Plan ahead
Preparing meals in advance and portioning out meat, fruit and vegetables to be frozen can save money, avoid waste and cut the time you spend cooking.
Some foods freeze particularly well, says Lisa Marley, a chef. “Soups, stews, casseroles, and baked goods are great because they maintain their flavour and texture after freezing.”
The key to making savings is to cook in large batches, Marley adds. “Double or triple recipes to save time and ingredients.”
Package properly
Once cooked, pack the meals in the portions you will eat them in. There is no point in defrosting four portions if you are dining solo as this may lead to waste.
Likewise, when freezing meats, it is best to portion out how much you are likely to use. Recipes tend to be in 100g increments, so divide 500g of minced beef into five 100g balls and then freeze them on a covered tray before transferring them into a bag. It may sound like a faff but doing that can mean you avoid having groups of them stuck together when you only need a couple. Do the same with individual sausages as well.
Freezer burn is what happens when food items are exposed to cold, dry air, resulting in them dehydrating and forming ice crystals, which affects quality. To avoid it, take time to package food properly before you put it in the freezer.
The first step is to make sure that food is cooled to room temperature, Marley says. After that, you should use vacuum-sealed bags, freezer-safe containers or aluminium foil to keep burn at bay.
Again, planning is very important, says Ben Ebbrell, a chef who co-founded the YouTube channel Sorted Food. “The likes of Tupperware are convenient options and they stack well, although they often result in you locking in and freezing (sometimes large) pockets of air, thus wasting valuable space in the freezer,” he says.
“A brilliant hack is to fill quality liquid-proof zip slider bags with stews, casseroles, curries, soups and the like … when they are cooled, lay them flat and squeeze out all excess air. They then lay to freeze and stack well; it also helps it to defrost quicker due to a larger surface area.”
Use labels
Once food is packed, label packaging with the name of the dish and when it was frozen. You can buy freezer labels cheaply (Dunelm has packs of 250 for £3, for example), or buy a reusable, erasable version (Dunelm’s costs £1.50 for 70) or a chalk marker pen and write on to the bag or container and rub it off afterwards (Uni-Balls get good reviews – you can get two for £5 from Asda).
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) says meat is best eaten within two to three months of going in the freezer, while baked goods, fruit and vegetables will last up to four months.
“One other tip would be to include any simple allergies if you sometimes cook for friends or family who require certain things,” Ebbrell says.
“For example, a friend of mine is lactose intolerant and if I cook a dish that has ‘hidden’ dairy in it – starting it off in butter, or with a roux, or with grated cheese in it – then I label that so if I later defrost for an impromptu dinner I’m still aware of what it contains.”
Don’t freeze everything
In theory, you can freeze anything to extend its life – but some things freeze better than others as quality, structure and texture can change.
“Fruits with a lot of water content are great frozen for a future time if they are later to be cooked, stewed or baked,” Ebbrell says. “The challenge is they go mushy. Some fruits, tomatoes and soft-stoned fruit, for instance, and aromatic ingredients like ginger, garlic and chillies are brilliantly frozen and can be quickly prepared by grating them while still frozen, so you only take what you need for a dish.”
Cooked meals with rice do not fare well when frozen because the cold temperatures alter the texture of the grain. A risotto can come back very mushy when defrosted, as can pasta. To get around this, it is best to freeze the sauce and then cook the pasta fresh when you want to eat.
Marley says raw eggs in their shells, cream and watermelon, as well as fried foods, do not hold up well.
Use your ice trays
You can portion out stocks and other liquids to use them in the most efficient way with your ice tray. So if a recipe requires a small shot of stock, you can put in a cube instead of thawing a whole block.
In the same way, sauces for young children’s meals can be stored and defrosted when necessary. “You can even blend fruits and yoghurt and freeze them in cubes, and have smoothie packs ready to go,” Marley says.
Buying garlic, ginger and chilli in bulk can be cheaper and more convenient. Crushing or chopping them and mixing them with water or oil before putting them in trays gives them extra life, Ebbrell says. “Flavour bombs like homemade curry pastes, pestos, gremolata or chimichurri also work a treat,” he says.
If you do not have a tray already, buy one with a lid, otherwise your ingredients risk freezer burn, says Aliya Porter, a nutritionist from the Nutritionist Resource directory. (John Lewis sells a well-reviewed one for £6.50.)
Otherwise, put the cubes of ingredients into a sealed bag once they are frozen.
Thaw it properly
The freezer acts as a pause button for food, according to the FSA. It will not go bad and bacteria will not grow. But it is not a time machine, so food that has one day left before its use-by date when frozen has the same amount of time when defrosted and cannot be left in the fridge for a few days.
The safest way to defrost food is to move it to the fridge the day before you need it, according to Marley. “For quicker options, seal the food in a watertight bag and submerge it in cold water, changing the water every 30 minutes. If you are in a hurry, use the microwave’s defrost setting, but make sure to cook the food immediately afterward,” she says.
Or use it frozen
Frozen cooked apples can be put with yoghurt for a quick dessert, Porter says.
If you use the zest of a lemon or a lime but not the fruit, you can cut it up and freeze it for drinks in the future, Ebbrell says. Cubes of frozen leftover filter coffee can be put into iced coffee and will not dilute the drinks.
For a simple lunch, he says, you can freeze ripe tomatoes and then grate them over a bowl of burrata with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some fresh herbs.
