In one of the previous article I posted up today, I talked about how you could save a good bit of money by planning out your grocery shopping trips in advance. One of the points I touched on in that article was that you could significantly cut down on food waste, because the average person ends up throwing 30% of the groceries they’ve purchased away. Well, being a frugal person, I hate to waste food. I like to save as much as I possibly can, because when you throw food away or you allow it to expire, you’re throwing your money down the drain. Today, I’m going to go over some food freezing tips that should certainly help you.
#1. Allow Your Foods to Cool Down First
It’s important that you allow your foods to cool down to room temperature before you put them in the freezer. When you put hot food in the freezer, you’re going to increase the overall temperature of the freezer itself, which could cause the other food to start defrosting.
#2. Do Not Re-Freeze Food
It’s important that you never re-freeze food that has already been frozen. I know a lot of people who will defrost something, like chicken, cook it up and then put the leftover chicken back in the freezer. To be safe, you should never do this.
#3. Keep Your Freezer Packed Full
This one is a tip that not many people know about, but it definitely helps with the efficiency of your freezer. If you have a freezer that’s filled with frozen stuff, the air in the freezer doesn’t have to circulate as much, which means that it takes less power for your freezer to keep foods frozen. Do you have a ton of extra room in your freezer? If so, you could fill a few plastic bottles halfway up with water and store them in the freezer to take up the extra room.
#4. Store Your Foods or Wrap Them Up
We always keep plenty of containers to store our food in. Alternatively, you could wrap certain foods up and you won’t need a container. Just use your best judgment as to whether you should wrap food or store it in a container. That way, your food won’t fall victim to freezer burn.
#5. Keep Portions in Check
It doesn’t make sense to freeze an entire pot of chili that could feed 10 people when you only have a family of four. That’s just more you’ll have to defrost.
#6. Don’t Be Afraid to Throw Things Out
I know, it sucks when you have to throw stuff out, but you can’t be afraid to do it. If you have something in your freezer and you have no idea how old it is, you should just throw it out. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
#7. Label Frozen Foods
Once you freeze something, you may not remember what you put in the container and now it’s even harder to tell, because the food is frozen. Get yourself a marker and some labels to mark each item you store in the freezer with. Simply tape it to the container and you’ll never have problems remembering what you’ve frozen again. Also, you should write the date on the paper, so you know when you froze the food.
