Freezing Foods

I was asked to repost this.  You may also be interested in my favorite way to organize a chest freezer!
One of my favorite ways to save is to use freeze foods and with the common B2G3 sale at Harris Teeter- it’s the perfect time to stock the freezer with cheese!

The USDA has a great section of their page about Safe Food Handling- including Freezing foods!

Here are some highlights:

• Food stored at 0 degrees will always be safe BUT quality suffers with long term storage
• Nutrients are retained during freezing
• It is safe to freeze meat or poultry in it’s original packaging but overwrapping is suggested to retain quality
• The color of the food can change- especially beef. It turns dark brown
• Thaw foods ONLY in the fridge, cold water or microwave
• Once food is thawed, it is safe to refreeze without cooking although quality may suffer
• You can cook raw or cooked meat, poultry and casseroles straight from the freezer

Here is the Freezer Times from the USDA (this is for QUALITY ONLY)

Here is what I freeze and how I do it (I am NOT an expert but this has worked for me for 12 years)

Meat: I wrap the original package with butcher freezer paper, keeping it tight and freeze in the deep freezer. See HERE about marinating meat before freezing. Hot dogs, sausages, etc frozen in their packaging. Marinated meats I keep in freezer bags.

Vegetables: I freeze onions, carrots, green beans, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes. I blanch the carrots, green beans, tomatoes and zucchini before freezing. See THIS post about veggies.

Fruit: I wash and cut strawberries and freeze on a tray and then once frozen transfer to a freezer bag.That is the only fruit I personally freeze. This is a good article by Betty Crocker about freezing fruit.

Milk: I have frozen all varieties of milk in the gallon jugs successfully. I do not pour any out and just put the gallon in the freezer with the # of days left until it’s original expiration date on the front. If I have 3 days- then I start that count down the day I pull it out of the fridge. It takes at least 1 full day to thaw- and I take it out and shake it up several times to break up the chunks of icy milk inside.

Orange Juice: I have personally never tried this. Searches online show many success stories of freezing OJ. They put the cartons or jugs in the freezer- some pour some out others do not. Some re-package – others do not.

Cheese: We go through a LOT of cheese so when it’s on sale- I may end up with 30 bags! I put the bag in the freezer just the way it is. If I am baking a dish with it- I use it from frozen. If we are using it on tacos, etc I let it thaw in the fridge overnight. Chunk cheese does NOT freeze well.

Yogurt: Yogurt cups can be frozen- but when thawed the look and texture is a bit different. Allow to thaw before eating.

Bread: Baked or unbaked- they freeze well. Wrap bread in foil and/or saran wrap. After 3 months quality drops drastically. Tortillas freeze well too.

Butter: freeze very well. Keep in original wrapper

Eggs: do NOT freeze in the shell. Raw egg whites and yolks freeze well. Cooked egg yolks freeze well;cooked egg whites- not so well.

Rice: freezes VERY well! Cook and place in freezer bags. Lay flat to freeze.