There's nothing like homemade stock, but we hate waiting for a whole container of it to defrost. Especially when we've been out in the cold and are trying to defrost ourselves – we need soup, and fast! Freezing stock in ice cube trays allows for quick defrosting and won't slow down dinner.
We recently made a big batch of homemade vegetable stock and froze it in ice cube trays. When the cubes had frozen through, we packed them in bunches in sandwich-sized freezer bags for individual portions.
When it came time to make a pot of soup, the cubes quickly melted in the pot and our broth was bubbling away in no time.
This isn't anything new – many of you probably use this trick already. It essentially follows the individual quick frozen (IQF) method we hear so much about these days.
Do you freeze your stock in ice cube trays? If not, what's your method?
Related: Weeknight Meal Tip: Frozen Homemade Stock Portions
(Image: Flickr user Merelymel13, licensed under Creative Commons)
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How To Make Classic Chicken Salad
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elizabeth Apron fro...
Before & After: Emily Henderson Transforms a Senior's Studio Space
Monica & Austin's Charming Bungalow
It also works great with chopped green, red, or yellow peppers, chopped onions, carrots or celery. A cube can be tossed into any recipe to add flavor.
Why use all those bags? Just freeze the stock in the containers shown, they are reusable and stack nicely in the freezer.
I portion it out in 1/4 cup increments into the smallest size round Rubbermaid containers. I have about a dozen. Once it freezes hard, dump the pucks into a gallon size bag, pour and freeze another batch. It's perfect to be able to throw a few pucks into a pot, without having to guess at the measurement.
The cubes are also good for quickly cooling down a new batch of stock prior to freezing it.
It's a good idea (I use it for leftover wine, like many others), but the difficulty is figuring out how many to use in your recipe. The 1/4 cup increments idea fixes that - thanks embryoconcepts! The other problem is that if your recipe calls for more than a cup of stock, that is a lot of cubes to count out (if you're smart enough to make your cubes 1 Tbsp and remember how many Tbsp are in a cup.
I do like that they'd melt faster, and that the ice cube trays are more reusable than plastic bags.
I actually just did this a few days ago, but I froze the stock in a highly inflexible metal muffin tin, and now I have no idea how to get it out, short of melting and re-freezing.
Any suggestions?
whirzy- run the pan under hot water for a few seconds. they will pop right out.
Sometimes I concentrate the stock down a lot & then freeze in ice cube trays. Comes in handy when my freezer is full! Then I figure 1 cube equals about 1 cup of full strength stock. Or just use the concentrated stock to add amazing flavor to what I'm making.
I put about a cup into cheap paper cups, let them freeze, then shove them in the back of the freezer. If there's a little fat on the top it keeps them fresh. And when I need one, I just peel the paper away, and let it melt in my saucepan.
I prefer this method because I find that I need a cup of stock more often than I need 2 T.
Great tips, I'm definitely going to give this a try.
I freeze in multiple sizes (3 C, 2C, ice cube trays)...very useful for recipes calling for varying amounts. The 2-3 C amounts I put in freezer bags and then stack in a bin so that they freeze flat. Then, once frozen, they're thin and stackable, which is a very efficient shape in the freezer.
I freeze mine in silicone muffin trays. It's easy enough to ladle out 1/2 cup portions and they pop out much easier than in a metal tray.
I use my silicone cupcake pans - they're about 1/4-1/3 in size (I forget which), and then pop them out into ziploc bags. I always found the ice cubes to be way too small to be very useful unless I reduce the stock a great deal. Having them in a larger, easy to use size has been awesome.
I reduce and then freeze in foil muffin liners in muffin trays. When it's hard I pop the pucks out, wrap them fully, and bag them. It's easy to reduce to 1/4th and get a cup of stock per muffin puck, and it's way easier to pop them out than from ice cube trays.
I use yogurt containers to freeze one cup increments. They melt down nice an quick, plus stack great. No need to waste all of those bags in the picture.
Lime is not a common ingredient in where I live so I also store lime juice (when I can get them!) in ice cube trays and it works better than I expected.
When I make my chicken stock I typically reduce it down to jell-o-like consistency when it's cooled..
As for storage I use the ziploc snack bags and put in 1/2 cup pours. I'm a huge fan of those bags. I use them to freeze red and white wine for cooking, tomato sauce/marinara, stewed tomatoes, pesto, roasted garlic, caramelized onions and/or mushrooms etc..
They have changed my life, hehe