There are so many ways to utilize your freezer space that many don’t realize. When you strive to make home cooked and scratch made meals, it’s important to have a nice stock pile of the staples- like dairy products, breads, broths, frozen at peak freshness fruits and veggies. And one of most underutilized appliances in a home cooks kitchen is a chest freezer. If you don’t have a chest freezer or even an upright freezer, you can still put some of these hacks into practice.
- First and foremost – when things go on sale – even fresh items – you can buy extra and freeze for later. You can also buy things in bulk to portion out and freeze, to save money as well. It’s important to use food storage and containers that are meant to be used in a freezer. So use Freezer zipper bags specifically and not just regular zipper bags.
- Whenever you want to freeze something that has to be processed into smaller cuts (like fruits and vegetables), you should first lay them flat in a single layer on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Then, place them in the freezer for about an hour before transferring to a zippered bag or container. This ensures that the individual pieces don’t just become a single giant clump.
- Dairy is one of the best things to freeze – as it unfreezes as if it was never frozen. You can freeze everything from block to shredded cheese, soft cheese, hard cheese, gallons of milk or heavy cream. All you have to do is place it in the refrigerator to thaw out. If you need the milk thawed quicker, you can fill your sink with cool water and place the milk jug in to thaw quicker.
- Bread products also freeze so well. Bagels, muffins, sandwich bread, whole sourdough boule, rolls, and more. For the most part, you just thaw them on the counter. When it come to whole (uncut) loaves like a sourdough boule – you want to run the boule under cool water and place in a 450degF oven for 10 minutes. It will be as crisp on the outside and soft in the middle as the day it went into the freezer.
- Use ice cube trays for way more than ice cubes. You can make broth cubes – perfect for soups and stews. You can freeze leftover coffee to be used in – and not water down – your iced coffee. You can press cookie dough into the trays to make individual cookies – ready to be made one or three at a time as you like.
- If you want to reduce your waste by using your kitchen produce scraps but you don’t create it fast enough – this is the tip for you. Use a gallon sized freezer bag to collect your scapes over time in the freezer. Once the bag is full, add to large stock pot with plenty of water and bring to boil. The reduce to a simmer until cooked down. Then pass through a sieve and enjoy the most flavorful broth.
A lot of the process of cooking a meal is in the techniques used to do different things. Sometimes it is about having the right tools and gadgets to achieving different things. But other times it is simply about having the knowledge of how to do different things – like how to roll a burrito up, or how peel, seed and dice a cucumber. Obviously there are some things that are purely logical and other things you would never have thought of if someone else didn’t show you. So I wanted to create a series of Kitchen Tips, Tricks & Hacks that I have picked up along the way to make my cooking experience more efficient, easier and even sometimes more fun! Obviously as the old adage goes – “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” – which is 10000% true – so if you have another way to do one of these things – please tell us in the comments.
Do you have any kitchen tips, tricks or hacks that you want to share? Do you have any ideas on other tips, ticks or hack you want to see?
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Now Let’s Get Cookin’!
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Estelle Forrest self-published this cookbook after a lot of playing around in the kitchen. You can purchase your own copy here:
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