Foods You Can Freeze – Save Time & Money!
See Foods You Can Freeze- our big list to help you save time and money!
Why Freeze Foods?
When you think of stocking up and freezing foods, you might picture the grandparents carefully storing away food for future use. You might think it's something you don't need to be bothered with now.
However, there are a lot of practical reasons why you should be freezing foods for later use! Take a look below.
Foods You Can Freeze Cut Costs
If you follow our money saving blog Consumerqueen.com, you know that we talk about buying up items when they are cheap and free. It makes zero sense to try to use a coupon or money saving app- only to throw those foods away later because they went bad.
Freezing helps keep that money in your pocket by actually allowing you to use more of the foods you bought!
Freezing Allows You to Save Foods at Peak Quality
One of my favorite things to freeze is fresh vegetables. We don't have a large family at home– it's just my husband and I now!
This means that unless I buy very small portions of fresh vegetables, I will probably not use them all up by the time they are a bit past their prime!
Even if your veggies last a full week (and they usually don't, lets face it), they won't taste their best. By Freezing any extras the day you get home from the grocery store, you lock in those flavors for good until you're ready to add your vegetables to your meals.
Freezing Fresh Veggies:
Some may argue that the texture or moisture content of fresh vegetables can change with freezing. While this is technically true, we don't usually mind frozen vegetables in small portions. For example, stir fry meals are just fine if you're using frozen vegetables. We also freeze cut okra to fry, and peppers for fajitas!
If I am making a full pan of roasted vegetables however, I will want those fresh and not previously frozen. It depends on how you cook. I love having the option of a few veggies in the freezer ready to go, for those end of the week meals before my next shopping trip. It will save you from a fast food run, I promise! 🙂
Tips on Freezing for Best Quality:
- Do not freeze foods while wet. Wash and rinse fresh foods, and allow to fully dry prior to freezing.
- Invest in good freezer quality storage bins.
- Label Properly and Date! Important!
- Use Freezer Quality Storage bags
- Freeze flat- avoid clumps of rock solid vegetables that take a long time to thaw.
- You can thaw in the fridge or on the counter- as long as there is not any meat in the container. Do not thaw in the microwave for best results.
- Use a FoodSaver. You can ensure all the air is out of the bags- one of our favorite ways to preserve food!
- Do not freeze foods while hot. Allow to cool to room temperature first.
While freezing green beans, broccoli and meats is a no-brainer, there are actually a LOT of other things in your kitchen you can preserve for longer by freezing. Take a look at these surprising Foods You Can Freeze:
More Foods You Can Freeze:
- Shredded Cheese – Add a little cornstarch before you freeze and it will help keep the cheese from sticking together.
- Chips – Yes you can! It preserves the freshness and they never freeze solid. You can eat them right out of the freezer.
- Saltine Crackers
- Bread- Wrap in foil or paper towel then place in freezer bag. Do not let any moisture in or out.
- Baked Goods
- Coffee
- Tea Bags
- Berries & other Fruits – Buy them in season and freeze at the peak of freshness. You won't have to pay higher prices in the off season. Bananas should be peeled.
- Nuts
- Herbs
- Pasta sauce
- Granola
- Yogurt – May not be the same consistency but great for baking and smoothies.
- Cut up veggies and freeze for later.
- Freeze leftovers of course.
- Meats (a given)
- Dried beans
- Cooked Pasta
- Flour & Sugar – can be used directly from the freezer.
- Cream Cheese – Crumbles when it freezes but great for baking.
- Cake mixes, brownie mixes, Jiffy cornbread mix.
Foods You Can Freeze- Special Instructions:
There are a few more on our list, but they require special instructions or you can end up with a not-edible end product. For example, you can freeze eggs and cooked rice. See our links below:
More tips on freezing foods:
- Butter : Freeze in original packaging, place in a bag with air removed. It will keep for 6-9 months.
- Candy: Yep, freeze it in it’s bag and thaw it out later. Catch after-holiday sales for the best deals.
- Bread: Freeze bread for shorter uses in it’s own packaging, if you wish to freeze it for long term use, double bag.
- Bananas: Before freezing, remove the peel and place in freezer bags.
- Dough such as bread, cakes, cookies, rolls: It is best to freeze these uncooked after the first rise and prior to the second rise. Pull out, rise on the counter 30 minutes-1 hour, and throw them in the oven.
