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How to Make Individual Portions in Freezer Bags

By Alex in Food & Drinks on Apr 14, 2008 at 5:58 pm


Here’s a neat tip from Biggie of Lunch in a Box blog on how to make individual portions in freezer bags:

I operate from more of the spur-of-the-moment approach to cooking, so it’s essential to have a well stocked freezer and pantry. One drawback, though, is that if I’ve frozen food in big blocks, I can’t use just a bit quickly without defrosting the whole thing.

Enter my Japanese-language freezing books. A standard tip for freezing ground foods or thick sauces in small portions is to first put the food into a large freezer bag and press it out as flat as possible, eliminating air pockets. (Making it thin speeds up defrost time due to the increased surface area, and pressing out excess air guards against freezer burn.) Use a long chopstick or ruler to create divisions within the food, forming individual portions. This way when you freeze the entire bag, you’ll be able to quickly break off just as much as you want to use, no more.

Read the entire tip here: Link – Thanks Deborah Hamilton!


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COMMENT
  1. Steohawk
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

    I don't want to sound nitpicky, but I'd like to point out a typo in the title. "Portiosn" is misspelled.

  2. bean
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    That's pretty useful. Having not clicked the link yet, I assume they recommend using an ice cube tray to freeze portions of chicken stock or other liquids.

  3. Ola Amigo
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

    Actually that is pretty clever. Kind of slashfood(y) too. Nicely Done.

  4. Alex
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    I've stopped worrying and learned to love the tpyo. Thanks for the fix, nonetheless, Steohawk!

  5. jessleigh
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    The website in the link has been on my blog favorites list for a while now. I read it weekly and marvel at the powers of the super-mom.

  6. Alannah
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    Cleaver, June, very cleaver.

  7. Christophe
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    Nothing new : been doing that for years, for my self prepared fish tank food.
    Opening / closing the bag brings ice cristals though.

  8. a_mama
    Apr 14th, 2008 at 11:52 pm

    I freeze constantly. Our family is usually lucky enough to enjoy lunch together, so it is always fun to pull out that stuff that was great a month ago. This was a total forhead smack, for not thinking of this before.

  9. Alecks
    Apr 15th, 2008 at 12:14 am

    My mom, who's korean, prepares garlic that she uses in dishes in advance by first peeling it, then mashing it, then doing something similar to what this article describes. Then when she needs a bit of garlic, she just pops one of the squares in.

  10. Greyhound Mom
    Apr 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am

    I read recently that Americans waste up to 1/3 of the food they buy, which is just atrocious especially, you know, given all the starving children in our world... Freezing food has always been my solution to not wasting it, but I had never thought of this great idea!

  11. CheeseDuck
    Apr 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    I thought this was a great idea, but Greyhound? Uh.. That wasn't nessacary.

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