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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, Informative) by KritonK on Friday March 27 2020, @05:11PM (3 children)
According to TFA, you can freeze fresh herbs by mixing them with oil and freezing them in an ice cube tray.
You can also chop them and freeze them plain, but depending on the herbs, you might need to blanch them first. (I.e., dip them in boiling water for a minute.) I've had good luck with parsley and dill, frozen fresh. Leaf celery requires blanching. (At least this is what an aunt, who taught me about freezing herbs, told me. I've never tried to freeze unblanched leaf celery, to see what will happen!)
This is very handy for those of us who don't cook often enough or in great enough quantities, to use up an entire bunch of, say, parsley, before it rots in the fridge.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday March 27 2020, @06:04PM (2 children)
Works good for garlic too. Though definitely don't use an ice cube tray you plan on using for water later. :)
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday March 27 2020, @06:19PM (1 child)
I guess you mean freezing garlic with oil in ice cube trays. Chopped or whole cloves?
I tried freezing plain garlic cloves once, without oil, and they turned orange! They were usable, but I don't want to try it again.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Saturday March 28 2020, @09:46AM
Chopped or puree. I have frozen whole cloves too, but you are right it doesn't turn out great.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh