HARD-BOILED EGGS Remove the pan from the heat and let the yolks stand, covered, in the hot water about 12 minutes. Remove the yolks with a slotted spoon, drain them well and package them for freezing. It's best not to freeze hard-boiled whole eggs and hard-boiled whites because they become tough and watery when frozen.
You can't really freeze a whole boiled egg, as the whites will become rubbery. However, you can freeze cooked egg yolks to use for garnishes, extra-yolky egg sandwiches or devilled egg filling for up to 3 months. Cooked eggs are easiest to freeze when they're folded into other, more easily-frozen ingredients.
While hard boiled eggs can be frozen, if hard boiled eggs are frozen whole, their texture after being thawed is rubbery and unappetizing, and so it's not generally recommended to freeze them this way.
Not only is it possible to freeze cooked eggs, but they actually taste better when reheated than cooked eggs stored in the refrigerator. On the weekend, you can meal-prep breakfast burritos or egg sandwiches and toss them into the freezer. Then, thaw them overnight in the fridge for an easy breakfast on the go.
Remove the yolks with a slotted spoon, drain them well and package them for freezing. It's best not to freeze hard-boiled whole eggs and hard-boiled whites because they become tough and watery when frozen.
Hard-boiled eggs, peeled or unpeeled, are safe to eat up to seven days or one full week after they were cooked. To make sure they stay fresh, allow the cooked eggs cool a bit, and then store them in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
To defrost, move the egg from the freezer to the refrigerator to be stored overnight, this will help to avoid any exposure to bacteria. To quicken the process, run cold water over the freezing container. Be sure to use the eggs as soon as they have thawed.
Place your hard boiled eggs in a heat proof bowl, pour boiling water until the egg is entirely submerged, then cover. Wait ten minutes before removing, crack, peel, and eat. No explosion and no mess—just breakfast.
Keeping Hard-Boiled Eggs Fresh
For maximum freshness, leave them in their shells until you are ready to eat or prepare. The shell will help to protect the egg from bacteria, and can help prevent them from absorbing odors from other foods in your refrigerator.
You can freeze a raw egg, but it shouldn't be frozen in its shell. The contents of the shell will expand as the egg gets colder, likely causing the shell to crack. Another change that occurs when an egg freezes is in the texture of the yolk.
The best way to freeze an egg is to freeze it in its whole form, Stankiewicz explains, as you cannot freeze eggs in their shells. You can use this method for as many eggs as you'd like (hopefully, at least 3 or 4!). The best way to freeze eggs often involves freezer-friendly plastic storage bags.
Egg Freezing Risks
Risks are similar to those associated with ovarian stimulation for IVF, which include small risks of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (enlargement of the ovaries and fluid accumulation in the pelvis and abdomen), infection, and bleeding related to the egg retrieval procedure.
During the ovarian stimulation process, you will need to avoid any exercise that is jarring to your pelvis in order to protect your ovaries, which will increase in size as the follicles (cysts that contain the eggs) also grow, as well as avoid consuming alcohol, caffeine, medications and many herbal supplements.
If an egg accidentally freezes and the shell cracked during freezing, discard the egg. However, if the egg did not crack, keep it frozen until needed; then thaw it in the refrigerator.
Proper storage of eggs can affect both quality and safety.
Store eggs in their original carton and use them within 3 weeks for best quality. Use or eat hard-cooked eggs (in the shell or peeled) within 1 week after cooking. Use frozen eggs within 1 year.
Do frozen eggs work as well as fresh? Well, almost. You probably can't make a souffle with them, but they work fine as scrambled eggs, in baked goods or in a recipe where they are blended with other ingredients. They don't work as well for fried or poached eggs where you want to keep the yolk intact.
You can use them in place of fresh for any recipe that calls for eggs. Yes, even baked goods!
The liquid that truly makes a difference between passable eggs and restaurant-quality special-event-feeling eggs is water. That may come as a surprise, but the food scientist Natalie Alibrandi told Well + Good that water makes sense at a chemical level.
The method is always the same: freeze whole eggs in the shell, then cut the frozen egg into slices and fry those in a pan, resulting in mini, kid-sized fried eggs.
How Can You Tell If Hard-Boiled Eggs Are Bad? The best way to test if your eggs are still good after you've boiled them is, again, the smell test. Basically, you'll notice the smell is off if an egg is starting to go bad. This is true for raw eggs and it's true for boiled eggs—the funk doesn't lie.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, you can keep hard-cooked eggs in the refrigerator for up to seven days after they have been cooked. 1 (Here's the best way to make them.) And it doesn't matter whether the eggs are already peeled or still in the shell. Either way, they will last for a week.