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My wife just complained that she can't eat my meringue because they have too much sugar in them. She suggested I cook them with less sugar. However, without sugar the meringue won't work right. What is the minimum ratio of egg white to sugar required to get a stable meringue.

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What do you mean, "won't work right"? You can create a stiff foam out of eggwhites without using any sugar at all. What's the specific problem with that? –  rumtscho Oct 27 '11 at 12:03
The sugar in a meringue caramelise when cooked and make a sort of toffee. Without any sugar you would just have dried out egg. –  Rincewind42 Oct 27 '11 at 13:47

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Technically, the minimum ratio of sugar is zero. You can definitely create a stable meringue without any sugar at all, although you'll have to mind your conditions and preparation - use a spotlessly-clean bowl, room-temperature egg whites (separated when chilled), initially foamed up on low speed with an acid such as vinegar or cream of tartar, superfine sugar (if you're using any at all) added very slowly after the soft peak stage, and a starch (e.g. corn starch or icing sugar) at the end for added stability.

The main problem, of course, is that as you allude to, when you bake it you'll basically end up with dried-out egg. It won't have any flavour at all. If you're just reducing the sugar then maybe this isn't a problem. If you're trying to eliminate the sugar entirely or almost entirely then you need to replace it with something - generally, a savory bomb, like very old cheese (for example Reggiano and chives), or very dark chocolate if it must be a dessert.

To do that, just grate or finely chop the strong/savory elements, whip the eggs up to the shiny peak stage, and fold in the shavings at the very end. The meringue will hold up.

But again, and I'm going to repeat myself here - you don't need a lot of sugar for stability. You can easily halve the sugar measurement for a traditional meringue recipe and still have it come out OK (albeit less tasty) - especially if you make one of the more stable meringue types, such as an Italian meringue where the sugar is combined as boiling sugar syrup. But you don't have to do that; simply reducing the sugar is fine if you're careful.

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