A well-stocked freezer can spare a person a lot of late-night snack cravings or lazy days when you just don't feel like going to the store, and it's absolutely essential if you have friends who like to drop by for impromptu parties. (See our 8 staples for stress-free entertaining here, but be warned: the well-stocked freezer may cause this habit to develop in your friends.) But what constitutes "well-stocked" depends a lot on where we live, how we cook and entertain, and how big our freezers are. What are your essentials? Here are five of my own.
In a perfect world, I would have the following things in my freezer at all times:
• Cocktail ice — I love making fancy cocktails, and my favorite parties are cocktail parties. But a host always needs more ice than he or she thinks, so I like to keep on hand more ice than makes any rational kind of sense, just to be prepared. And of course I have to keep an ice ball or two around in case my father comes to dinner and wants one in his Scotch.
• Frozen fruit — Freezing summer fruit when it's in season is probably the only thing that gets me through the dark days of December, when the novelty of winter food has worn off and all I really want is a strawberry smoothie.
• Homemade stock — Homemade stock and broth makes such a difference in the way food tastes. I like to freeze mine in muffin tins (each muffin well holds 1/3 cup), then pop them out and store them in bags for later. And whenever we have meat, I like to store the bones in the freezer until there are enough to make a new batch of stock.
• Ground pork — My husband and I make a lot of Chinese food, and a lot of my favorite dishes, like dry-fried string beans, call for just a tablespoon or two of ground pork. Since I can't buy just a tablespoon of pork at a time, I like to freeze the rest in individual portions so it's all ready next time I need it.
• Frozen snacks — I am always happy knowing that there are single-serving pizzas or mini quiches or pork dumplings in my freezer, because it absolutely never fails that I will become suddenly ravenous at exactly the moment the very last delivery place closes, and that's not the time to start making a big meal. Frozen savory snacks are also good to have on hand when you have friends who like to drop by for cocktails. You have to have something to feed them, and this way you don't find yourself stuck in the kitchen making 12 grilled cheese sandwiches while there's an impromptu party going on.
What do you like to have in your freezer? Let us know in the comments.
Related: No Time To Shop? 8 Freezer Staples for Stress-Free Entertaining
(Image: Flickr member chippenziedeutch via Creative Commons)
How to Bake a Potato: Three Easy Methods
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Straw Mat from The ...
10 No-Fail Decor Tricks & Tips for Small Spaces
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
My 5:
Ice
Vodka
Frozen Fruits/Veggies (does that count as two?)
Ezekiel Bread
The bowl for my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker.
Aside from frozen raw dog food? - frozen peas, corn and berries. Also individual portions of stews or soups I've made.
parmesan cheese! we never use a block before it goes bad, so we keep ours in the freezer and just grate it frozen!
walnuts and almonds. we buy them in bulk (SO much cheaper!) and we can never use them all before they get stale, so we freeze them to preserve at least a little bit of freshness.
frozen edamame. they make the perfect healthy snack when i'm craving something more than an apple. we buy our bags at trader joes, perfect for 2 people for a side or a snack, and they are only $1!
sliced, 2-person servings of flank steak. our favorite quick, cheap meal is beef and watercress stir-fry. we almost always have the beef in the freezer and ALWAYS have rice, so all we need to pick up is some watercress from the bodega around the corner and we're set... here's the recipe for anyone who's interested!
http://www.beyondthestoop.com/2011/08/watercress-and-beef.html
cheers!
Hmm, if I had to narrow down to only 5...
- Dark chocolate chips (for a sugar fix on officially "no-dessert" days : )
- Bread
- Extra sticks of butter
- Bacon (to make a mostly veg meal acceptable to my husband)
- Peas (to quickly incorporate green veg side dish into meal for said carnivorous husband)
There are LOTS of other essentials I try to always have on hand (berries and bananas; caramelized onions; pesto; shredded cheeses), but the above 5 are probably the ones I'm almost never without.
Meat - beef, chicken, turkey, ham
Baked Goods - mini loaves of banana bread, granola, etc.
