What to do with half an egg

Last reviewed 2026-11-03

Eggs are the ingredient that most often comes out awkward when you scale. Halve a 3-egg recipe and you need 1½ eggs; scale a 2-egg recipe from 12 to 16 muffins and you need 2⅔. The recipe scaler shows these amounts as they are, rather than rounding them for you, because rounding changes the recipe.

Option 1: weigh the beaten egg

This works for any fraction and doesn't need you to know what an egg weighs.

1. Round the number of eggs up to the next whole egg. For 1½ eggs, that's 2.
2. Beat those eggs together in a bowl on your kitchen scale, and note the weight of the egg alone.
3. Use the share you need: 1½ out of 2 is 75%. If the beaten eggs weigh 100 g, use 75 g.

The scaler works out this percentage for you: for 1½ eggs it says "beat 2, use 75%".

Option 2: measure by spoon

Nebraska Extension suggests beating an egg and using about 2 tablespoons for half an egg, for recipes that assume large eggs. It's an approximation: eggs vary in size, and "large" means different weights in different countries.

Option 3: round

Rounding 1½ eggs to 2 adds a third more egg than the scaled recipe calls for; rounding down to 1 takes a third away. In a big batch where the egg is a small part of the whole, that may not matter much. In a small batch, or where eggs do most of the work (custards, sponges, meringues), it's more likely to change the result.

Why we don't use an egg weight

Eggs are sold in different size grades in different countries, and the same grade varies from egg to egg. Rather than assume one weight for every egg, we use the eggs you actually have and measure a share of them.