Flash Freezing – How to Save Your Food More Efficiently

By : DishinandDishes | 11 Comments | On : January 24, 2010 | Category : Tips and Tricks

Flash freezing.  I do it all the time.

Flash freezing is simply taking a food item and freezing it individually, so that when you want just one of something, the item isn’t frozen together in a huge lump with something else.

For instance, do you ever buy the frozen chicken breasts that you can pull out one at a time? That’s a perfect example.  Or say you want to freeze something soft, like tomato paste. What if you want individual portions of tomato paste instead of plopping it all into a bag in one big clump?

Let me show you how simple it is.

I frequently make my Unforgettable Salsa recipe.  I usually only use half of the jar of tomato paste.

I simply portion out the rest in tablespoon size clumps.

I plop these onto a piece of wax paper that’s setting on top of a plate.

Then I pop this into my freezer for a couple of hours.  Usually after a couple hours, they are hardened enough that I can pop them off the wax paper into a dated freezer bag.

The next time I need some tomato paste, I can pop one or two tablespoons out of the bag and toss it into a soup or stew.

Other things I flash freeze?  Mr Wonderful’s catch(es) of the day.

Sometimes he comes home with up to 15 fish.  After he mutilates filets them, we lay them out on wax paper on cookie sheets and pop them into the freezer.  Several hours later, we throw them into gallon size freezer bags and then when we want fish, we can take them out one at a time.

Find a sale on chicken breasts but don’t want them all in a big frozen clump? Flash freeze them.

Fresh ginger that you want to store? Peel it, cut it into chunks and flash freeze it.

Anything is easily removable in portions if you flash freeze.  Try it!