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Foods you can freeze besides meat and produce:
A freezer can be a highly useful appliance in your kitchen. You probably already use it to store staples such as frozen veggies and ground beef. However, you may have wondered about other items, especially if you're stocking up to shelter at home to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus. Can you freeze milk, for instance? What about eggs and cheese?
As you'll see, there are several dry and refrigerated pantry items you can freeze too.
[...] All foods will last indefinitely in a frozen state. However, the food is only as fresh as the state it was in prior to freezing. Once it defrosts, it must be used as soon as possible. In general, frozen food will keep for three months in a standard home freezer. The FDA has specific recommendations for the shelf life for foods, but if you aren't using your frozen goods within three months, you're probably buying too much.
[...] According to the USDA, you can freeze almost any food. However, some foods don't freeze well; apples and pears will turn mushy when defrosted, cream sauces will separate and raw tomatoes will never be the same (but you can still put them in sauces).
Fortunately, there are many foods that freeze and defrost beautifully. So, go ahead and stock up on these 10 pantry staples you can freeze:
There are caveats and cautions listed with several of these items, so be sure to read the source article for details before proceeding! The items listed are:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Cheese
- Butter
- Bread
- Flour
- Chocolate
- Fresh herbs
- Cooked rice and pasta
- Nuts
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday March 27 2020, @04:05PM (3 children)
Why would you freeze flour? It's a dry good, and lasts for years.
Why would you freeze nuts? They last for years (OK, some better than others).
Personally, my fresszing advice would be: Make 5 times the amount you need, and freeze 60% of it in meal-sized portions. Voila - instant meal some time in the future. Curries, chillis, spag bol (sans spag), stews, etc. all keep fantastically.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Friday March 27 2020, @04:40PM
I think freezing/refrigerating keeps the grain/nut oils from oxidizing (?) and otherwise spoiling at room temperature. Chocolate is solid through-and-through, so I bet nothing can penetrate the surface to cause it to spoil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @06:27PM (1 child)
"Why would you freeze flour? It's a dry good, and lasts for years."
Not when these buggers get in there, which freezing prevents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confused_flour_beetle [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:25AM
Pantry moths are another thing that you may need to refridgerate dry goods for, they'll chew their way through thick plastic packaging and get into what should be sealed airtight containers.