Persistently high egg prices have forced restaurants to pass the extra cost onto customers, or stop using eggs altogether. One D.C. establishment has found a creative way to cope.
Will Patton, from Press Club Bar of Record in Dupont Circle, said he and his partner fatefully decided to drop using egg whites in their cocktails, just before the prices skyrocketed.
“Now that egg prices have exploded, it is not only an operationally better decision, but a financially better decision as well,” Patton told WTOP.
For baking, some alternatives to eggs that help keep treats together include applesauce, mashed bananas or aquafaba (chickpea liquid). For pasta or meat dishes, use semolina flour, flaxseed meal or panko/breadcrumbs.
Many websites and cookbooks focused on vegan recipes provide options for adapting favorite dishes and baked goods without eggs.
Patton said they use a product that gives the drinks the same texture as whipped egg whites, but doesn’t change the taste.
“Unless you’re infusing the egg with some sort of a flavoring agent or aroma, it’s really there to provide like a mouth feel,” he said.
At $32 a bottle, Patton said the alternative is less than half what they would usually spend on eggs.
But will he go back to eggs if and when the price drops? Patton says no.
“It’s a more efficient solution to what might not have been, until this moment, a problem,” Patton said.
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