Pasteurized vs. Fresh Eggs

How are eggs pasteurized? Can they be substituted for normal unpasteurized eggs?

In rare cases, eating raw egg (in cookie dough, homemade mayonnaise, etc.) can result in the bacterial infection salmonella, but pasteurized eggs promise a safer alternative. Whole, in-the-shell eggs are pasteurized by going through a succession of heated water baths (warm enough to kill bacteria, but not so warm as to cook the eggs) before being chilled and waxed so that the porous shells cannot be re-contaminated.

To see how pasteurized eggs stacked up to the unpasteurized variety, we made Caesar dressing with both pasteurized and unpasteurized raw yolks, and meringues from the whites of each. We didn’t notice any differences in the two dressings, but that was not the case with the meringues. We immediately noticed that the pasteurized whites were much looser and more watery than their unpasteurized counterparts. What’s more, the pasteurized whites took more than twice as long to whip into a stiff and glossy meringue. Once whipped, both meringues had a similar texture and flavor. Curious how the two varieties compared when cooked, we fried, scrambled, and baked each type of egg in a cake and found no differences in flavor or texture. Pasteurized eggs are a suitable substitute for regular eggs, but pasteurized egg whites will take more than twice as long to whip.