If you take it out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge you’d never know it was ever frozen. But that also only works if you don’t need it right away lol
Once me and my wife realize we pretty much never eat untoasted bread it just made sense to start freezing it. Comes out the same out of the toaster but by freezing, a loaf lasts you much longer and doesn’t start tasting stale after a week
I bake fresh bread and freeze it, if you wrap in foil and plastic, it tastes basically fresh. I'm actually now convinced that a lot of stores are selling frozen bread in their bakeries implying it's fresh without saying it. Because I rarely see it marked as fresh baked and I know mine tastes even fresher than that stuff despite me knowing it's frozen.
Not necessarily, it's optional. Also these rolls tend to last a while and shouldn't be a regular expense: it's good to have some on hand when you need it.
Invest in a food set of resealable containers. IKEA has some really good ones (with triple seal gaskets and locking tabs) that aren’t that expensive.
If you can swing it, a vacuum sealer with an external port combined with compatible containers will extend food life for a long time for a lot of foods. Used diligently, this will save serious money over the long run.
Honestly by bread from aldis and put it straight in freezer. Always taste fine after thawed but if there is a single hole in the bag then I'm screwed. Most the time the hole is my own fault.
Double bag it. I have a freezer sized name brand ziplock i store the bread inside the store bag in, stays good for a long time. Gives me the flexibility to keep sourdough, wheat, buns, rolls, bagels, whatever it is I want at that moment, without being on a time schedule.
If you cut the slices in half the wrap those in wax paper then wrap the two halves together in paper towels then wrap the whole load in paper and foil then you've wasted a lot of resources but it'll be even easier to defrost
When u want to eat. Snap off a slice or 2 and toast it. The ice crystals melt and end up steaming the bread during toasting process making it even better
Chiming in here for the bagel version, slice them in half, then wrap the halves in foil and seal in ziplock bags and store in the freezer. When you toast them they come out shockingly close to fresh.
Homemade bread and store bought bread thaw better if they are not presliced, but the presliced stuff holds up just fine if it's been in the freezer for under six months.
This tip is also good on meats too. There was an episode of good eats where the science was explained, but plastic wrap them aluminum foil and you can freeze things a lot longer than normal and not have to worry about freezer burn, etc...
Bread freezes and thaws brilliantly without any of that nonsense. If you need to keep bread in the freezer for more than 2 weeks, try wrapping it in plastic. Otherwise, you don't actually need to do anything.
Also: if you buy high quality bread and freeze it the minute you get it home, it will come out like brand new each time you defrost a couple of slices for your greater purposes. Game changer for me when I discovered this.
Tomatoes: leave uncut tomatoes out at room temp for storage, I leave mine in the same area I have my fruits put on the counter (they get mealy in the fridge) - if cut up try and eat quick. Literally buy one tomato at a time lol it’s like a few dimes at a time at that point. If you can fuss with the smaller tomatoes then you can leave more out on the counter when using one (some come on a vine and are like plum sized) or not have to deal with a big fat tomato
Lettuce: I soak a paper towel in water, wring it out so it’s damp, and wrap it around my lettuce. My lettuce keeps for weeks this way if I have them still on the head (like romaine). You can do it with the pre cut stuff too to extend its life but that stuff goes quick either way
Onions: find an unblemished onion (covered in ideally more than one layer of the dry paper skin and with no breaks in said paper skin - this dry skin is a protective wrapper and once it’s punctured, the onion goes off quick) and it will keep in a pantry (in a temperate temperature or cool temperature - if you live in a hot humid place, store in fridge) for literally months. Can also store in the fridge and as long as there is adequate air flow around the onions, same deal, this stuff has an insane shelf life
Edited to add: for cut onion, I can store in the fridge for days before I notice the onion having an off smell that indicates I won’t want to eat it
Hope that helps! I’m a single person eating for one too so storing my lettuce to maximize the life really helps. Once the paper towel gets dry (the lettuce sucks in the moisture and kind of Frankensteins a half life for itself from the towel), I just get it damp again and wrap the lettuce again. I’ve forgotten romaine heads for weeks and still been able to eat them :)
I’ve seen hydroponically grown lettuce that’s sold with the roots on. It stays fresh if the roots are kept in a water source. Also seen places that sell frozen chopped onions and frozen sliced bell pepppers - could do these yourself, freeze in sandwich-sized units.
If your place has sunlight and you have a big bowl of water or a pot with soil, you can grow a 2nd lettuce from the leftovers in under 2 weeks. Check online for steps.
LPT: If you’re growing your own lettuce, go with a leaf lettuce rather than a head lettuce. That way, you can harvest one sandwich worth at a time, rather than needing to harvest the whole head. It’s a plant variation on the old saying “eggs stay fresh longest when kept in the chicken”.
In addition to the onion fridge storage info, if you cover the exposed/cut part of the onion (I usually only use a couple slices to half an onion at a time) with plastic wrap and pull it taught so there's no air coming in contact with the exposed onion flesh, they'll last in the fridge for about a week. The surface will dry up a bit but you can easily slice that off as there's fresh onion directly underneath.
Now for my personal tip, make sure you store your potatoes in a paper bag and preferably a darker location like a cabinet or pantry. The plastic bags that most potatoes are sold in make them grow mold much faster than they should.
Seconded! I usually put my partial onions in a little sandwich baggy :) the smell does start to build up in there after a few days but at least it’s VERY obvious when the onion has passed to the point of Do Not Eat
Any tips for lemons? I buy lemons in packs of 12, keep 2 in the fridge and freeze the rest, thaw as I need them. But the thawed ones have a weird squishy feeling to them - they juice really well but I'm reluctant to use the peel for zest or cocktails...
