The OXO Egg Separator Helped This Chef Cook 400 Eggs for Her New Cookbook

Eggs are miraculous. In cooking and baking, eggs offer binding properties, serve as leavening agents, are natural emulsifiers and thickeners, and provide structure and stability to baked goods. An egg white can be whipped into a foamy texture to create perfect meringues, soufflés, and angel food cakes or used to bind dumpling fillings and meatballs. Yolks easily become mayonnaise and hollandaise, custards, and ice cream bases. They also add chew and texture to baked goods like cookies. Eggs are, arguably, the most transformative ingredient of all, and no one knows this better than egg expert Lisa Steele.

Steele, a fifth-generation chicken keeper, raises chickens, geese, and ducks on her property in Maine. She cooks dozens of eggs each week, but preparing her latest cookbook, Fresh Eggs Daily, required more than 400 eggs. In the process, she learned to love this $8 egg separator tool by OXO.

OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Egg Separator

“It’s inexpensive, and it does the job,” says Steele, extolling the virtues of the OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Egg Separator. “It’s quick, clean, easy, and neat — it doesn’t take up a lot of space, either.”

“I’ve tried all the tricks, “ she says. “On TikTok, everybody has a hack, from cracking dozens of eggs into a big bowl and scooping the yolk out with your fingers to using the suction in an empty water bottle to pull the yolk away from the white.  I’ve not found any of these tricks to consistently work or be worth the effort they require.”

The OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Egg Separator clips onto the side of any bowl and serves as a separating funnel, allowing the whites to fall through while the yolk stays inside. It also features a raised edge ideal for cracking eggshells without poking the yolk. The separator also catches unwanted pieces of shell.

Why is separating everyday egg whites from their yolks such a big deal that people are making TikToks about it? “When you’re making meringue, you can’t have even the slightest bit of yolk in the white, or it’s ruined,” says Steele. “The old-fashioned method of moving the egg back and forth from shell to shell to separate the yolk from the whites isn’t ideal because one tiny snag of the yolk on the shell edge will break the yolk and contaminate the whites you are collecting for the meringue.” Conversely, many recipes calling for yolks are also better served by a clean separation from the whites.

Durable, dishwasher-safe, and measuring only 4×3 inches, the OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Egg Separator is easy to clean and store: the ideal characteristics of any gadget you may only use occasionally. “I love to make Eton Mess as well as pavlova and other meringue desserts,” says Steele, whose recipe for perfect meringue can be found here. “This separator is there for me when I need it.”

Grab one today for just $8 on Amazon.