6 Frozen Foods You Should Buy

There is a prejudice against frozen food that it isn’t tasty, is inferior to fresh food, or is even unhealthy. We disagree. There are plenty of delicious things that you really should get from the frozen-food aisle.

Whether it’s because we’re too lazy to make them ourselves, or because the products simply taste better frozen: these are the things you should buy frozen.

Fruit

When eating fruit straight out of hand, we always go for fresh fruit, but as soon as you start preparing it, frozen fruit is your go-to. In smoothies, pastries or in your oatmeal: frozen fruit is incredibly versatile and absolutely delicious. Make sure you always have a few boxes in the freezer.

Puff pastry

Puff pastry belongs in the category: ‘tasty, but too much work to make yourself‘. Making it yourself involves something with a hundred layers, all of which need butter between them. What a hassle. Frozen puff pastry is just as tasty, as far as we’re concerned. Especially when you use it to make pandowdy with (frozen) fruit.

Broad beans and peas

The same basically applies to broad beans and peas as to fruit: not necessarily tastier than fresh, but very convenient and versatile to use. They are frozen when super fresh, so hardly any quality is lost. Peas are also so small that you can simply toss them into your nasi in the pan, and they’ll be thawed almost immediately.

Peking duck

FavorFlav’s Emma previously wrote about Peking duck and how she always gets it from the toko’s freezer. Making the crispy duck yourself involves a bicycle pump, and we wonder who actually feels like doing that. And have you ever made Peking duck pancakes? We haven’t—we just get those from the freezer too.

Dumplings

You can buy ready-made dumplings at the toko, or ready-made dumpling wrappers. It all depends on how much effort you do (or don’t) want to put in yourself. Making them yourself is fun, but we also always keep a bag of factory-made dumplings in the freezer. Not as tasty as homemade, but it does the trick when sudden dumpling cravings hit—which happens to us pretty often.

Shrimp

The ‘fresh’ shrimp you buy at the market or from the fishmonger have also always been frozen first, so they are actually less fresh than the ones you get from the freezer aisle. If you can no longer see the wood for the trees when it comes to shrimp, we have a handy guide to help you choose shrimp, so you’ll always pick the right ones.