Sous Vide Eggs: Temperature and Time for Each Texture

Sous vide eggs go into the bath in their shells with no bag. For an onsen style egg with a tender white and a liquid yolk, set the bath to 145°F (62.8°C) and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour 5 minutes. For hard cooked eggs, use 165°F (73.9°C) for 40 minutes to 1 hour.

These times are for large eggs straight from the refrigerator.

Temperature and texture

The bath temperature sets the texture. The calculator has six settings for eggs in the shell.

How to choose:

• Very soft, 140°F (60°C). The whites are barely set and cloudy, and the yolk is as runny as raw. Pick it only if you want a white that is barely set.
• Onsen style, 145°F (62.8°C). This is the default, and the egg Serious Eats uses for poached and soft-boiled eggs. The white is opaque and tender with a loose fringe, and the yolk is liquid and only slightly thicker than raw.
• Custardy yolk, 148°F (64.4°C). The yolk is thick and custardy, and the whites are still soft.
• Tender set yolk, 150°F (65.6°C). The yolk holds its shape but stays very tender, and the whites are fully opaque.
• Hard cooked, 165°F (73.9°C). The yolk is firm and moist and the whites are firm and tender. This is the only setting the calculator marks as pasteurized.
• Raw-style, lower risk, 135°F (57.2°C). The egg still behaves like a raw egg, with slightly cloudy whites. It is for recipes that call for raw eggs and has its own section below.

The table below adds the minimum, the maximum and the pasteurized flag for each setting.

No maximum is given for the two lowest settings, because their sources give no upper limit. For 135°F (57.2°C), Serious Eats tested 90 minutes, and Douglas Baldwin's guide gives at least 1 hr 15 min with no upper limit. For 140°F (60°C), Anova's time and temperature guide lists 1 hour as the only time.

Thickness is not an input for eggs. The times are for large eggs straight from the refrigerator. That differs from the meats in the sous vide cooking times chart, where the time depends on how thick the piece is.

Why whites and yolks set at different temperatures

An egg contains several proteins, and each one sets at its own temperature.

Martin Lersch, a chemist who writes at Khymos, lists the temperatures. Ovotransferrin, about 12% of the white, coagulates at 144°F to 149°F (62°C to 65°C). Ovalbumin, which makes up 54% of the white, does not coagulate until 176°F (80°C). The yolk begins to thicken around 149°F (65°C) and sets around 158°F (70°C).

Douglas Baldwin's guide to sous vide cooking gives 144°F (62°C) as the temperature at which ovotransferrin denatures and the white starts to coagulate.

This explains the settings. At 145°F (62.8°C) the bath is at the low end of the range where ovotransferrin coagulates and below the temperature where the yolk starts to thicken, so the white is tender and the yolk is still liquid. At 165°F (73.9°C) the yolk is past its setting point, but the bath is well below the 194°F (90°C) where Lersch's table lists the white as rubbery and the yolk as crumbly.

The white also has two parts. Anova's egg guide describes a tight white held in a membrane and a loose white with a lower concentration of protein. In its tests the loose white was still watery at 140°F (60°C) and had set by 160°F (71.1°C). That loose white is the fringe on a 145°F (62.8°C) egg.

Time matters as well as temperature. The calculator notes for the 145°F (62.8°C) setting that the yolk thickens as the time goes on. Anova's guide reports that whites change little with time while yolks keep thickening: at 145°F (62.8°C) its eggs had yolks as thick as pudding after 1.5 hours. That is past the calculator's maximum of 1 hour 5 minutes for that setting.

How to cook eggs sous vide

1. Heat the bath to the temperature for the texture you want.
2. Check the shells. Use eggs without cracks. There is no bag, so a cracked egg leaks into the bath.
3. Lower the eggs in. Take them straight from the refrigerator and lower them in gently with a slotted spoon. The water should cover them.
4. Cook for the time in the table. Stay inside the best window. At 145°F (62.8°C) a longer cook gives a thicker yolk.
5. Lift the eggs out with the slotted spoon. Serve soft eggs now, or cool hard cooked eggs in ice water before peeling.

Eggs and vegetables cannot share a bath. The asparagus guide uses a 183°F (83.9°C) bath, hotter than any egg setting, so cook the vegetables first or in a separate pot. The same 183°F (83.9°C) bath cooks corn on the cob in 30 to 45 minutes.

Cracking and peeling

Soft eggs, 140°F to 150°F (60°C to 65.6°C). These cannot be peeled like a boiled egg, because the white is too soft to hold together. Anova's guide gives this method: crack the large end on a flat surface, peel away a window of shell, let the watery loose white drip out, then tip the egg into a bowl.

For the look of a poached egg, the same guide lifts the egg with a perforated spoon into simmering water for 1 minute and leaves the loose white behind in the bowl.

Hard cooked eggs. Sous vide eggs can be harder to peel than boiled eggs. Anova's guide explains that at low temperatures the proteins set slowly and have time to bond to the inside of the shell.

Its fix is to boil the eggs for 3 minutes and cool them in ice water for 1 minute before they go into the bath. The calculator's times do not include that step.

The age of the egg matters too. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service explains that the pH of the white rises as an egg ages, which makes the white stick less to the shell membrane, so older eggs peel more easily when hard cooked.

What the raw-style, lower risk setting does and does not do

The setting holds eggs in the shell at 135°F (57.2°C) for 1 hour 30 minutes. Time the 90 minutes from when the bath is back at temperature after the eggs go in.

The egg still behaves like a raw egg and suits recipes that call for raw eggs. The whites turn slightly cloudy and take longer to whip. Use the eggs right away.

The calculator does not mark this setting as pasteurized. Its note for the setting reads:

The USDA page linked above says the equipment used to pasteurize shell eggs is not available for home use. The FDA's egg safety page says recipes with raw or undercooked eggs should use shell eggs that have been treated to destroy Salmonella, or pasteurized egg products.

Safety

Every setting from 140°F to 150°F (60°C to 65.6°C) carries the same warning in the calculator.

USDA guidance for eggs is to cook until the yolk and white are firm. People at higher risk should use store-bought pasteurized eggs for soft egg dishes. The FDA page notes that fresh eggs can contain Salmonella even when the shells are clean and uncracked.

The hard cooked setting at 165°F (73.9°C) has no warning. The USDA page says hard cooked eggs should be refrigerated within 2 hours of cooking and used within a week, which makes them the setting to pick for sous vide meal prep.

The reasoning behind these warnings is covered in is sous vide safe.

Common problems

Watery white in the bowl. This is the loose white, which does not set at 145°F (62.8°C). Let it drain off when you open the shell.

The white is too soft. Extra time will not fix it, because time thickens the yolk and does little to the white. Move up to 148°F (64.4°C) or 150°F (65.6°C).

The yolk is thicker than expected. The eggs stayed in too long. Keep to the best window, and take them out at the minimum time for the loosest yolk.

Eggs of a different size. The times are for large eggs straight from the refrigerator, and the calculator gives no adjustment for other sizes or for eggs at room temperature.

If you want eggs out of the shell, blended and cooked in jars, the egg bites guide uses a different temperature and time.