Apples, pesto, jam and other items I've preserved
Nuts - pine nuts, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc.
Flour - whole wheat, rye, cake, etc.
SmartOnes or Lean Cuisines for quick lunches
We aren't big fans of frozen veggies or fruit. We usually buy them fresh.
Stock and bones for making more stock
Peas and corn for quick vegetables
Ginger, since I can't use up any sort of quantity while it's fresh (just grate from frozen)
Blueberries and apples
Leftover stews, soups and chili
Ice cream is so important that it's considered a "super-essential."
We keep pint glasses for beer along the door shelf-probably have about a dozen wedged in. Insofar as food goes: frozen waffles, nuts, butter, flour, stock, various frozen fruits and veggies (raspberries, blueberries, peas, corn, artichoke hearts), a bag of frozen shrimp and meat (chicken, beef and pork).
Peas, tofu, strawberries, bananas and English muffins.
Bread: whole grain bread and brioche burger buns
Meat: local grass-fed ground beef burgers, locally made fresh sausages (Ital, Andouille, Polish...)
Grain: cooked (Ital or organic) pasta and/or (brown&wild) rice
Flax: whole flax seed (to grind and add to yogurt smoothies)
Seasonal: something seasonal (fall:smoked salmon)
Veggies and fruit? when not fresh/in season, mine are canned, dried, fermented...
Frozen boxed chopped spinach. I can use it to make a dip or to add to my spaghetti sauce or chickpeas or whatever.
Frozen home-made black beans.
Ground beef or chicken or sausage - The cooking possibilities of these are endless
Leftovers - more accurately food that was made in a large batch purposefully for the freezer.
Frozen peas and corn.
gnocchi, pizza dough, soups, fruit, ice, fish and quick breads
Ice, shrimp, homemade stock, veggie burgers, and peas.
Pizza Dough, pizza sauce, toppings, bacon, breakfast sausage in individual portions, butter.
Nuts, plus sesame and poppy seeds becuz they also go rancid quickly
Butter
chicken stock - or the bones to make it
wheat flour
Trader Joe's puff pastry (only stocked in the cooler months, fyi)
I keep sandwich baggies crammed full of baby spinach for smoothies in there. I prefer to use it fresh, but if I'm going away on business & have 1/2 box of baby spinach I quickly stuff it into the zip-top sandwich baggies for days when I'm out of spinach & don't have time to grocery shop. I'm sort of addicted to green smoothies ;)
Other essentials are:
Dog food (kibble, sealed well)
Bread Flour (pre-measured to fit our bread maker)
Frozen berries.
Not quite 5, but the other stuff all changes so often I can't say it's an essential.
1. Homemade vegetable stock
2. Veggie scraps (carrot peels, ends of onions) to make more stock
3. Parmesan rinds to throw in soups and sauces
4. Filo dough
5. Stuff that I bought in massive quantities when there was a good sale (currently Starbucks coffee, La Brea bread, and shredded cheese)
Ends of vegetables and fruits to take to composter every couple of weeks (I live in NYC apartment)
Chicken breasts when they are on sale.
Cookies (for some reason they taste better frozen)
Cooked beans and grains for ultra quick dinners
Stock.
Hi, Brooklynnina. One question: how do you freeze caramelized onions? I mean, do they freeze well? I was just going to do a search on that because I have a jar of caramelized onions (well, it actually transmogrified into onion and green apple chutney because I used too much salt on the onions and tried to fix it with lots of sugar and apples... and a few raisins.) Thanks!
My staples are:
1) whole wheat tortillas, for quick quesadillas or tuna wraps
2) Pita bread or small pizza bread rounds for quick pizzas: tomato paste & cheese; salmon, cream cheese & red onion
3) Bananas (I usually buy lots, and when they start to get overripe I throw them in the freezer) and/or other fruits for smoothies.
4) Lately, coffee ice cubes. I freeze leftover coffee in ice cube trays. It's been a lifesaver these last few days, as I burned the roof of my mouth and cannot drink hot coffee at the moment. So, iced coffee = coffee cubes + almond milk + sugar. Yumm.
