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Cooking for the Freezer
Aug. 2nd, 2017 03:34 pmA younger friend who's learning to cook asked me for tips for cooking food to freeze and reheat. She often cooks with her housemates and friends (very good!) and makes a lot of starchy and casserole-y stuff. I wrote this up and thought, "oh hey, I should just put this on Dreamwidth!"
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Off the top of my head, in no particular order...
First off, make sure you're in good shape for tupperware. For freezing you particularly want some small one-to-two-meal containers so you can make small amounts of that pasta, casseroles, etc and reheat it later without taking out a huge amount at once.
When you make starchy food and reheat it, it's easy to get tired of the same dishes, or same kinds of dishes. I recommend keeping around some more durable produce to make a little salad or have some fruit with it when you reheat it. Some things that keep pretty well, off the top of my head: romaine lettuce, apples, that lettuce-on-the-roots if your grocery store has it, radishes, carrots, bell peppers. If you're making a salad you can also put non-produce stuff on to make it more enjoyable (cheese, nuts, dried fruit, etc.) But having something small that's *not* frozen-and-reheated makes the repetition easier to handle.
If you're trying to make a meal feel more elaborate, it helps to flavor different dishes in different ways. For instance, sometimes I'll cook a vegetable in one set of spices (example: pan-fry some cabbage with garlic, butter and coriander) and cook a casserole or starch with obviously different spices (black and red pepper, say.) Again, variation helps make things feel "fresher", both literally and metaphorically. So it's often good to have a few different spice combinations in your head that go well with a lot of things. Then you can pick two or three from your mental list. Some examples off the top of my head: butter/garlic/salt, red/white/black pepper, paprika/garlic, cumin/coriander, cinnamon (yes, even on meats or vegetables, but then skip the sugar), curry powder with nearly anything, vinegar/sugar with a touch of pepper (great on chard or other bitter greens.) Obviously there are many other combinations, but having a few in your back pocket helps. Most cuisines have some specific flavor subtypes which can be contrasted with each other, or with anything else (Thai spicy/sweet vs salty/sour/sweet, say, or Chinese five-spice vs oyster sauce with soy.)
Notice the strong emphasis on variety? Krissy *hates* feeling like she's eating the same thing repeatedly.
If you're freezing large pieces of meat, the crock pot is often your friend. It's great for putting in a big piece of beef or a whole chicken with barbeque sauce, for instance. It also makes really easy, really good pulled pork. I haven't had great luck with elaborate seasoning on crock pot meals. Everything gets kind of muddied together. But you can finish the results with something else afterward or otherwise use it as a component of another meal.
If you have a fairly neutral base (e.g. shredded crock pot chicken or pork, or boiled or fried potatoes) you can often make it act like multiple things in different meals with a different sauce on top. If you're feeling all fancy there are some easy ones to make (e.g. basic French-style white sauce, or fruit sauce) but you can also do a *lot* with store-bought sauces (oyster sauce, various mustards.)
One of the best ways I've found to make food flavors "pop" is to distinguish between what gets cooked *into* it, and what you add at the end. You'll need to play with this a bit. But if you have something distinctive and neat (flavored salts, flavored sugars, distinctive cheeses) consider adding it to the top or outside, right at the end of the cooking process or as you serve it. You'll often get an extra layer of flavor. This can be done when you initially cook the food, or can be done later after reheating. You don't have to finish with the same topping the third time you serve it that you did on the first.
If you decide to make sauces, learn a really basic flour/butter/milk white sauce. Here's a typical example recipe: "https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/basic-white-sauce" (except maybe use whole milk, on principle.) It's forgiving with proportions, it's perfectly okay by itself, and it absorbs other flavors *wonderfully*. Once you know that basic sauce you can make a fancy-sounding "French-style <thing> cream sauce!" for anything by just adding "<thing>" to your white sauce as long as it's a bit oily and not acidic. Examples offhand: any cheese, most nuts, any spice, chopped bacon/pancetta/chicken. Most white and brown gravies are just this sauce with meat added. Make the white sauce and then cook in the extra ingredients after the flour/butter/milk part is right.
(And when you can do that, you can make multiple dishes seem really different using the "multiple spices" trick above by using cream sauce on only one, or using multiple cream sauces with different finishes.)
You know what's great on pasta, casseroles and starchy stuff? Marinara sauces. You know what sucks? Grocery-store marinara sauces. You're better off getting the canned tomato sauce (a little bit), tomato paste (grab lots, it's *amazing*) and diced tomatoes (more if you like chunky.) Start with the diced tomatoes, including the liquid in the can. Add around a can of tomato paste, or even more if you like your sauce really thick. Maybe optionally put in some canned tomato sauce or bottled marinara, but you'll use less of this as you get used to it. And then heat and stir. That's already better than off-the-shelf marinara, especially if you like it sweet and intense. If you're feeling fancy add spices or fresh vegetables to cook into it, which will improve it, especially if you leave 'em in awhile. If you have the time, cook it for a long time on low heat. That will thicken it and also give your tomatoes time to caramelize, which gives them an *amazing* flavor. Marinara sauces freeze and reheat just fine, too.
