A process to reduce cholesterol in liquid in natura egg yolk using high methoxyl pectins was optimized by response surface methodology aiming to define the maximum level of cholesterol extraction at a minimum decrease of the yolk protein contend. The most important variables influencing the process were dilution level of egg yolk, ionic strength, and pH of yolk suspension, as well as the amount of pectin gel used in the extraction. The fractionary factorial 2III4 - 1 was applied in the central composite design to determine the minimum number of experiments to be conducted. The yolk suspension conditions for the optimized process were 5 g of yolk, 31.23 g of water, ionic strength of 0.39 mol/L and pH equal to 9.2 using 5.78 g of pectin gel containing 3% of pectin. The egg yolk contends of cholesterol and protein decreased to 14.4% and 88.6%, respectively. © 2007.