Freezing is one of the easiest way to preserve food. And you don’t need much space to do it.
How many times did you let tomato sauce get ruined in the refrigerator because you forgot that it was there? Or you bought a huge quantity of pesto but can’t use it up?
Freezing in ice cubes it’s the solution for all these problems.
How to use ice cube trays to freeze food
There’s two ways to approach this, they complement each other as they’re useful for different situations.
- Fill up an ice cube tray as soon as you open the package
- Use to just fill out enough to preserve the leftovers
I enjoy making one or two cubes just with leftovers. They’re useful for smaller meals or an additional touch when making meals.
Once the cubes are frozen, you can remove it from the tray and move them to a labeled bag or a glass jar to use later. If you’re going to use a plastic bag, you can wash it later after using up all those cubes and reuse it.
What to freeze in ice cube trays
Sauces
I grew up watching my mom freeze pizza sauce in small cubes. Everytime we made pizza we would defrost a couple of cubes and we were ready to spread the sauce.
Now I still love to freeze tomato sauce but honestly you can pretty much freeze almost any kind of sauce. Pesto, curry, tomato paste, all of these can be frozen with success.
Having the ability to freeze these sauces means that you can make large quantities and eat homemade sauces for weeks! It’s so much easier to eat healthier when you’ve everything at home ready to go.
These sauce cubes are pretty useful when making quick meals. I’ll give you an example: put 2 cubes of pesto in just cooked pasta with a little bit of it’s liquid and serve with fresh tomatoes, there you have it, delicious homemade dinner. There’s nothing better than to cook something quickly after a exhausting day at work.
Fresh Herbs
Fresh herbs can also be frozen in cubes. The trick here is to freeze them in olive oil as the olive oil will help retain their flavor.
To freeze your aromatic herbs all you’ve got to do is finely chop them and put in each cube, then cover with olive oil and put in the freezer.
Don’t forget about the stalks, especially for herbs like coriander, the stalks have a ton of flavor and should be used. By using them, you’re reducing a bit of your kitchen waste, one less thing to go into the trash can.
You can also freeze it in water but in my personal experience I find that the olive oil does keep the flavor better. Try it out and see what works best for you.
Lemon Juice
How many times do we need just a bit of lemon juice to add to that cake recipe or in a dish but we just don’t have it?
Having lemon juice in the freezer will solve this. It’s a good way to use up lemons and in the Winter time and prepare for the following months and the truth is that most of the time you don’t need more than 1 or 2 cubes.
Extra tip: You can also freeze orange juice! Great for orange cake or to add in your smoothies.
Coconut milk
You cooked curry and you have a bit of coconut milk leftover? Don’t let it get forgotten in the fridge.
Freeze it right away and the next time that you cook curry you’re already have coconut milk.
A great way to use up these coconut milk ice cubes it’s to add them to your favorite smoothie for a smoother texture.
Concentrated broth
If you made delicious homemade broth you can let it simmer for longer so it gets reduced and really concentrated. Then you pour it in your ice cube trays and you end up with a homemade broth cube (like those “Knorr” ones) but without the artificial flavors that can be potentially harmful for your health.
There you go, 5 foods you can freeze like ice cubes and not only will help you avoid food waste but also to cook meals more quickly.
Try it out!
There’s a ton of other food that can be frozen in cubes, just experiment and see what works better and what doesn’t.