Egg Nutrition Facts, Calories and Protein

This page uses USDA's record for a whole hard-boiled egg, weighed without the shell. Boiling in the shell adds nothing to the egg, so its numbers are a fair stand-in for a plain cooked egg. A fried or scrambled egg is a different case, because the butter, oil or milk in the pan becomes part of what you eat.

US egg sizes (medium, large, extra large, jumbo) are weight classes set by the minimum weight of a dozen eggs, separate from quality grades such as AA and A. Large is the size most recipes and nutrition references assume. Shell color comes from the breed of hen; a brown egg and a white egg of the same size are nutritionally alike.

The two parts of an egg are very different:

• The yolk carries nearly all of the fat, all of the cholesterol and most of the vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and choline. It also holds roughly three-quarters of the calories.
• The white is mostly water and protein, with almost no fat. It holds a little more than half of the egg's protein.

That split is why "egg whites only" cuts calories and removes the cholesterol while keeping most of the protein. See egg white nutrition for USDA's numbers on whites alone.

How you cook an egg changes its nutrition mainly through what you add. A boiled or poached egg has the same calories as the raw egg it came from. A fried egg picks up some of the fat from the pan, and scrambled eggs and omelets usually include butter, milk or cheese. To count those, add each one as an ingredient rather than looking for a single "scrambled egg" number, which depends entirely on the recipe.

Eggs are in so many recipes because they do several jobs at once:

• Binding: they hold together meatballs, meatloaf, crab cakes and breading.
• Leavening: whipped whites trap air for meringue, souffles and angel food cake.
• Emulsifying: yolks hold oil and water together in mayonnaise, hollandaise and Caesar dressing.
• Thickening and setting: custards, quiche and cheesecake set as the egg proteins cook.
• Finishing: an egg wash gives bread and pastry a glossy, browned crust.

Commercial bakeries and food plants often use egg products instead of shell eggs: liquid, frozen or dried whole egg, whites or yolks.

• Omelets and frittatas. Beaten eggs cooked with vegetables and cheese. Spinach · Cheddar Cheese · Onion · Tomato
• Egg salad. Chopped hard-boiled eggs bound with mayonnaise, often served on bread. Mayonnaise · White Bread
• Deviled eggs. Halved boiled eggs with the yolk mashed with mayonnaise and seasoning and piped back in. Mayonnaise
• French toast. Bread soaked in egg and milk, then pan-fried in butter. White Bread · Whole Milk · Butter
• Quiche. An egg and cream custard baked in a pastry crust, often with bacon or vegetables. Heavy Whipping Cream · All-Purpose Flour · Bacon
• Custard and flan. Eggs, milk and sugar cooked until set. Whole Milk · Sugar · Vanilla Extract
• Mayonnaise. Egg yolk whisked with oil and a little acid into an emulsion. Mayonnaise

Store raw eggs in their carton in the main part of the refrigerator rather than the door, where the temperature swings each time it opens. Raw shell eggs keep for three to five weeks. Hard-boiled eggs should go into the refrigerator within two hours of cooking and be eaten within a week; peeled or unpeeled makes little difference to that window.

Egg is one of the major food allergens, so any product made with egg in any form, including whites, yolks or dried egg, must declare it on the label. For the nutrition panel, weigh eggs out of the shell; recipes that list "2 large eggs" can be converted using USDA's large-egg weight shown on this page. Enter the eggs with your other ingredients in the label generator, use the ingredient formatter to build an ingredient list that names egg, and check your product category's reference amount in the RACC lookup. For baked goods, set servings from the finished weight, since water evaporates in the oven.