With all the slow-cooking, slow-simmering recipes we're doing these days, we inevitably find ourselves close to bedtime with a fresh pot of soup still steaming hot on our counter. Here's a way to quickly get that soup to cool enough to stick in the fridge so you can carry on with the rest of your life!
Fill a plastic bottle about 3/4 full with water and leave it in the freezer for several hours until completely solid. After you've made your soup and are ready to pack it away, let it cool for a few minutes in the pot (so it's no longer boiling hot). Then gently stir it using the frozen water bottle.
It will take different amounts of time to cool your soup depending on how much you made. You can leave the water bottle standing in the pot while you do something else, but be sure to stir it every few minutes to agitate the hot and cold spots. Once the soup feels cool to the touch (that is, just below body temperature), it's fine to put in the fridge.
So far, we haven't had any problems at all with the normal plastic water bottles melting - this was definitely a concern of ours when we first came across this tip years ago, especially considering the concerns with heating plastic. But the frozen water inside seems to keep the surface of the plastic cool enough to prevent any melting, and in fact, the bottle actually stays fairly cool to the touch the entire time.
It's still a good idea to double check your bottle as you're using it. If the plastic is starting to feel soft and pliable, don't use that bottle!
You can also look into buying professional food-grade ice paddles. These typically start at around $15 for small paddles and increase in price as you go up in size.
• San Jamar 2-Liter Rapid Cooling Paddle, $16.99 from the Webstaurant Store
Related: Food Safety: How to Use Ice Baths to Cool Food Quickly
(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)
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Is there something wrong with putting the hot soup or braise in the fridge too soon? I have tempered glass shelves in my fridge but I usually just but down a thick kitchen towel under the pot to keep it from heating the glass too hot.
Good question, Caw - it can be dangerous to put really hot foods in the fridge because it raises the overall fridge temperature and the cooling mechanism in the fridge can't keep up. This can potentially cause other foods to spoil and/or make you sick!
this is a great idea, we ALWAYS are in this situation.
don't want to refrigerate too early because the heat of the pot will warm up the fridge, spoiling milk, etc.
sometimes we just stick the pot outside on the balcony...
One problem is that the soup could warm other things in the fridge. Also, if the soup isn't cooled quickly enough, all sorts of nasty bacteria has opportunity to grow in it. We had a big chili supper at our church last winter, and all the hot leftovers were put into the refrigerators to use for chili dogs a couple days later. When it was taken out, every crock of chili was spoiled because it wasn't cooled quickly enough.
Since I don't usually keep water bottles in the freezer, I fill a ziploc bag with ice cubes and put that in the hot soup (the bag will keep the soup from getting watered down as the ice melts). Stir gently until the soup is cool and remove the bag before refrigerating.
You can also use ice packs that you would normally have in the freezer for lunch boxes.
I run into this problem a lot, and i usually just wind up leaving the pot of soup on the counter overnight and then throw it in the fridge. I've never gotten spoiled soup or even gotten a hint of being sick.
The way i figure, if you've been cooking this thing for a while, presumably boiling it most of the time, whatever bacteria was in there is good and dead. If you leave it covered overnight, there's no new bacteria getting introduced to the pot, and therefore nothing to go bad.
Secondly, its soup. If you're like me, you reheat it to a pretty high temperature, again killing any potential bacteria floating around in there.
I know it wouldn't pass in a food safety class, but like i've said, i've never ever gotten sick.
Caw - I had the same question, and according to my mother, you are supposed to cool things first because otherwise they raise the entire temperature of the refrigerator and aside from the spoilage issue raised above, it also makes your refrigerator work harder to cool everything else, so it's not good for your carbon footprint or the life of the machine.
You're really better off dividing the soup or stew into smaller bowls and putting them in the fridge, rather than waiting for it to cool down. Meat, poultry and seafood shouldn't sit around.
Also, don't cover meat until it cools down.
I just ran into this issue last night! I've never thought of doing this, brilliant, thanks.
I saw Alton Brown do this awhile back for, I think, a big bucket of stock he'd made! It really is such a great idea.
I am a food protection manager (ye-haw!), and work in a kitchen as well as overseeing a food operation.
The reason for this method of cooling is:
Bacteria likes to grow at temperatures between 41 degrees and 135 degrees F. We call this the "temperature danger zone". But the most dangerous range is from 70 degrees to 125 degrees F. This is called the "extreme temperature danger zone".
Food can only be safely kept in that temperature range for TWO HOURS before the bacterial load becomes dangerous. So, what we want to do is take the temp from the 135 degree 'safe' point, to the 70 degree point of the danger zone in a maximum of two hours. Once we have done that effectively (ice paddles, ice baths), we can lower the temperature to 41 degrees or lower in 4 additional hours or less. Your fridge may be able to do that if it is set low enough...but you should still check it after a few hours to be sure.
In other words, NO LONGER than 6 hours in the overall temp danger zone, which includes no more than 2 hours in the "extreme temp danger zone".
If you do not reach the 70 degree mark within an hour and 55 minutes, just reheat the food to 165 degrees (killing much of the bacteria)and try again, if you want to be certain the food is safe.
Stainless steel is a great conductor of heat and cold, so try to use a stainless stockpot with thin walls.
Yes....we all have been lucky and blissfully ignorant (LOL) and lived to tell about it. BUT there is really no way for a stockpot of near-boiling liquid to cool safely in a refrigerator or even a home freezer. Small children and the elderly are at greater risk of foodborne illnesses from improperly cooked, cooled or "time/temp abused" foods.
Invest in a good NSF approved "probe type" thermometer. You can get an NSF approved one at Wal-Mart really cheap, and they are able to be recalibrated easily in an ice bath if you are in doubt of the accuracy. I own one, and several much more expensive ones, and they are just as good, aside from being more difficult to recalibrate, as they come with no tool to do so. A pair of pliers works fine, though. Sam's club usually has professional grade ones for a little extra.
Be safe!
If you are concerned about the plastic why not use glass. For example an empty vodka bottle would work nicely.
@Niamh - I am pretty sure a glass bottle would break from the temperature shock.
Shard soup recipe?
I'm with Palmetto: Divide the soup into smaller containers. I pour mine into individual serving size plastic containers and leave the lids off for a while to let the heat escape. The dutch oven I cook my soup in retains heat for so long, so this speeds up the process and makes my soups and stews fridge-ready much faster.
As a bonus, by the time the small containers have cooled, I've already washed up everything else.
Ooorrr, put pot in sink with stopper, add a few reusable ice packs, add water. Repeat if necessary with fresh packs/cold water. This is usually enough after 20 minutes or so to move the soup or broth into smaller containers and refrigerate/freeze.
This would be a clever idea IF it wasn't dangerous for plastic to be put in extreme temperatures (frozen or hot). The chemicals in plastic leak out and you'll be consuming them if you use this method. Why not just let it sit out for 10 minutes? Or better yet, put slightly less liquid in your soup so that if you use an ice cube, it won't taste diluted.