Freezing food you don’t want to eat right away is a great way to stop food going into the bin, and save you money.
You can freeze almost any food, including leftovers and whole meals. Most meat, fish and fruit can be popped straight into the freezer without any preparation.
Fresh vegetables often contain enzymes that keep working at freezing temperatures, so to stop them spoiling they need to be cooked or ‘blanched’ before they are frozen.
Most pip and stone fruit go brown either when frozen or when thawed due to enzyme action. This fruit doesn’t look as nice but it is still good to eat. If you want to minimise browning you can either cook the fruit before freezing or use ascorbic acid which is an antioxidant.
To get rid of insects before you rinse and prepare vegetables, try soaking them briefly in slightly salted water.
Check that your freezer is operating at -18 degrees Celsius or below. This is the ideal temperature range for food safety, as it will prevent any moulds or micro-organisms multiplying. Make sure your freezer is clean and well maintained without too much ice.
Keep food safety in mind when you are thawing or re-heating frozen food. The danger zone where bacteria, fungi or other nasties can multiply is between four and 60 degrees Celsius. These are some things you can do to keep the time that your thawing food is in the danger zone as brief as possible:
Refreezing of food is not recommended. Food such as meat should only be frozen once. When freezing be sure to put the on the freezer container so you can keep track of how long your food has been in the freezer. Foods such as fish only freeze well for short periods of time and most foods deteriorate in taste, quality, and nutritional value if frozen for too long, or if the freezer is not properly maintained.
The New Zealand Food Safety Authority website has a lot more information about safely freezing and thawing food.
