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Q&A What cooked foods are easy to freeze?

Pesto Not a whole meal, but the key part of a quick meal: Our annual pesto production goes into ice cube trays, then into freezer bags once the cubes have frozen. A few cubes at a time can be pul...

posted 6mo ago by Spamalot‭  ·  edited 6mo ago by Michael‭

Answer
#2: Post edited by user avatar Michael‭ · 2024-05-10T02:20:20Z (6 months ago)
Headings. Move some parentheticals to footnotes.
  • Not a whole meal, but the key part of a quick meal:
  • Our annual pesto production goes into ice cube trays, then into freezer bags once the cubes have frozen. A few cubes at a time can be pulled out for either refrigerator defrosting or microwave quick defrosting and then used as pesto sauce on pizza, directly spread on bread, or as sauce on pasta.
  • We do the same with "garlic scape pesto" (a non-basil product) when it's garlic scape season, and with a beet tehina in beet season.
  • A local grocer often has large amounts of chicken or pork on sale stupid-cheap. Far more than we'd eat in a week. I'll braise up the whole 5 lb or so package and then put meal-sized portions of cooked meat with some of the broth in freezer bags or reusable take-out containers, and the remainder of the broth frozen in a container as a soup base. I suppose one could finish that as soup before freezing. The bit of broth in with each meat portion is primarily to help reduce drying out in storage.
  • Soups have already been mentioned.
  • I make a somewhat non-traditional (because I like it, not because you couldn't do something more traditional) felafel patty (_being a patty itself is part of being non-traditional_) which I bake since I hate fussing with enough hot oil to fry, and those freeze well when formed but before cooking. They can go straight in the oven from the freezer (and likely could be fried that way as well.)
  • As with anything in the freezer minimizing airspace in the container and storage time in the freezer improves results, as more airspace and time allows more water to vaporize from the food and reform as ice crystals elsewhere in the container. Which is not to say I haven't fairly happily consumed some stuff that's got a touch of freezer burn after being in there quite a while.
  • ### Pesto
  • Not a whole meal, but the key part of a quick meal:
  • Our annual pesto production goes into ice cube trays, then into freezer bags once the cubes have frozen. A few cubes at a time can be pulled out for either refrigerator defrosting or microwave quick defrosting and then used as pesto sauce on pizza, directly spread on bread, or as sauce on pasta.
  • ### Other vegetable sauces
  • We do the same with "garlic scape pesto" (a non-basil product) when it's garlic scape season, and with a beet tehina in beet season.
  • ### Meat
  • A local grocer often has large amounts of chicken or pork on sale stupid-cheap. Far more than we'd eat in a week. I'll braise up the whole 5 lb or so package and then put meal-sized portions of cooked meat with some of the broth in freezer bags or reusable take-out containers, and the remainder of the broth frozen in a container as a soup base. I suppose one could finish that as soup before freezing. The bit of broth in with each meat portion is primarily to help reduce drying out in storage.
  • ### Soup
  • Soups have already been mentioned.
  • ### Falafel
  • I make a somewhat non-traditional[^falafel] falafel patty[^patty] which I bake, since I hate fussing with enough hot oil to fry, and those freeze well when formed but before cooking. They can go straight into the oven from the freezer (and likely could be fried that way as well).
  • ### Summary
  • As with anything in the freezer, minimizing airspace in the container and storage time in the freezer improves results. More airspace and time allows more water to vaporize from the food and reform as ice crystals elsewhere in the container. On the other hand, I've fairly happily consumed some stuff that's got a touch of freezer burn after being in there quite a while.
  • [^falafel]: Non-traditional because I like it that way, not because you couldn't do something more traditional.
  • [^patty]: Falafel being a patty at all is part of being non-traditional.
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Spamalot‭ · 2024-05-09T00:57:00Z (6 months ago)
Not a whole meal, but the key part of a quick meal:

Our annual pesto production goes into ice cube trays, then into freezer bags once the cubes have frozen. A few cubes at a time can be pulled out for either refrigerator defrosting or microwave quick defrosting and then used as pesto sauce on pizza, directly spread on bread, or as sauce on pasta.

We do the same with "garlic scape pesto" (a non-basil product) when it's garlic scape season, and with a beet tehina in beet season.

A local grocer often has large amounts of chicken or pork on sale stupid-cheap. Far more than we'd eat in a week. I'll braise up the whole 5 lb or so package and then put meal-sized portions of cooked meat with some of the broth in freezer bags or reusable take-out containers, and the remainder of the broth frozen in a container as a soup base. I suppose one could finish that as soup before freezing. The bit of broth in with each meat portion is primarily to help reduce drying out in storage.

Soups have already been mentioned. 

I make a somewhat non-traditional (because I like it, not because you couldn't do something more traditional) felafel patty (_being a patty itself is part of being non-traditional_) which I bake since I hate fussing with enough hot oil to fry, and those freeze well when formed but before cooking. They can go straight in the oven from the freezer (and likely could be fried that way as well.)

As with anything in the freezer minimizing airspace in the container and storage time in the freezer improves results, as more airspace and time allows more water to vaporize from the food and reform as ice crystals elsewhere in the container. Which is not to say I haven't fairly happily consumed some stuff that's got a touch of freezer burn after being in there quite a while.