Sous Vide Pasteurized Eggs

Sous Vide Pasteurized Eggs are the easiest way to get into using an immersion circulator. All you need is a vessel for your water, the immersion circulator, and the eggs go right in the water. No vacuum sealing required. While the USDA recommends cooking eggs to 160°F to kill salmonella, sous vide pasteurization offers a lower-temp method that preserves the raw texture while still eliminating bacteria. This simple process allows you to kill the germs in the eggs while still being able to use them raw. My germaphobe husband, in particular, approves.

This is not a recipe for soft-boiled eggs. The whites and yolks will still look raw, but the bacteria will have been safely eliminated.

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Why You’ll Love this Recipe

• You can dive into sous vide cooking with zero stress and intimidation
• Gives you peace of mind when using raw eggs in homemade recipes
• No vacuum bags or sealing; just eggs and water
• Pasteurized eggs are great for anyone who is pregnant, immunocompromised, or just cautious about raw eggs in recipes.

What You’ll Walk Away Knowing

• The exact temperature and time needed to pasteurize your eggs
• What size eggs need time adjustments
• Ways to use pasteurized eggs in raw and delicate dishes

Why Sous Vide Eggs

You might be wondering why you would want to do this instead of using raw eggs. Pasteurizing your eggs allows you to kill the salmonella while keeping the texture of a raw egg. This means you can use them safely in recipes that call for raw or undercooked eggs (like mayo, mousse, or Caesar dressing) without worrying about foodborne illness.

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Ingredient List

Eggs: I use large eggs. If you want to sous vide larger eggs, you will need to increase the time they are sous vide for. Jumbo eggs need 15 more minutes added to their time. Duck eggs need 30 more minutes added.

Note: Make sure your eggs are at room temperature before you sous vide. They need to get to 133°F and stay there for the entire time. 

Equipment

Immersion Circulator: I use an Anova immersion circulator. I got it about ten years ago and it’s still going strong.

Water Bath Container: I recently bought a new container to sous vide in. It’s a 12 quart container with a lid. You can use whatever you have in the house. I’ve used a large glass measuring cup before when only doing three eggs. If your container doesn’t have a lid, it’s a good idea to cover it with plastic wrap. That will keep the heat inside consistent and less evaporation and having to worry about adding more water to the vessel. 

Time and Temperature Variations

Salmonella dies at 130°F. In food safety terms, this is called “thermal death time”; how long it takes to kill harmful bacteria like salmonella at a given temperature. The eggs need to stay consistently at 130°F for 60 minutes through to the yolk to be effective. If the temperature drops, you need to restart your timer. To buffer that, I like to sous vide my eggs at 133°F. That way even if the temperature drops a bit, we’re still above 130°F. It takes several minutes for the inside of the egg to reach the same temp as the water, which is why we hold it at 133°F for 75 minutes instead of just 60.

133°F gives you more peace of mind that everything that can be pasteurized has been, while still maintaining the raw texture. You can go up to 135°F as well for 75 minutes. When I’ve done this, the egg whites get a little opaque and more gelatinous. It still works in raw preparations. 

How to Make Sous Vide Pasteurized Eggs

1. Set up your water bath and immersion circulator. Make sure to fill the vessel up over the minimum water line on the circulator.
2. Set your machine to 133°F and turn on
3. Let the temperature come up to 133°F and then place your room temperature eggs in the water bath 
4. Set a timer for 75 minutes
5. Once the time is up, carefully remove the eggs from the water bath and place in a bowl of ice water for 20 minutes
6. Remove from the ice water and put in the refrigerator until ready to use. 

Expert Tips

Allowing your eggs to come to room temperature makes sure that the egg doesn’t take as long to heat up. If a cold egg is placed in the water bath, it will have to come up to temp before it starts killing the bacteria. 

Mark your eggs or put them in another container so you know which have been pasteurized and which have not. 

Don’t use cracked eggs because the water can seep in and ruin them.

Maintain the water line over the minimum line on your immersion circulator.

If you live at a higher elevation, check that your circulator maintains an accurate water temp, since water boils at a lower temperature the higher you go.

If your eggs float, gently place a spoon or small plate on top to keep them submerged. They need to stay fully under water for the entire time to pasteurize evenly. If your sous vide container came with a rack, you can use that as well.

Ways to Use Pasteurized Eggs

I use pasteurized eggs to make homemade mayonnaise. I plan to experiment with things like chocolate mousse, ice cream base, Hollandaise sauce, and Caesar dressing. 

Storage

You can keep your pasteurized eggs in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

FAQs

Now that you have freshly pasteurized eggs, it’s time to put them to the test. Head over to my avocado oil mayonnaise recipe to use them yourself. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this process and anything you’re thinking of cooking sous vide next.