Now Isn't The Time To Waste Leftover Egg Whites: Here Are 6 Ways To Use Them

Thanks to supply issues created by the ongoing bird flu outbreak, egg prices are at all-time highs and only expected to increase further. With grocery budgets already stretched to the limit, one can feel obliged not to waste any part of an egg. While plenty of delicious foods call for egg yolks that are separated from their whites — flan, pudding, certain ice creams, to name a few — there are also many delicious things to do with your leftover egg whites.

Many of these egg white recipes are fairly simple and straightforward. Some are so easy, they can literally be whipped together in five minutes. But unlike the blandness of a fried egg white, these egg white recipes all result in delicious treats worth making again and again.

You may not know that there are three different types of meringues: Swiss, French, and Italian, each with slight differences in preparation. Despite the finer details, all three yield a similar whipped foam of sweetened egg whites you can use for everything from colorful meringue cookies to a pavlova with raspberries and chocolate chips, as well as a Baked Alaska and of course, lemon meringue pie. Meringue also makes for a pleasant addition to other sweets like a meringue topping on a chocolate cake, and adding meringue to hot chocolate.

French meringues stand out for their simplicity; just whip the egg whites into soft peaks and slowly add sugar, whipping continuously, until they harden. Because of the raw egg involved, however, they need to be baked before eating. Italian and Swiss meringues both call for heat during the process, so they do not require baking, though they are more difficult to master — especially the Italian technique, which yields the most stable meringue.

Standing opposite the precision of whipping up a perfect Italian meringue is an exceedingly simple fruit mousse. Calling for just three ingredients and a food processor, you can go from a pile of raw components to a finished dessert in just five minutes. Adding too much fruit puree is the biggest mistake people make with fruit mousse. Luckily, you can make a three-ingredient fruit mousse with just frozen fruit, sugar, and egg whites.

Do note that this kind of fruit mousse uses uncooked egg whites. While the risk of illness is low, it's not zero, and people who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems should take caution. If this is a concern, or if you're just extra-cautious, pasteurized egg whites — which are safe to eat raw — can be used instead.

Mayonnaise is an incredibly versatile condiment that goes great in or on many things. But the convenience of store-bought mayo means that it's not a sauce that many people are accustomed to enjoying freshly homemade. But a quick and easy homemade mayonnaise recipe is yet another thing you can do with your leftover egg whites. Typically mayonnaise includes the yolk, but egg white mayonnaise uses just the white and produces a lighter, paler version of mayonnaise. The other ingredients remain the same.

Like the fruit mousse, this homemade mayo also contains raw egg whites, along with the potential risks they carry. However, unlike the fruit mousse, raw egg mayo can be briefly microwaved to eliminate the bacterial threat.

Macaroons are a delightfully airy coconut cookie which gets its signature lightness from whipped egg whites, a critical ingredient in the recipe. A typical coconut macaroon recipe contains few other ingredients beyond egg whites, sugar and coconut.

Macaroons are often confused with macarons, a different type of small cookie that also anchors its appeal on whipped egg whites. A more common baked good, macaroons are cooked with egg whites in the actual cookies themselves. This is unlike macarons, which are meringue-filled almond flour sandwich cookies that are commonly associated with luxury.

Part of what makes angel food cake so satisfying is its simplicity. Angel food cake recipes feature very few ingredients and fairly straightforward baking to produce a divinely light, airy cake unlike most other cakes. And you guessed it, angel food cake achieves this signature texture thanks once again to whipped egg whites.

An angel food cake recipe begins with egg whites in a bowl that must be consistently whipped as most of the other ingredients are added, until the mixture has expanded to its maximum volume. Only then does the whipping stop, and remaining ingredients are gently folded into the batter before baking.

If everything was mixed and baked properly, the end result is an irresistibly light cake, with a fluffiness that is only possible with whipped egg whites as a base.

Thought egg whites were only useful in foods? Think again. Egg whites are an important ingredient in a number of great cocktail recipes. Take for instance a whiskey sour, which is often just a combination of sour mix and whiskey, perhaps with a splash of lemon. But whiskey sours traditionally are shaken up with egg whites, giving the drink a frothy silkiness.

A trendier sour cocktail that also incorporates egg whites is a silky, boozy beverage that some call the national cocktail of Peru: the pisco sour. Pisco sours are made much like whiskey sours, except the liquor in them is pisco, a Peruvian brandy made from fermented grapes. Pisco sours also contain a dash of bitters, speculated to help hide the unpleasant odor that egg white cocktails take on if they get too warm, as they might in the tropical climate of Peru.