5) Skinless, boneless chicken breasts. I freeze them in small one-serving bags for easier defrosting. It's just me around here... so cooking for one. :)
We always have chicken breasts, butter, ice, and easy dinner night things (typically from Trader Joe's, I love their selection of frozen foods that can be a main or a side dish...). I also always seem to have ice cream, but the flavors somehow rotates out pretty frequently...
sliced bread, muffins, bananas, ice, and always a few frozen leftover meals!
Frozen vegetables, cut and packaged so when I want to make soup, I just toss the big frozen block into the pot. Chicken, beef, and pork. Phyllo dough for when I make pastries. Butter. Lots of butter.
I definitely have way more than 5 but my top ones are almonds, homemade pesto, focaccia and broth, frozen veggies, and some kind of meat!
Tess09, I actually learned about freezing caramelized onions on this site! So if you search here you should find a couple posts, about making them in big batches and freezing for later use. A lot of people talk about portioning them out with ice cube trays. But I find it easiest to put a bigger portion (once cooled) into a big ziploc freezer bag or two, smush it out flat, and freeze like that. Then it's really easy to break or slice off as much as I need. They freeze beautiful for months--toss in a hot pan for a minute or two and they're like fresh-made. Such a time saver. (I also like that when they're frozen it's easy to chop them up into really small pieces if you need.)
Edamame- for snacking
Rye Bread- for random grilled cheese moments
Chicken Thighs
Chorizo
Chocolate chips- hidden from chocoholic-husband underneath veggies.
Frozen peas...I can and freeze other vegetables but store bought peas are great. Yeast...we buy 2 pounds at a time and I keep an easy to use jar in fridge. Frozen fruit...I freeze enough blueberries and tart cherries and peaches to make a pie or cobbler or crisp of each every month. Extra butter...salted and unsalted...there is no substitute. The gel-filled insert for our ice cream maker to make ice cream or frozen yogurt. Frozen raspberries...I like them just to eat, frozen, and to sprinkle in a bowl of cereal. They make the ice all frosty. Freezer raspberry jam...like eating fresh raspberries.
Chicken broth, cookie dough, cherries, vodka, soup.
homemade stock
frozen raw shrimp, berries, spinach, and peas
"dinner in ten minutes for the kids" sloppy joes, chili mac sauce, pasta sauce, 2x beans, quinoa, brown rice
Wild Alaska Salmon, blueberries, butter, moose, filo.
My number one in the freezer is frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. It's been a dietary staple my whole life as my mother makes arguably the best chocolate chip cookies around. My boyfriend thought I was crazy at first and yes, I am aware of the salmonella risk but I eat it anyway, and now he is a total convert. Some days I just need a bit of something sweet and a spoonful of cookie dough is instant gratification. Boyfriend now refuses to eat it any other way than frozen.
My Freezer staples are:
* Tomato sauce/Marinara
* Crusty bread/Crostini
* Various Beans & Legumes: red kidney, black, chick pea, white & lentils
* Muffins
* Frozen fruits for my smoothies that I drink a few times a week.
I've tried repeatedly to get this to break out into paragraphs, and it won't do it in preview, so I do apologize if this is a revolting brick of text instead of something easier to read:
Meats — we buy when things are on sale, and package up in single serving portions. Chicken breasts, pork loin chops (cut from whole loins), beef rib eye steaks (cut from bulk meat), lamb chops (sometimes they actually are within buying range here!).
Veggies/fruit — we buy large 5 pound packs of peas, green beans and lima beans, and kernel corn when we can find it. We like bananas, but if we don't get to them in time I'll freeze them to turn into banana ice cream. (That's a new thing for us, but WOW did it take us back to our childhood!)
Stock — During the summer we cook chickens in the slow cooker for chicken salad and freeze the chicken stock.
"Leftovers" — Not really leftovers, but things like beef stew, spaghetti sauce or soboro that I'll make lots of and freeze in serving size containers.
