How to Freeze Food Like the Professionals Do

Freezing leftovers is a terrific strategy in concept. It will make me come to feel like a savvy homesteader, in a position to supply for myself and my beagle by preserving a lasagna for two months. Until I go to thaw a single slice of lasagna and it’s trapped in a giant frozen cheese brick. Which is why I embrace flash freezing, or quickly freezing unique meals parts in advance of packing them away in airtight containers.

There are two different varieties of flash freezing: industrial flash freezing, or blast freezing, which requires freezing foods at cryogenic temperatures, occasionally with the assist of a small liquid nitrogen. Industrial flash freezing will help stops dampness decline in the foods, which is why it’s consistently used by frozen meal corporations.

Read through more

The next type of flash freezing applies to the house cook dinner. Flash freezing at household requires immediately freezing uncovered parts of food stuff, then packing the frozen portions into airtight containers.

Flash freezing is a great alternative for person parts. Flash freezing is primarily helpful for me, considering the fact that I’m nearly usually cooking for 1. If I’m creating a huge casserole—lasagna, for example—flash freezing allows me to thaw and use just 1 or two parts at a time, relatively than thawing the entire casserole and allowing food items go to squander.

Flash freezing may enable develop keep nutrients. For every the Mayo Clinic, flash-frozen create could have additional nutrients than fresh produce. It seems wild, but the flash-freezing actively stops make from degrading, so the deliver retains nutrition better. The Mayo Clinic cites Dr. Stephen Kopecky, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. “We know after it’s picked a couple of months in the past, it starts to decay and loses a ton of its vitamins,” Kopecky suggests in the posting. “So reports have revealed if you can flash-freeze some thing, it will retain its vitamins and minerals superior for the reason that it retains its mobile integrity so the cells really don’t get deformed.”

Tale carries on

As a household cook dinner, you can flash freeze quite considerably anything at all. I’m conversing person cake slices. I’m chatting berries. I’m talking muffins. I’m speaking hamburger patties, cooked or raw.

To get commenced, just whip out a baking sheet or tray that fits in your freezer. Line the sheet with parchment paper or plastic wrap, then include the individual portions of food. Make sure to area the portions out—if the edges touch, the parts will fuse with each other as they freeze.

Freeze the portions, uncovered, for just one to 3 hours or till the parts are business to the contact. For small portions like particular person berries, you can periodically check out in to see if they’ve firmed up.

Eventually, get rid of the food from the sheet and wrap it up tight—either in plastic wrap, resealable freezer luggage, or freezer-safe and sound food items containers. You are going to have properly portioned food items ready to thaw at a moment’s notice.