How to Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: September 5, 2022

Is it true that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk? In order to an egg to start to firm up, it must be cooked on a surface that has been heated to at least 158 °F (70 °C). Even on the hottest summer days, sidewalks themselves don't get that hot. However, you might have success if you try frying an egg on a piece of tin foil or a metal pan placed on the sidewalk. Do a side-by-side experiment and notice the difference.

Steps

1
Wait for a very hot day. The hotter it is, the more likely your egg will fry. If possible, choose a day when the temperature is 100 °F (38 °C) or hotter. Make sure the sun is out, too, since you'll need its rays to completely heat up the metal pan or tin foil you're using.
- On cloudy days, even very hot ones, the metal won't get hot enough to cook an egg.
- Eggs will be more likely to firm up in dry weather than humid weather.^{[1]
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2
Place tin foil or metal pan in direct sunlight to heat up. You'll want to let it heat up for at least 20 minutes, to make sure it's as hot as it can get. Once it's that hot, be careful not to touch it with your bare hands!

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3
Crack an egg onto the metal surface. If the surface is hot enough, hopefully the egg will begin to cook. Keep in mind that the egg itself will cool down the temperature of the surface you crack it upon, so even if the pan has reached 158 degrees, the egg still might not start to fry.
- Try to keep the yolk intact, so you can better observe whether or not it begins to cook.
- If you use an egg straight from the refrigerator, it'll cool the surface down more than if you use a room temperature egg.
4
Crack a second egg onto the sidewalk. Observe whether there are differences between the state of the sidewalk egg and the egg you cracked onto a metal surface. Does the egg on the metal surface seem to be cooking?^{[2]
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- Most people who try this experiment have found that the sidewalk egg doesn't cook at all, while the egg on the metal surface cooks slightly.
5
Discard the eggs when you're finished. Since the eggs probably didn't get fully cooked, you definitely don't want to eat them! Throw out the eggs. Make sure not to leave a mess on the sidewalk, since egg whites can leave a permanent mark.^{[3]
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- Be careful when you touch the hot pan! It might not be hot enough to cook an egg, but it can still burn your finger.

Community Q&A

Question

How do I do it so that I can eat the egg?

Community Answer

Live somewhere where it gets hotter than 100 degrees. I have had success with 115+ degree days and a small black cast iron pan with a small amount of bacon grease already in it to heat in the sun. I don't think foil would work since it is designed to cool off quickly, rather than hold heat like the cast iron will. In the hottest part of the day, it takes the egg about 20 minutes to cook through. If you don't live somewhere that hot, you could probably do it in a solar oven that concentrates the rays of the sun under glass. (Google solar oven.)

Warnings

Although it isn't a stove, the pan gets super hot

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Do not eat the egg!

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