If you’re wondering why your meringue tastes grainy and what to do, you’re in the right place. Unfortunately, if you have already finished making your meringue, and it’s grainy, there is some bad news.
You cannot fix grainy meringue. Meringue turns grainy because you added sugar too quickly, preventing it from incorporating fully. The only solution is to use the meringue as it is and be more careful the next time you make the recipe.
By the way, the value of a good whisk, like the simple but effective one I use, found on Amazon, cannot be overstated. In fact, it might be my favorite tool in the kitchen and is great for tasks like this!
Grainy Meringue Cannot Be Fixed
If your meringue has turned grainy, you will need to start over.
Meringue turns grainy for two main reasons:
- You added your sugar too fast, preventing it from fully incorporating into the egg whites.
- You didn’t take enough time to beat the sugar into the egg whites, again preventing it from incorporating fully.
Unfortunately, once you’ve whipped your egg whites, you can’t do anything to the product. You could try torching the fluff a little in hopes of fully dissolving the sugar, but this is a risky move. Unless you’re extremely careful, you could end up burning your meringue before you know it.
How to Prevent Grainy Meringue
Here are the simplest ways to prevent your meringue from turning grainy.
- Be very careful when you’re incorporating sugar into it. Add in the sugar slowly. If you’ve been adding it in 2 or 3 batches, you should take 4-5 batches to add the same amount of sugar. Additionally, give it more time to dissolve between batches.
- That said, be careful you aren’t too slow when incorporating the sugar. Taking too much time will make the meringue too fluffy, affecting the texture adversely.
- Make sure to whip the meringue enough that the sugar incorporates fully. You should also make sure to use sugar that is as fine as possible. Coarse sugar is more challenging to incorporate into egg whites. If your sugar is too granulated, run it through a food processor to get to a finer consistency before using it in your meringue recipe.
- If you’re making Swiss meringue, you’ll need to ensure your sugar has dissolved fully when heating it with egg whites. The way to do this is to rub the meringue between your fingers. If you can’t feel any grains of sugar, you’re good to continue with the rest of the recipe.
What to Do with Grainy Meringue
While we’ve covered what to do to prevent grainy meringue in the future, that doesn’t explain what you should do with the grainy meringue you already have.
If you have grainy meringue, you have two options:
- Throw it away
- Use it
I know, I know, this sounds a bit harsh. But the truth of the matter is that if it already doesn’t taste good, there is no miracle fix. Sometimes we just have to suck it up, admit defeat, and start over in the kitchen. Don’t feel bad, it happens to all of us!
However, in most cases, grainy meringue is perfectly usable–it’s just that the texture won’t be as perfect as you may expect otherwise. However, it is possible to mask the texture when you use it in a dish, and the taste will generally not be expected.
This is also why we recommend against torching your meringue to fix the graininess. If you burn even a section accidentally, it will be bitter, and you’ll have no choice but to waste it all and throw it away.
Final Thoughts
Grainy meringue cannot be fixed, and the only solution is to be more careful when making it in the future. However, you can still use your grainy meringue, as the taste shouldn’t be affected–only the texture.
For more, don’t miss How To Fix Runny Meringue (And Prevent It).
Anne James has a wealth of experience in a wide array of interests and is an expert in quilting, cooking, gardening, camping, mixing drinks (worked as a professional bartender), and making jelly.
Anne has a professional canning business, has been featured in the local newspaper as well as on the Hershey website, and has been her family canner for decades. Anyone growing up in the South knows that there is always a person in the family who has knowledge of the “old ways,” and this is exactly what Anne is.
With over 55 years of experience in these endeavors, she brings a level of hands-on knowledge that is hard to surpass. Amazingly, she doesn’t need to reference many resources due to her vast wealth of experience. She IS the source.
Anne wants nothing more than to pass on her extensive knowledge to the next generations, whether that be family or anyone visiting her website, her YouTube channel, or preservingsweetness.com.