How Do I Quickly Bring Cold Eggs To Room Temperature for Cooking?

Many recipes call for room-temperature eggs. If you want to fry your eggs, you will find that it works much better to use room temperature eggs rather than cold eggs. As well, for cakes and other recipes, room temperature eggs combine better with other ingredients such as butter or shortening. Also, cold egg whites will not whip up to as high a volume as room temperature eggs. If you’re making a souffle or a meringue, this could be crucial. So, when a recipe calls for room-temperature eggs, don’t ignore the instructions and use eggs straight out of the refrigerator. But, if your eggs are cold and you don’t want to wait for a long time letting them warm up, what do you do?

There are two different ways to warm up your eggs quickly:

Whole Eggs in Warm Water

The most common method for warming up cold eggs quickly is to simply place them in a bowl of very warm water (hot water from the tap is usually ‘warm’ enough as long as it’s not scalding).

Let the eggs sit for about 5 minutes and they should be warm enough. Do not place them in boiling water, just water that is nice and warm to the touch. You don’t want to begin cooking them! This is the easiest way to do it.

eggs warming in bowl of water

Eggs Cracked Into Bowl with Bowl Sitting in Warm Water

This method is a bit more cumbersome than the first, but the eggs will warm up faster. You need two bowls, with one slightly smaller than the other.

Pour some very warm water into the larger bowl. Crack the eggs into the smaller bowl, then place the bowl into the larger bowl of warm water, to allow the heat from the warm water to warm up the egg bowl, and thus the eggs.

This method is a lot of trouble so most people will opt for the first. However, if you need to separate your egg whites from your egg yolks, this is the best method. See, cold eggs separate easier.

Since the white is more cold, and thus more viscous, and the yolk itself is firmer an harder to break, the yolk separates from the egg white with less trouble. So, if you need to separate a lot of eggs but you need the whites to be at room temperature, separate the cold egg whites into a bowl and then warm up using this double-bowl method.