Ingredients
- Pastured egg yolks, any quantity (chicken, duck, turkey... any yolks will work!)
- Kosher salt, a lot!
Directions
- In a baking dish/cookie sheet, spread salt to cover the bottom of the dish with 1/4"-1/2" salt. You can also make indentations in the salt with a spoon to help the yolk stay put.
- Crack the egg, separating and discarding the whites for another recipe. Gently, without breaking the yolk, place the yolk on the salt bed. If a yolk breaks, just mound up the salt around it to form a barrier to keep it from spreading.
- Once all your yolks are in the salt bed, cover each yolk completely with about 1/2" of salt. Don't leave any yolk showing.
- Place uncovered in the fridge for 10 days. The salt will soak up the liquid and concentrate the yolks.
- Check your yolks at 10 days, they should have the consistency of gummy candy. They may still be a little sticky, that's OK!
- Once you have that gummy candy consistency, rinse the yolks in cold water to remove the excess salt. Place the yolks on a cooling rack (sprayed with non-stick spray) and place in a 170 degree F oven for two hours.
- Once two hours has passed, turn off the oven & let yolks remain inside the oven until cooled to room temperature.
- At this point, the yolks should be very firm. The best part — they are now ready to use! Using a microplane or fine grater, grate the egg yolks just as you would grate Parmesan cheese over your food. Keeps in the refrigerator (covered) for 6 months, possibly longer, enjoy!
Make salt-cured eggs in your home fridge. This salt-cured egg yolk recipe is a deliciously simple way to preserve your farm-fresh yolks for up to six months.
How beautiful are these golden, jewel-toned yolks! A few years ago I came across a salt cured egg yolk recipe and gave it a try. It’s a fun way to preserve extra yolks, a tasty way to finish off dishes with a little extra flavor, and they make great gifts for all of your foodie friends and family.
Salt curing is nothing new, it’s a very traditional way of preserving food. I found some recipes that had mostly sugar, with a little salt; some with mostly salt, with a little sugar; some with flavored salts.
Salt Cured Eggs without Sugar
I’m kind of a puritan when it comes to food, if you use good ingredients, there is no need to complicate a good thing. For me, simple is best. For example: I like chocolate-chip cookies, I’m not really a fan of chocolate chip-pumpkin-caramel-butterscotch cookies. It’s too much, just keep it simple friends! So for this recipe, I stayed simple: salt and egg yolk. That’s it. You can do what you like, this is just how I did it.
The result is nothing short of delicious! Just as you would grate Parmesan cheese over a dish, grate these salt cured yolks over meat, pasta, salad or veggies for a salty, savory and rich garnish. In addition to flavor, you’ll get added nutrition as chicken egg yolks are rich in healthy saturated fat, phospholipids, antioxidants (such as carotenoids and phosvitin), Vitamins A, D, E, B1 (Thiamin), B2 (Riboflavin), B6, B9 (Folate), B12, Choline, Calcium, Iron, Phosphorus, Zinc and Selenium.
Nicole Wilkey transitioned from a corporate job to small-scale farmer in 2015. Since then she has run California based Flicker Farm to accommodate meat pigs, mini Juliana pigs, pasture based poultry and sells goats milk soap and lotion on Etsy. Connect with Nicole on Instagram and Facebook.
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