Freezing your food

Freezing food is one of the easiest and quickest ways to hit the pause button and most foods can be frozen – even bananas!

Using your freezer will certainly help you cut the amount of food you throw away by up to a third and with the average family now throwing away nearly £1000 of perfectly edible food away every year, it will bring some massive savings for your too.

Here’s some tips to help you make your freezer your friend

• check your freezer regularly to ensure you are using up the food that has been there the longest
• write on tubs what the item is and the date it was put in the freezer to avoid “UFO’s” (Unidentified Frozen Objects)
• change to frozen vegetables, they are picked and frozen at is prime and has no less nutritional value than fresh
  • they are usually prepped so you can use as much as you want and are ideal for stews, curries or soup
  • most fruit is wasted as we don’t use it in time so buying frozen fruit works just as well if you use it in smoothies, compotes or for baking
• set aside a day for a “freezer forage” and cook up meals that day using just your store cupboard ingredients and stuff from the freezer
• try and fill your freezer as much as possible to enable it to work more efficiently
• allow hot food to cool down naturally before putting it in the freezer, this is particularly important if you are batch cooking
• check the temperature, freezers should be set at -18°C

Foods that can be easily frozen

• cheese, grate cheese and put in an airtight container
• milk can be stored for months and is a great way to reduce the 4.4million glasses worth that goes to waste each day in the UK!
• eggs, break eggs and beat until they are just about blended then put them into an airtight container
• mashed potato, make sure it is cooled properly and then transfer to an airtight container
  • alternatively use an ice-cream scoop to put individual cooks on parchment paper, freeze for an hour and then put into a plastic bag or container
• pasta that is slightly under cook it so it doesn’t go starchy when re-heated
• bananas, freeze them individually without the skin, they do go mushy, but if you use them in banana bread, muffins or smoothies it won’t matter
• butter, wrap it in foil, beeswax wrap or plastic freezer wrap and put into a freezer bag or container, to thaw it quickly either grate it or microwave it
• tomatoes, like bananas they go mushy, but are ideal to use in soup or pasta sauce
• bread, one of the easiest things to freeze, but people forget or don’t know, frozen bread can be put straight from the freezer into a toaster
• chopped chillies and herbs, seal in a tub to avoid frostbite, some herbs don’t freeze as well as others, so mix them with oil or melted butter and put into an ice cube tray
• wine, can be frozen (if there is any left!) put it in ice cube trays to add to stews or bolognaise, it works better with wine that likes to be chilled like white or rosé
• rice – people tend to worry about freezing rice as it can be tricky due to the unique bacteria which may survive some cooking processes
  • however if you cool it quickly and freeze it the same day you won’t have to worry
  • date the tub you have frozen it in and how many portions are in the container
  • when you come to use it defrost it by putting it in the fridge overnight and then make sure it is really hot when reheated
  • either stir fry or steam and make sure the temperature is over 72°C.