Once or twice a month, we like to spend a quiet day or evening preparing pantry and freezer staples from ingredients like onions, shallots, garlic, and ginger. This little bit of advance work provides us with a store of quick flavor builders that we can reach for when cooking weeknight meals. Here are 5 of our favorite make-ahead ingredients that can be added to soups, stir fries, pasta dishes, and more.
• Caramelized onions – Did you know you can freeze caramelized onions? Freeze them in ice cube trays or muffin tins for small portions that thaw quickly.
• Roasted garlic – There are several ways to freeze roasted garlic, from whole cloves to cubes of mashed garlic.
• Grated ginger – Freeze grated ginger root in ice cube trays or rolled up like candy!
• Garlic confit – Covered in oil, sweet, smoky garlic confit can usually be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks.
• Shallot confit – Like garlic confit, you can also use the fragrant oil once the confit is done. Here's a recipe for shallot confit from Food & Wine.
Related: Vegan Pantry Staples: 5 Best Ingredients for Adding Flavor
(Image: Flickr member ben30 licensed under Creative Commons)
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I get extra onions, green onions, bell peppers, celery and chop them to store in the freezer. Always comes in handy when I don't feel like chopping for a fast dinner. Same with herbs. I grow them during summer, chop or whiz up with a little oil or water to bind it and freeze in ice cube trays for later.
I like spinach frozen in ice cube trays. Good for throwing spinach into omelettes and the like. Works for herbs, too, as jmorri26 pointed out.
Wonderful suggestions, though shredded ginger seems unnecessary to me. Won't it stay fresh longer if not shredded? You can easily shred a chunk of frozen ginger in no time.
I'm gonna do the other four for sure! I recently found out that plain old chopped onions freeze beautifully in a little tupperware so I have those on hand as chopping onions is the most boring part of cooking for me. Having carmelized ones on hand would be fantastic, as they take a long time to prep.
I LOVE doing caramelized onions in the crockpot- just chop them up, add a bit of water, and leave them alone for a while. I do a ton this way and then freeze them in small portions. They thaw quickly on the counter or in the microwave and add great flavor to anything. Just last night we added some to the top of our boring, basic, frozen burger patties and they made the whole meal sooo much tastier!