pieces of bread would be $1.34 per person. 2 eggs at $8/18 pack would be $0.88. Anything else made with said eggs doesn't factor into 2 eggs is only $0.88 at what is an outrageously expensive price everyone seems to agree on. 18 eggs should feed 6 people for 3 meals easily along with whatever else the meal entails. Eating 20-24 eggs for one meal with 6 people just seems like a far away anomaly.

 

[mrodgers]

I was just going to ask. I’ve seen the memes & jokes, but is there a shortage & you can’t find them or are they just expensive compared to what they used to be? There are just 4 of us in our household & DS doesn’t eat eggs at all. But we rarely use eggs except maybe to bake occasionally so it’s nothing that has affected us.

Both for me, well expensive as in higher price than they use to be (still only $0.44 per egg at it's highest price around me.) I can go to the store one day and there's not an egg to be found and the next time it's packed full. Then it's empty again, then full. Now whether it's an issue of not getting eggs in or an issue of terror where everyone is toilet paper panicking about eggs I can't tell.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Just a PSA, if you do sub baking for people outside of family, mention you put something different in it. In my family half the people are allergic to apples. Apples are all over the place. I bought a blueberry pie. I figured safe. But I decided to double check. Nope, had apples/apple juice in it.

Interesting you say this, I get vicious migraines from nearly all apples now, although it's less frequent during summer months so maybe what comes from the US is different. This didn't happen when I was young so I suspect they are either being treated with something different, were GMO or there is something else new I don't know about. I'll have it in apple pie around the holidays and brace myself for the migraines but otherwise avoid them.

 

[LuvOrlando]

LOL. We're buying eggs to stretch our meat budget. There are empty slots at the store for sure, but Egglands best were on sale for $4.44 a dozen at the store yesterday. We frequently have breakfast for dinner, and at those prices, 4 eggs for dinner for 2 people works out to $1.48, still cheap protein compared to beef, pork, chicken and fish.

Now though, a dozen eggs where I am is now more expensive than many meats per pound so while it's a good way to mix it up not sure it's cheaper in any way other than it's controlled portions so in that sense it can be stretched to 12 portions more easily.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Eggs are cheap. What’s an egg cost? I never look. Even if they cost $1.50 each it’s a cheap breakfast to make an omelet out of 2 of them.

Unless there are none at the store to replace or you need them for recipes and the stores don't have them then all that can be done is stretch them, I do all the shopping so my family is oblivious to the peculiar storages that continue. If you do not shop you may not notice or you may be in a place that has never seen shortages, it seems lots of places have not seen any disruptions but others places have. I'm going out today, maybe it'll be better.

 

[jo-jo]

Interesting you say this, I get vicious migraines from nearly all apples now, although it's less frequent during summer months so maybe what comes from the US is different. This didn't happen when I was young so I suspect they are either being treated with something different, were GMO or there is something else new I don't know about. I'll have it in apple pie around the holidays and brace myself for the migraines but otherwise avoid them.

When my DH was a child, he loved the cherry pies his mom made. Now that same cherry pie could kill him.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Eggs by where I am are a minimum of around $4 a dozen but much more frequently around $8

Milk is hovering near $6 a 1/2 gallon

I'll check today to see if it's different than last week but I'm stretching due to availability & I'm mindful of struggling families needing the cheaper ones so if the supply appears limited I will get the higher end stuff.

We had a lot of ice and snow yesterday so I suspect supplies might still be light but who knows.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Getting back to recipes that stretch eggs, yesterday and Sunday I made brunch with a nice plate of Shakshouka with one egg on top that poaches in the sauce with pita bread and it was lovely.

 

[Sparkly]

Eggs range from £1.50-£3 for a pack of 6 here, so still cheaper than meat. Not that you can get any at the moment because of bird flu.

 

[NotUrsula]

The only reason you really would need to substitute eggs IN is for baking. Some of the recipes you've mentioned are those which have had eggs added to them to insert cheap protein, so the simple answer during an egg shortage is to just go back to the more expensive way of making them before eggs were adopted as a cheap substitute: add meat. In some other cases, eggs are added as a binder or to add gloss to a finished product, and there are plenty of substitutes that will do that job. Google "shelf stable egg substitute" and you'll get a huge list of options for baking.

For those of us who are allergic, frittatas, quiches and omelets are right out, but that's only 3 dishes, so not a huge loss for most people. (As it happens, most other allergic people whom I've met also seem to dislike the smell of whole cooked eggs, so again, not much of a sacrifice. I developed an intense dislike for the smell right around the same time my allergy was discovered, so who knows which came first.)

It's actually very easy to elimate eggs from just about all other savory foods that don't require baking; you just leave them out, and a bonus is that you don't have to worry as much about potential spoilage. If you need eggs for baking but cannot find fresh, you can use powdered. Powdered is expensive, but it's shelf-stable, and as I only use it for baking (which as long as it's not a recipe that takes a LOT of eggs, dilutes it sufficiently that I don't react), then I can literally use that one container for a couple of years.

 

[ronandannette]

Eggs by where I am are a minimum of around $4 a dozen but much more frequently around $8

Milk is hovering near $6 a 1/2 gallon

I'll check today to see if it's different than last week but I'm stretching due to availability & I'm mindful of struggling families needing the cheaper ones so if the supply appears limited I will get the higher end stuff.

We had a lot of ice and snow yesterday so I suspect supplies might still be light but who knows.

That is insanely expensive! Food prices here in Canada are generally much higher than most places in the States but just yesterday I got eggs for $3.79 and a gallon of whole milk for $6.49. Now if you want a pound of butter, buckle up - it’s around $6.00 right now. Prices on these commodities don’t fluctuate wildly here because the production industries are regulated and no imports are allowed.

 

[soccerdad72]

Check Costco, I don’t recall the exact price but I think the 18 pack at Costco was what I’d pay at the grocery store for a dozen.

$6.49 for 24 eggs this weekend in our area.

 

[luv2cheer92]

Got a dozen eggs for 3.49 and a half gallon of milk for 2.29 this morning. A dozen eggs and a loaf of bread (1.19) is at least 6-8 meals for me, pretty cheap.