Take it from me: Your freezer’s not just a crutch on busy nights or a final resting place for unlabeled mystery foods. It’s your strong and silent secret weapon in the kitchen. I spoke with the Epi staff and dug into my own freezer’s depths to find the essential tips, tricks, and hacks that really make the freezer cool (see what I did there?).
When Epi’s associate food editor Kat Sacks wants a layer cake to look restaurant-caliber sharp, she freezes the baked cake to remove the top crumbly layer easier. Once the cake is frozen, just let it thaw at room temp for just a few minutes, and you'll find you can rub off the top crumbly part. What lies beneath: a smooth cake foundation for a gorgeous frosting job.
Did you freeze your sliced bread for a rainy (or carb-hungry) day? You're already ahead of the game, since you can toast those slices straight from frozen. The one catch: Prying apart frozen slices of bread, which can make you wonder why your kitchen doesn’t have a crowbar. Epi’s product manager andsourdough obsessive Laura Wolfgangplaces a square of parchment paper between each slice of bread, wraps the stack of slices in a piece of foil, and then stashes it in a resealable freezer bag in the (you guessed it) freezer for effortless toasting later.
Keeping fresh kale and spinach in the freezer allows you to save time and put together a faster dish, like thispasta with kale and breadcrumbs. Just prep those greens before you freeze them, and they'll be ready to go whenever you are. Rinse, dry, trim, and roughly chop a bunch of spinach, kale, or Swiss chard, then add them to a labeled freezer bag. You can just transfer pre-washed baby spinach straight into a quart-sized bag, too. Next time a recipe calls for greens, all you need to do is reach into your freezer.
You don’t need a steady grip or a knife-skills pedigree to slice your meatpaper-thinfor soups and stir-fries. You just need a freezer, which firms up the meat for easier cutting. Bonus: A 15-minute trip to the freezer also makes chopping bacon easier by firming up those greasy, flimsy slices. And if you can never seem to use up that package of bacon, there's a freezer trick for that, too: Instead of throwing the whole package into the freezer, wrap up pairs of slices in plastic wrap, then throw all of them into a large freezer bag so you can take out just what you need later without thawing out the whole package.
After cooking that bacon, save the grease. Let it cool slightly, then pour it through a fine-mesh strainer and then into an ice cube tray dedicated for food use (you don't want the ice you make later to taste like bacon, do you?). Transfer the cubes to a labelled freezer bag once frozen, and when ready to use, just add a still-frozen cube or two directly in a hot pan to thaw and sizzle, ready to flavorcaramelized onions,sauteed greens,chicken stews, and so much more.
While taking afancy cooking class, Epi’s executive director noticed that the restaurant’s staff froze lemons and limes so they could grate fresh citrus zest whenever they wanted. Bonus: Keeping the citrus frozen also makes it easier to grate off just the aromatic zest and not the bitter pith underneath.
If you’re making a grain or quinoa salad, you'll probably need to cool down those cooked carbs, and the freezer’s an effective way to bring even the hottest grains to room temp without the long wait. Restaurants use this trick all the time to chill batches quickly. Just arrange the hot grains on a rimmed baking sheet and place in the freezer until cooled, 5 to 10 minutes.
Making jam the traditional way can be a bit of a process. Cut out all the simmering and canning bymaking a quick jam in the freezerinstead. Just bring fresh fruit and water to a simmer for a few minutes, then stir in sugar, pectin, and any other aromatics you like to include in the jam (from black pepper to nutmeg) for a few minutes more. Let the mixture cool, then place it in a jar (or several) for freezing, leaving 1/2-inch of empty space at the top since the jam will expand in the freezer. This magic jam can keep in the freezer for up to a year, but there's nothing better than opening it in the dead of winter, when the taste of summer and autumn feels worlds away.
Maybe youturned your back on a skilletof toasting seeds or nuts, and they got a little too toasty. To slow down the carry-over cooking that can take slightly overcooked nuts into the bitter and charred dead zone,just pop them in the freezer.
Members of Team Epi organize their freezers in wildly individual ways, but the one thing almost all of us have in common is a stock bag: A gallon-sized freezer bag filled with the odds and ends of vegetables that eventually form the base of a flavorful (and #wasteless, FTW) stock. Next time you’re chopping up celery and carrots, toss the ends into the bag. Onion skins and mushroom stems? Also fair game.
Wave those expensive bespoke “infused oils” away: There’s a new herb oil in town. In a small saucepan, warm olive oil and destemmed and chopped herbs (this works best with hard-stemmed herbs like oregano, thyme, and rosemary). Cook until the oil is aromatic and begins to bubble, about 5 minutes. Cool. Fill up an ice cube tray halfway with the now infused oil. Wrap the tray in plastic then freeze it. Once the cubes are set, remove them and store in labeled freezer bags. Just like with the bacon cubes, you can add that frozen herb oil cube right to a hot pan of anything you'd like to saute, or a nice pot of mashed potatoes or cooked beans, and it'll just make it better.
A world with ice cream on demand might be a little ways off, but there’s a way to bide your time. Whirl peeled bananas straight from the freezer with a healthy dollop nut butter in a food processor to make a blended dessert with the consistency of soft serve. (It’s healthy ice cream! It’s vegan! It's freezer magic!)