- Milk can be frozen up to six months. However, the consistency after being frozen may not be very pleasing. It could be used for baking and cooking if the frozen-then-thawed version is not appealing.
Full Meals!
If you prefer to Freezer Cook or have a larger family and benefit from saving time when you're cooking meals, you can also freeze Parts of Meals or Full Meals. Here are a few tips.
- Break apart hamburger meat into 1 lb batches. Cook up the batches with different seasonings such as taco, spaghetti and season salts. When you need a quick meal you just thaw and heat up.
- Make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrap them in plastic wrap, and then cover with foil and freeze them. Label and Put them in your kids lunchboxes and they will thawed by lunch time.
- Make up batches of waffles and pancakes and separate them by wax paper. Kids can pop them in the toaster.
- If your freezing casserole type meals to go directly into the freezer, add a little extra liquid as it will thicken when frozen.
- Do you always have just a little bit of veggies left over from your meal? Instead of throwing it away add it to a freezer bag. Keep adding different left over veggies to the same baggy and use it for vegetable soup.
- Freeze bacon grease in ice cube trays then store in freezer baggies.
- Freeze Soups and Other Liquid-based Foods in Mason Jars! See Freezing In Mason Jars Here!
- Use recipes you can cook from frozen! See our 4 Freezer Meals Post Here!
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My husband taught me a cool trick! Don’t tell him I told you! 🙂 When freezing pb & j sandwiches coat both sides of the bread with pb so the jelly doesn’t make the bread soggy by the time it thaws!
Thanks Dee I won’t tell 🙂
love this post! thanks for the info!
I freeze almost everything! I keep my flour, corn meal, pancake mixes, dry powdered goods, cookies, boxes of cake mix. Basically everything that could potentially get bugs inside over long periods of time without being used I freeze.
I also freeze tomatoes from the garden. These work great for making your own sauces and to be used in cooking.
if you are growing tomatoes to can, you can freeze them right off the vine. when the weather is cooler (so you dont heat your house up in summer) you can take them out, run water over them and the peel slips right off, then can them. ta da! canning fresh tomatoes in the fall or winter helps keep the house warm!
Love it thanks 🙂
We like to camp, so I fill lots of margarine tubs with water and put in freezer. When frozen I pop ice block out and put in large plastic bag. (Any container with sloped sides works well as the ice removes more freely from them.) I keep large bags of this ice ready for the coolers for when we go camping. Sure saves money! I used to try filling plastic water bottles & milk jugs then freezing them – but found that just throwing them frozen and still in containers in cooler didn’t seem to chill as well as unwrapped ice. Fortunately we have several freezers, so have space for this.
Great idea. Thanks for sharing!
I love to prep my thanksgiving dinner weeks in advance and freeze them. So all I have to do is thaw and heat, or just bake. My favorite is the baked macaroni and cheese and fresh collard greens
Can I freeze cream cheese or not,,,
I buy bell peppers and celery on sale. Take them home and clean and cut them so that when I’m cooking, all I have to do is reach in my bag and they are ready to go for recipes. Since they were frozen, they become tender faster when cooking. I have grandkids that don’t like to see the green stuff in what I’ve cooked. I also grow garlic and mince the garlic into thin blocks in zip locks so I always have garlic to pinch off as much as needed to put in a recipe. The only thing that I have found that doesn’t freeze well is onion. It loses its flavor.
Thanks for the tip Vicky!
You said you could freeze eggs, do you just remove eggs from shell and put in freezer bag or do you have to break the yoke and mix them up before the freezer bag?
If using in cooking you can chop and freeze Onions and peeled Garlic, Scallions I also freeze shredded cheese…I don’t throw out as much as I used to.
Great tip! Thanks you!!!
can u freeze mushrooms? and how should u freeze them if so?
I grow lots of onions so for some that spoil faster like sweet onions, I caramelize them in butter or O oil then freeze them. They keep their flavour, and all the hard work is done. Just add to French onion soups and stews for months after the garden is done.
Whole lemons just take out and grate then pop it back in the freezer and you can just grate right into the flesh. Anther thing tho I have never done it is cabbage but you have to take out the core
I freeze milk and what we do to fix the problem of it being too weak is instead of freezing skin or 1% we freeze 2% when thawed it has the right consistency.
These are all great tips thanks for sharing!