Photo: Andrea_R / Flickr

There is a lot one can do with one’s freezer – like using it as a one stop shop by freezing ready made meals like soups, casseroles, pastry, vanilla pods, purees, meat, peas, shrimps, pine nuts and raspberries. The freezer is particularly useful for stocks and sauces – just take a frozen block of stock out of your freezer and pop it into a sauce. Don’t forget to name and date whatever you have frozen. Read on for more useful freezing tips.

What’s good to freeze

It’s okay to freeze butter if you’re going to cook with it or make pastry. Soups, stocks and casseroles are good for freezing but don’t add dairy like cheese or cream before you freeze them. Cheese sauces freeze well though, as do tomato sauces, gravy, pesto, fruit and vegetable purees – all of which are suited to being frozen in ice cube trays.

What to avoid freezing

Slow freezing is not ideal as it causes large, sharp crystals in products like fish which, when defrosted, become soft and lose essential textures and flavours. If your freezer can’t freeze quickly then avoid freezing delicate products that have a high water content.

Dairy products like milk and yoghurt do not freeze well and neither do fruits that contain a lot of water. Egg whites can be frozen but not whole eggs unless they are frozen without the shells.

More freezing tips

Food must be frozen quickly so avoid placing warm or hot products in the freezer –they should be cold before you freeze them. Liquids can be frozen in ice cube trays, which can then be turned out into bags in convenient portions. This works well for sauces and stocks. Meat pieces should be individually wrapped and well spaced out in a drawer or tray.

Defrosting tips

Don’t re-freeze products that have defrosted. It’s okay, though, to freeze a defrosted product that you have cooked. Refrain from defrosting meat in the microwave, rather allow it to defrost in a container in the fridge ‑ the microwave is good for defrosting liquid products like soups and sauces.

Make the most of your freezer by keeping it well stocked but try not to overload it. For more freezing tips, visit the BBC’s Good Food site.

Tags: cooking, freezer