Other — We also have a few Stouffer's things like mac & cheese, stuffed peppers and (EWWW, but The Man loves it...) creamed chipped beef. (You'd think that someone who had been in the Army way back when wouldn't want to have anything to do with shit on a shingle...!)
Chicken Stock
Dumplings (make a tray and freeze - great to throw into soups or boiled on their own)
Veggies - bought at their peak fresh, prepped (but not cooked), then frozen. Like English peas or favas, shelled, or flowery bell peppers chopped up and ready to use.
"Meals Packs" or single-serving spaghetti and meatballs, chili, etc.
Cookie dough - good for surprise guests and self-indulgence
Bread/bagels - we usually buy on special or when they have the 'two for $x' deals, and can't eat it fast enough before it gets mouldy. So, we'll keep some out and freeze the rest. Plus, pita goes bad waay too fast.
Frozen fruit - bananas to snack on all summer as a cheap/healthy ice cream alternative, and frozen berries are a lifesaver in the winter. When we get a Vitamix, we will make SO MUCH ICE CREAM with frozen fruit.
Convenience food - yeah, yeah, not the best, but it's good if you're in a can't-be-bothered mood! My favourites are Fry's products - mushroom pies, schnitzels, and we bought some not!chicken strips to try.
Fudge - melt a bit of coconut butter, add stuff to it, freeze, fudge.
Sorbet/soy ice cream - see that note on frozen bananas? It doesn't always work ;) We don't have that Vitamix yet!
At the moment, it's kind of hard to say, since the freezer is crammed with crap belonging to other people, mostly things like meat pies, lasange, various bits of meat, and huge tubs of ice cream that make my sorbet look kind of pathetic. As soon as they move out, though, I'm going to be making MUCH better use of it. Making and freezing huge quantities of pesto, perhaps? (Can't eat store-bought, it has cheese. Crave it year round. Basil NOT in season year round. This is a problem.)
Ah, thanks for the tip! :)
1. A batch of homemade pesto.
2. Pizza dough
3. Vanilla ice cream
4. Unsalted butter
5. Ckicken breasts
1. Whole wheat pita
2. Herbs/spices (cilantro/basil/chilies, primarily)
3. Frozen blueberries (for at-work snack)
4. Butter.
5. Edamame. Delicious.
1. chicken breasts
2. shrimp
3. peas
4. broccoli - we buy in bulk at Costco and freeze in sandwich baggies
5. frozen home made breakfast burritos - saves lots of time in the morning
1. Vegetable stock... and lots of it.
2. Vegetable trimmings in a ziplock bag for veggie stock. Once I get a couple large freezer bags worth, I add them to water to make said stock.
3. Tons of beans. I buy them dried and make large batches, that way there's always some on hand.
4. Left overs. Mainly soup, but I'll freeze most leftovers. My husband and I tend to have at least 2-4 servings of leftovers from every meal we cook, so by freezing them we're actually sure that they'll get eaten.
5. Frozen edamame- the only thing in my freezer that came from the freezer section of the grocery store.
My top 5:
1. 2 quarts of frozen red chili from Roberto's (for enchilidas or posole or whatever)
2. At least 5 lbs of Hatch green chili, roasted (can't live with out it)
3. 2 lbs hamburger 90/10
4. 1 container of my mother's posole, this is liquid gold and can be used for bartering in some parts.
5. Parmesan rinds...for soups and sauces
stock
ground turkey
grass fed ground beef (when it goes on sale)
chicken thighs (for stock)
peas
edamame
butter
homemade dumplings
limeade (for margaritas :)
1) Vodka
2) cold compresses, ice cream maker tub,
3) unsalted butter
4) local, organic produce procured in season, and frozen such as:
-- frozen fruit - wild picked (by me) blueberries and cranberries, organic local strawberries
-- chopped up local organic peppers and onions to use in cooking
-- home made roasted applesauce from local organic apples
-- home made roasted tomato sauce from local organic tomatoes
-- local fish and meat
5) treats and quick meals
-- mini dark chocolate Dove bars
-- Luigis lemon ice
-- Trader Joes turkey meatballs, pizza, Indian Bread, Masala Burgers
6) And a growing number of loaves of my next door neighbor's home made bread because her freezer is broken, so I keep it for her.
