Guide: Get the Most Out of Your Freezer
For quick meals, the freezer is your best friend. From a super-quick smoothie to pasta sauces and fried rice. With these ingredients in your freezer, a delicious meal is always closer than you think.
We previously wrote about which products you should always have in your fridge. But for the quickest meals, your freezer might be even more important. I think I could live for two weeks on the things I have collected in my freezer with great care. Luckily, I don’t have to, but it’s a comforting thought to know that there’s always something delicious waiting for you.
Per portion
When freezing large quantities of sauce, stew or minced meat, I divide everything into individual portions in sandwich bags. I put all those bags in a freezer bag, on which I write the product and freezing date. This prevents you from thinking you’ve defrosted a rib-eye, only to discover when you get home that it’s stew (true story).
Be on time
If you already know you want to eat something, take it out of the freezer the night before. Only decide at the last minute? Leave the food in a plastic bag and place it in a bowl of cold water. Depending on its size, it will be defrosted within half an hour to an hour.
Fruit
For a quick crumble, coulis for your yoghurt in the morning or a smoothie that’s ready in under a minute. Always keep a few different kinds of fruit in the freezer. Put yoghurt and frozen fruit in the blender and you have instant delicious ice cream.
For smoothie fans: prepare bags of your favourite fruit combinations in advance, so you can easily throw them into the blender in the morning.
Bananas
Okay, they fall under the fruit category, but bananas deserve their own shout out. Bananas that have become so brown that they’re no longer good to eat fresh? Peel them, cut them into pieces and put them in the freezer. In the freezer they become even riper, which makes them perfect for baking. Hello, delicious banana bread. If you put the frozen banana pieces in the blender, you’ll get wonderfully creamy banana ice cream made with just one ingredient.
Peas and broad beans
Actually, these are the only vegetables I eat from the freezer. They’re frozen just after being picked, so they’re incredibly fresh. Another advantage is that their tiny size means they defrost very quickly. Boil them briefly, drain them, and add a knob of butter and some salt for a simple side dish.
Chicken soup, stew or fried rice? Add some of these little vegetables at the end and your dish immediately gets more colour and a lovely bite. They’re also ideal for cooling bruises and bumps on your head, because the bag moulds completely to your face or body.
Sauce, soup, stew
Tomato sauce, pork shoulder ragù, chilli con carne, courgette soup, rendang, pesto. All things that, if you’re making them anyway, you might as well make in large quantities. You’ll be very happy when you come home after a long day, can heat up a portion and sit down to a feast within ten minutes.
Nuts
Some chopped nuts sprinkled over your dish add a crunchy texture, and that’s delicious. If you keep nuts for too long, they can become chewy and less tasty. The solution? Store them in the freezer, and you’ll always have crunch on your plate.
Ice cubes
Maybe it’s obvious, but I don’t know where I’d be without a large bag of ice cubes in the freezer. A few cubes in a gin & tonic, chilling a bottle of wine in no time or quickly cooling vegetables so they don’t continue cooking. Ice always comes in handy.
Meat and fish
Raw meat and fish in the freezer—again, packed by portion—is also often the key to a good meal. If you prefer to buy everything from the butcher and fishmonger, it’s nearly impossible to pick up something delicious after work.
I always have these in my freezer: prawns (they defrost quickly), chicken thigh fillets (marinate and put them in the oven, or cut them into cubes for the curry) and minced pork (for dumplings, bun cha, mapo tofu and more Asian favourites).
Stock
Making your own stock seems like a lot of work, but all you have to do is throw everything into a pan and wait. Then freeze it in ice cubes or in a plastic piping bag, so you can easily cut off pieces of stock. I always make chicken stock myself, but veal stock from the butcher also keeps longer this way.
Bread
Partly because I don’t eat my bread quickly enough, but also because it’s really useful to always have a few slices in the freezer. To make toast in the morning, or a panini. Just make sure you toast or fry it afterwards, because if you only defrost it, it won’t taste very fresh.
Herbs
Leftover herbs often wither in the vegetable drawer of the fridge. Did you know you can also freeze them very easily? The handiest method is to finely chop your herbs and freeze them with olive oil in cubes. The next time you’re making a delicious piece of fish or a pasta sauce, add a cube and your dish will immediately have much more flavour.
Parmesan rind
Stop throwing away the rinds of your Parmesan cheese and freeze them instead. The next time you make soup, sauce or stew, add one for extra umami.
Pizza dough
Making pizza dough yourself isn’t difficult at all, but because it has to rise, it’s not the ideal activity for a weekday. If you make dough one weekend, freeze a few extra balls, which you can roll out at a moment’s notice for an amazing homemade pizza.
Anchovies
Only use two fillets from your tin of anchovies? You can freeze the rest very well. Because of their high fat content, they never become completely hard, so you can add the little fish directly from the freezer to your dish.
And then some
Have you only chopped half a chilli, or is your ginger starting to deteriorate? Into the freezer it goes. I also always keep lemongrass and lime leaves in my freezer. But if you cook a lot of French food, definitely freeze a mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot). Have a sweet tooth? Bake a cake and freeze it in slices; warm them briefly in the oven or pan and you have a quick dessert. With a little creativity, you’ll always have delicious food at hand.
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