What to Keep in Your Freezer and Save Money!

What to keep in the freezer

Let's go beyond coming home and dumping the meat you're not cooking tonight, the frozen veggies in the bags, and maybe the ice cream. Let's save money by using our freezers to actually make our cooking easier. None of this is difficult. It just means thinking ahead. 

Note: Label your bags before you get your fingers wet or covered in food!

And while we're at it, use good freezer bags. They're thicker than sandwich bags and made to hold up while in the freezer. Call it an investment in the future. You can write directly on the bag with a Sharpie. Don't forget to include the date so you can rotate out the oldest to use first. 

I highly recommend a deep freezer if at all possible. After you see what you can store, you’re going to need extra room. While chest freezers are more efficient and can hold large items, upright freezers give you better access to your stored items. It's up to you. 

Tomato paste – make small scoops and freeze on a cookie sheet. Store in bag. Tomato paste in recipes rarely uses up the whole can. Stop wasting the remainder. Freeze it and use it next time. 

Hot Peppers- Cut, seed, store in bag. Get those hot peppers as they come available and have them ready when you need them. 

Cooked beans- Cook ahead of time and store in 1 cup measures. Great for using the Hot Pot or crock pot. Cook, cool, ladle into bags, store flat. 

Ginger- peel, cut in chunks. Freeze individually. You don't often need a large amount for any one recipe. 

Bread- whole in one bag, ends for bread pudding or crumbs in another. Make those rolls and biscuits ahead of time, but slightly underdone if you plan on warming them. Same goes for pancakes, waffles, and French toast.

Go-to meals- Make a few casseroles and other meals ahead of time in foil containers with foil covers. Label the foil cover. Or, make that family favorite as a double batch and store half for another day. 

Meats in marinades- Pour the marinade over the meat, freeze flat. While they thaw, they’re marinating all day. One less thing to do in the morning. 

Nuts- nuts go rancid. Freeze them individually on a cookie sheet, then store in a bag. Take out what you need, fresh as the day you bought them. 

Thin cutlets- Cut meat thin, stow in a bag, freeze flat or individually in their own bag. Easy to thaw or cut frozen if you need a bit of meat in a hurry.  

Cooked rice- same as beans. A great way to have it on hand for recipes.

Specialty flours- There’s nothing more frustrating than buying an expensive specialty flour to use in one recipe, and it goes bad or gets insects in it long before you use it up. Stow it in a bag in the freezer. Problem solved.

Compounded butter- mix in food processor, scoop, freeze, store. A great way to store herbs from the garden like basil.

Bananas- peel, store whole. This is a great trick to salvage the bananas that were too ripe and the skins too brown to be appetizing. 

Grapes- freeze without stems, store. In fact, this works with many fruits. Those that might brown can be tossed with a little lemon juice. Peaches and strawberries in January! It's worth the trouble to cut and "stone" the peaches for the delightful taste in mid-winter. 

Stocks and broths- Make in the crock pot, strain, cool, skim off the fat (or not), and freeze in 1-2 cup measures. Carefully label! A stock is not a broth, or vice-versa. Stock is made with bones and has collagen to make it thick. Broth is made with meat (usually the not-great meats like chicken wings and backs).

Puff pastry- once you know how to use this miraculous invention, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. Catch the sales around holiday time. 

Sauces- Make your own sauces and store the extra. 

Unbaked pies, pie shells, baked cakes, and quick breads- You’ll never be without something to feed surprise guests. 

Cookie dough- make the dough, thaw, then make the cookies at holiday time. People will call you a genius. 

Smoothie packs- smoothies on a hot day, straight from the freezer to the blender? Yes, please!

Coffee- Frozen coffee brews just fine straight from the freezer.

Eggs- Yes, eggs! However, there's a trick. Separate the eggs. I use a slotted spoon and hold it over an ice cube tray. The white goes in one slot, the yolk in another. I've done this to duck eggs, which are pricey, but make the best pound cake in the world. Once the eggs are frozen, you can pop them out of the tray and pop them into a freezer bag. Just thaw before you use.