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Daily Dish the Sonoma Market blog

marinating chicken with Stasher bags, rice and beans

Freezer Hacks

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Your freezer is your friend when it comes to effective food prep. From putting leftovers on ice to batch prepping and freezing individual meal components ahead of time, with these pro tips, you’ll be wasting less and working less in no time! 

Your freezer is your friend when it comes to effective food prep. From putting leftovers on ice to batch prepping and freezing individual meal components ahead of time, with these pro tips, you’ll be wasting less and working less in no time! 

Workflow Tips for Flawless Freezing: 

  • To start your freezer stash, try to make 6–8 complete meals and/or meal components using freezer-friendly recipes.
  • Freeze in portions of 2, 4 or more depending on your family size.
  • Freeze anything you won’t be eating that same night because life is unpredictable and it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to wasting food and effort.
  • Rotate your freezer meals and recipe components to safeguard quality and limit waste. Try to limit freezer time to less than 4 months to keep your food (and menu!) fresh.
  • Once you get started, if you make 4 recipes on any given weekend, you’ll only need to batch cook every other weekend (or less)!

Waste-Saving Tricks: Fruit on the turn? Don’t care for bread crusts? Too many burger buns? Use these pro tips to reduce food waste and make the most out of every ingredient!

  • Freeze ripe bananas for smoothies, banana bread and pancakes.
  • Spread berries out on a sheet pan and freeze, then bag frozen berries for future use in smoothies, desserts or recipes.
  • Freeze broccoli and mushroom stems in a bag to save until you have enough to make a batch of broccoli or mushroom soup.
  • When buying a pack of burger buns, freeze any extras in portion sizes appropriate to your family size on the first day so they stay fresh for when you need the rest.
  • Use a food processor to grind bread crusts and heels into fine crumbs, then freeze. Use to make seasoned breadcrumbs for garnishing soups, pasta and more!
    • How to Make Breadcrumbs
      • Preheat oven to 400°F.
      • Spread raw breadcrumbs out on a sheet pan.
      • Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, add a sprinkle of ground Parmesan cheese and fresh parsley, then mix by hand.
      • Toast in oven, stirring every 5 minutes until toasty brown.

Maximize your freezer pantry potential by working it into your Meal Plan!