Tell If an Egg is Good or Rotten Without Breaking the Shell

There are few things worse than breaking open an egg and discovering that it's rotten. Unfortunately it's hard to tell how fresh an egg is just by looking at its outside, and unless you know the date that the chicken laid it, it's virtually impossible to decide if your egg is fresh enough to eat, or rotten enough to need throwing away. For this reason, we've written this handy guide on how to tell if an egg is fresh or rotten without breaking it open.

The first and most important step in determining whether or not your egg is fresh enough to eat is a visual inspection. An egg that has it's shell broken in any places probably should not be eaten because it is impossible to determine whether or not any containments have entered the egg. So any egg with a broken shell is definitely NOT good. Also, if you still have it, check the expiration date on the egg carton. If the date has passed, then you should probably not eat the egg. Sometimes, companies will set the date earlier, so as to help avoid being sued, so you may wish to check anyway to see if your egg is good.

If nothing has compromised the structural integrity of the egg, use the following method to determine if the egg is good. Get a bowl (or glass, or other container) and fill it with water. When determining if your egg is fresh, you want the water to be approximately an inch deeper than your egg is tall. The water should be at a temperature that is comfortable for you to handle.

To determine if your egg is good, gently lay down the egg in the water. The way it floats (or doesn't float) will determine whether or not the egg is good. If the egg is good, and fresh, it will lie on the bottom of your container, on its side. If the egg sits vertically in the water, with one end at or near the bottom, it is probably a few days older but your egg is still good to eat, hopefully. If it floats, however, then it is a bad egg and should be thrown away (be careful to dispose of it outside of your house and not to break it when you do, otherwise you will have to deal with the smell of rotten eggs). Once you have decided if your egg is good or not, you may take it out of the water and cook it however you intended in the first place.

Enjoy your egg! Always be careful when cooking eggs (Even if it is a good your egg is good) because sometimes eggs can carry salmonella or other deadly pathogens.