There's a lot here. Don't feel like you instantly have to do it all. But if something on the list sounds good, try it out! And now you have a lot of "extras" you can add as you start to feel like you're ready for more.
---------
Off the top of my head, in no particular order...
First off, make sure you're in good shape for tupperware. For freezing you particularly want some small one-to-two-meal containers so you can make small amounts of that pasta, casseroles, etc and reheat it later without taking out a huge amount at once.
When you make starchy food and reheat it, it's easy to get tired of the same dishes, or same kinds of dishes. I recommend keeping around some more durable produce to make a little salad or have some fruit with it when you reheat it. Some things that keep pretty well, off the top of my head: romaine lettuce, apples, that lettuce-on-the-roots if your grocery store has it, radishes, carrots, bell peppers. If you're making a salad you can also put non-produce stuff on to make it more enjoyable (cheese, nuts, dried fruit, etc.) But having something small that's *not* frozen-and-reheated makes the repetition easier to handle.
If you're trying to make a meal feel more elaborate, it helps to flavor different dishes in different ways. For instance, sometimes I'll cook a vegetable in one set of spices (example: pan-fry some cabbage with garlic, butter and coriander) and cook a casserole or starch with obviously different spices (black and red pepper, say.) Again, variation helps make things feel "fresher", both literally and metaphorically. So it's often good to have a few different spice combinations in your head that go well with a lot of things. Then you can pick two or three from your mental list. Some examples off the top of my head: butter/garlic/salt, red/white/black pepper, paprika/garlic, cumin/coriander, cinnamon (yes, even on meats or vegetables, but then skip the sugar), curry powder with nearly anything, vinegar/sugar with a touch of pepper (great on chard or other bitter greens.) Obviously there are many other combinations, but having a few in your back pocket helps. Most cuisines have some specific flavor subtypes which can be contrasted with each other, or with anything else (Thai spicy/sweet vs salty/sour/sweet, say, or Chinese five-spice vs oyster sauce with soy.)
Notice the strong emphasis on variety? Krissy *hates* feeling like she's eating the same thing repeatedly.
If you're freezing large pieces of meat, the crock pot is often your friend. It's great for putting in a big piece of beef or a whole chicken with barbeque sauce, for instance. It also makes really easy, really good pulled pork. I haven't had great luck with elaborate seasoning on crock pot meals. Everything gets kind of muddied together. But you can finish the results with something else afterward or otherwise use it as a component of another meal.
If you have a fairly neutral base (e.g. shredded crock pot chicken or pork, or boiled or fried potatoes) you can often make it act like multiple things in different meals with a different sauce on top. If you're feeling all fancy there are some easy ones to make (e.g. basic French-style white sauce, or fruit sauce) but you can also do a *lot* with store-bought sauces (oyster sauce, various mustards.)
One of the best ways I've found to make food flavors "pop" is to distinguish between what gets cooked *into* it, and what you add at the end. You'll need to play with this a bit. But if you have something distinctive and neat (flavored salts, flavored sugars, distinctive cheeses) consider adding it to the top or outside, right at the end of the cooking process or as you serve it. You'll often get an extra layer of flavor. This can be done when you initially cook the food, or can be done later after reheating. You don't have to finish with the same topping the third time you serve it that you did on the first.
If you decide to make sauces, learn a really basic flour/butter/milk white sauce. Here's a typical example recipe: "https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/basic-white-sauce" (except maybe use whole milk, on principle.) It's forgiving with proportions, it's perfectly okay by itself, and it absorbs other flavors *wonderfully*. Once you know that basic sauce you can make a fancy-sounding "French-style <thing> cream sauce!" for anything by just adding "<thing>" to your white sauce as long as it's a bit oily and not acidic. Examples offhand: any cheese, most nuts, any spice, chopped bacon/pancetta/chicken. Most white and brown gravies are just this sauce with meat added. Make the white sauce and then cook in the extra ingredients after the flour/butter/milk part is right.
(And when you can do that, you can make multiple dishes seem really different using the "multiple spices" trick above by using cream sauce on only one, or using multiple cream sauces with different finishes.)
You know what's great on pasta, casseroles and starchy stuff? Marinara sauces. You know what sucks? Grocery-store marinara sauces. You're better off getting the canned tomato sauce (a little bit), tomato paste (grab lots, it's *amazing*) and diced tomatoes (more if you like chunky.) Start with the diced tomatoes, including the liquid in the can. Add around a can of tomato paste, or even more if you like your sauce really thick. Maybe optionally put in some canned tomato sauce or bottled marinara, but you'll use less of this as you get used to it. And then heat and stir. That's already better than off-the-shelf marinara, especially if you like it sweet and intense. If you're feeling fancy add spices or fresh vegetables to cook into it, which will improve it, especially if you leave 'em in awhile. If you have the time, cook it for a long time on low heat. That will thicken it and also give your tomatoes time to caramelize, which gives them an *amazing* flavor. Marinara sauces freeze and reheat just fine, too.
There's a lot here. Don't feel like you instantly have to do it all. But if something on the list sounds good, try it out! And now you have a lot of "extras" you can add as you start to feel like you're ready for more.
