Why You Never Hear About Turkey Eggs

Some bakers swear that duck eggs make cakes fluffier, gourmet sushi chefs often use quail eggs in their recipes, and of course, there are chicken eggs, which are so common in our diet that we refer to them simply as "eggs." But what about turkey eggs? While turkey meat is everything from a Thanksgiving staple to a sandwich cold cut, turkey eggs are rare enough to be considered a delicacy. The reason, according to Slate, is that they're expensive to cultivate. 

While turkeys do produce much larger eggs than chickens do — a whole 50 percent larger — they only produce two of them a week. Compared to turkeys, chickens are "egg-laying dynamos," as they produce them on a daily basis. Not to mention turkeys require at least three feet of space and way more food. Accommodating one turkey, therefore, is equivalent to accommodating eight chicken hens, as Slate explained, but since turkeys don't produce nearly as many eggs, the turkey egg business isn't lucrative at all. You won't find them in a grocery store, and if you do, they'll cost $2 to $3 dollars, and that's per egg, not by the dozen.

Profitability didn't always take precedence over taste, in fact, turkey egg omelets were on the menu at Delmonico's restaurants in New York until the late 1800s, USA Today says. In terms of flavor and consistency, turkey eggs are actually more ideal for cooking breakfast than hen eggs due to the larger yolk-to-white ratio. If you're looking for a way to take your eggs Benedict to the next level, turkey eggs are a great way to do so. Thanks to the higher density of the egg white, the poaching process is a breeze, since you won't have to worry about the whites dissolving in the water or separating from the yolks. And because the yolks are large but not overwhelmingly rich, they make for a perfectly creamy Hollandaise sauce. 

The trade-off, however, is that because of the size of the yolks, turkey eggs contain twice as many grams of fat and four times as much cholesterol as a typical chicken egg, per Slate. So while your egg breakfast might taste all the more delicious, at three bucks an egg and several calories later, it might not be worth it — at least that's what the egg industry has decided.