Frozen Vegetables (corn, peas, cauliflower)
Frozen Fruits
Meats (ground beef patties, beef cubes)
Lemon/Lime/peeled and sliced ginger (for drinks and tea)
Ice packs and ice cubes
Stock
Candles (they burn longer when frozen :-) )
Meals portioned for one because its only me here :-)
1) Scallions, chopped up rings. (for ramen)
2) Milk, in 125 ml portions.
3) Ground meat in 4.oz portions.
4) Sliced Mushrooms
5) Bacon, in rolls of 3's.
Berries! My main freezer essential
Bananas (pre-sliced for a delicious banana soft-serve, I love mine with cocoa)
Brown rice tortillas/bread
Pre-cooked & portioned brown rice & legumes
Vegan burgers (I love Amy's, but why are they so expensive)
Veggie burgers, ice cream, bags and bags of the canned tomatoes left over from when I use partial cans, peas (why do we all keep peas?), frozen fruit for smoothies (including overripe bananas that I never seem to use but keep saving anyway).
our freezer is stocked for portuguese food!
small batches of red and wine wine
bag of chopped cilantro for cooking
bag of chopped parsley for cooking
bag of chopped onion for cooking
cut chorizo (or as we call it, chouriço)
Here are mine:
Frozen veg -- corn, peas, peppers, squash
Frozen fruit -- raspberries, blueberries, bananas
Chicken sausage -- both savory and sweet varieties
Gluten-free bread -- I like Udi's
Butter -- salted.
Those 5 simple ingredients cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They're super versatile when combined with a well-stocked pantry.
homemade pesto (minus the cheese)
roasted home-grown tomatoes
frozen home-grown melon and peach chunks
nuts and coffee beans
stock
My problem isn't WHAT, its how to get it organized so I can find it!
Varies greatly since we mainly eat out, but these days, David's Cookies cheesecakes. Hey, at Costco they are ~$14 instead of $35 on those rare weekends when they are featuring them!
chicken and beef stock
frozen cherries when they are out of season
fudgesicles
homemade sofrito frozen in cubes
olive oil and parsley cubes
Nuts. Whole chickens I buy on sale. Frozen fruit. That half cup of leftover wine I can throw into something. Sorbet.
Also, I wanted to pass on this tip: know those shelf organizers meant for kitchen cabinets? I use them in the freezer to organize items.
1. Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, cashews, pepitos, sunflower seeds...!)
2. Frozen spinach
3. Diced chicken in sealed packs
4. Frozen fish (Trader Joe's)
5. Frozen shrimp
I find keeping the meats in small, pre-prepared portions makes it easy to unthaw in a bowl of water in 15-20 minutes so I don't have to think too far in advance for dinner prep.
I don't entertain (too lazy and too selfish) so my freezer "musts" are just treats for me:
1. ground beef
2. garlic bread
3. sweet potato fries
4. cauliflower/broccoli mix
5. dulce du leche ice cream
1. meat (beef, chicken)
2. fish (fillets, cleaned shrimp)
3. vegetables (mixed, chopped spinach)
4. fruits (bananas, berries for smoothies)
5. pita bread (extra ones we can't finish)
1) cheese (I buy bulk and freeze big chunks of cheddar)
2) frozen fruit
3) ice cream
4) coconut milk
5) chicken stock
ice, vodka, mark bittmans' pizza dough, blueberries, homemade spaghetti sauce
Ice cubes
Vegies from my garden (peas, beans, tomatoes, etc.)
Homemade ice cream
Freezer pacs
Whole wheat flour
5. Vegetable soup/stew - made in large quantities for those days when no one wants to cook
4. Nuts/Nut Flours
3. Broccoli
2. Berries
1. Bananas - can't go without 'em!!
I only have two:
Fry's Vegetarian products - they have vegan chicken-style burgers, nuggets, beef-style burgers... all the tasty, "meaty" stuff I want to snack on when I can't be bothered cooking;
and frozen soy beans to make edamame.