Five Reasons to Love Your Freezer
Prior to the pandemic, I had a frosty relationship with my freezer. I used it primarily to store frozen pizza and keep pints of ice cream on hand for brownie/cookie accompaniments. Occasionally, the freezer became a site for abandoned leftovers, despite my best intentions to eat them at some future date. But for the most part, pre-pandemic, I considered the freezer an afterthought in the kitchen.
Since the pandemic, however, I’ve grown to appreciate the freezer as a real workhorse in the kitchen. It comes to the rescue when I’m too exhausted to make anything from scratch, and it’s there when I need a little shortcut or two to nudge me along. Plus, it acts like a little time capsule on anything delicious I’ve made, but can’t eat all in one go. Here are five ways to take advantage of your freezer and use it to its full potential (but on that note, don’t stuff it too the gills, as it runs most efficiently when below 75% capacity!):
1. Leftovers. This obvious use case fully eluded me pre-pandemic, but once I got a handle on all my storage vessels, the rest is history. If you make a big batch of soup, for instance, pour half into a vessel and freeze it for some future soup (just make sure to let it cool to room temperature beforehand, otherwise it can raise the temperature of your freezer). This technique will save you from leftover fatigue, which happens when you’re stuck with too much soup in your fridge and only have a few days to eat it. With the help of the freezer, you can space out your leftovers and get excited to revisit something you made a while ago (but not that long ago; three months for soups and stews is a good benchmark).
2. Bread. Frozen bread! Have you guys met? Before I discovered that freezers were the perfect storage haven for bread, I thought the only acceptable place was the bread box. The main problem, aside from the fact that it monopolizes all your counter space, is that it assumes you’ll eat all the bread before it goes stale. Enter the freezer. Now, if I buy a loaf of sourdough (haven’t gotten around to making my own just yet), I’ll slice it up, keep it in its original packaging, and then pop a frozen slice in the toaster when it’s peanut butter jelly time.
3. Baked goods. If you’ve baked a cake and can’t finish the whole thing in one go, don’t dump it! Give yourself the gift of future cake, courtesy of the freezer. They say that married couples should freeze the top tier of their cake and eat it a year later to symbolize good luck and yada yada, but you don’t have to be a newlywed to freeze your cake! Try it and you won’t be disappointed (just leave it out on the counter to thaw out for a few hours beforehand, or if you’re impatient like I am, cold cake is also tasty). I also freeze surplus cookies with great success and then pop them in the microwave whenever a craving strikes (e.g. these sugar cookies freeze extraordinarily well, buttercream frosting and all).
4. Fruits and vegetables. Don’t underestimate the power of frozen produce, such as the frozen pea and the frozen raspberry (two of my faves). These frosted gems are picked at peak freshness and ripeness, which also means they’re the most nutritious. If you’d rather not spend a silly $10 on pints of out-of-season berries, then the frozen kind will be your new BFF (I add them to smoothies and on top of my granola, but I skip the frozen strawberries altogether which freeze pitifully IMO). Frozen veg works for those moments when you’re fresh out of fresh produce and you’re in need of something green/veggie-related. I incorporate frozen peas into rice, farro, or steam with a nice pat of butter and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. The bottom line is: frozen fruits and vegetables are excellent stand-ins for fresh produce, or as solid meal accompaniments in their own right (e.g. this retro chicken and frozen pea traybake from Nigella Lawson).
5. Homemade broth. At first glance, this last one seems terribly unexciting, but it’s the secret sauce that makes lots of savory things taste better. If you don’t make your own veggie broth, you might try it and see how simple it is to make; but if you can’t be bothered to hoard veggie scraps, that’s okay too––there are always those tetra pak containers of veggie broth to save the day. Whenever a recipe calls for veggie broth, I reach for a frozen jar, douse it in boiling hot water in the sink, and then pour that brothy goodness into the pot. Voila.