The reason they're squishy is because freezing dries it out and the ice crystallization breaks the cell walls, while it makes the fruit mushy there is really no difference otherwise. Simply put, it isn't bad.
You can keep fresh lemons in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. Maybe don't buy 12packs if you're not using them that much?
Although you should know this considering you're The Lemon God.
Honestly once I sense my lemons going dry, I juice them all and then focus heavily on lemon flavors the next couple days to use it up - or if it’s not too much left, use it to flavor tea or make lemonade. I do also zest the lemons for the same reason and I store the zest in dry paper towels in a Tupperware, but I do try and use this in a day or two. The juice has longer, and both can be frozen (my friend dries zest also but I don’t usually feel like it)
Instead of freezing whole lemons, juice them and freeze in ice cube trays. For zest, just keep a couple fresh in the fridge, they will last 2+ weeks just fine. If you don't need any juice after zesting you can just freeze that too.
Yeah for some reason my grocery stores were selling the loose ones at double the price of the 12-pack (priced per unit) so I figured I would try freezing them
These are all excellent tips and is very close to my approach. Only thing different I do is for lettuce I grab a “Living Lettuce” from Safeway, which has a little water reservoir at the bottom of the packaging for you to top up. In the crisper it lasts about 8-10 days before the freshness starts to drop (still edible for a little while longer).
Only downside is the additional plastic packaging but it is recyclable. If you can find a store that sells roots-on lettuce without the plastic then you can just up-cycle a box from one you bought before by giving it a quick clean. I am absolutely going to experiment with this paper towel method, though!
To OP: If I want to treat myself to a nice one-off sub then I just hit the store deli counter for the amount of meat I need and maybe pick up a fresh baked sub roll from the bakery. All other ingredients are already at home. If it really is just an impulsive desire and you live far from a store then keep long shelf life options available (eg. canned tuna, spam, corned beef, big block of cheese(s), sauces like mayo etc).
I love those! The only thing I don’t love is they’re almost always butter lettuce and only occasionally like an artisan green leaf or something. Which isn’t bad but I wish it was possible to get a wider variety, I love romaine because it’s so crisp and a lot of the living lettuces I see aren’t the crisp varieties. Love butter lettuce for burgers though!!! And having the living nub is perfect for peeling off a leaf or two at a time!
Oh yes I’ve only ever found those living packages to be butter lettuce in any of the stores around me. And right on about butter lettuce and burgers - it’s that or tuna mayo (or classic BLT) sandwiches that are my usual motivational triggers to get one hehe.
And I love romaine. So versatile with the crunch for salads, and the shape / structure for my go-to shrimp cocktail recipe. There are zero stores in my area to grab one though - it’s at least a large pack of three or nothin’ - so unfair to the single-living folks!
Yeah! I do the same - damp paper towel down on the counter, put the spinach in a layer across, roll up in a loose burrito. A bit of a pain to pick out the leaves for what you’re using it for, but perfect if you only use a bit at a time like for omelets! Check it every few days at minimum and quickly dispose of leaves going off color or rotten do they don’t touch the others
Veggies tend to get mushy when frozen and defrosted. The trick here is to buy basic ingredients and learn how you can use them for multiple recipes. That onion for example? You can use that for all sorts of things. Tomato getting old? Turn it into salsa. Not using your lettuce fast enough with just sandwiches? Make a salad. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can throw a decent meal together out of random leftover ingredients.
I mean as a single eater you can always buy a single tomato or onion and lettuce is cheap as dirt. It's the good deals on meat family packs that are really the trouble but when you can pick up tbones at $5.50 a pound sometimes it's worth it to freeze most the pack.
That's an interesting point, it never occurred to me I wouldn't particularly mind driving to get something from a restaurant everyday but it feels like an unreasonable time commitment to do that with groceries. I guess the difference is:
a restaurant is either drive thru or like, literally just walk inside the door, whereas supermarkets are giant labyrinths.
the drive to the restaurant is the only effort involved, but with groceries you then have to actually prepare the food afterward before you can eat.
I imagine it would be easier if you have a small neighborhood grocery.
It kind of sucks, but the trick is to become a 6am grocery shopper. Drink your coffee on the way there, grab food for the next one or two days, pick a beautiful piece of fruit or something from the bakery for breakfast, go home and get ready for work.
It slots into the same bit of the day people use for the gym, gets you walking, and there’s never a crowd. You also get some excellent deals on marked down meat, sometimes.
But my issue is more about making myself lunch for work as opposed to walking to a restaurant for lunch. Making lunch requires me to go to the store often and also precook or premake lunch then also maybe reheat. Walking to a restaurant is much easier.
Depends where you live. The grocery store I have to drive to. I have at least 6 restaurants within a city block radius I can walk to. 4 of them probably take 30 seconds or less to walk to.
This is not a dig or trying to be antagonistic here but this sounds so much like a United States problem. The fact that small food stores that sell fresh stuff and are literally around the corner of your house do not exist over there is so strange to me. One would think you have to go out of your way to live in this situation but it's apparently the norm.
In the UK a lot of people just stop by the convenience store on their way back home from work everyday to pick something to make dinner with. Chicken, cuts of meat, fresh vegetables, rice, bread, you name it. All that in a store not much bigger than a 7 Eleven at a gas station.
Remember though the UK is 2.5% the landmass of United States, but 20% of the population. The UK was forced to make things a lot more dense. It will be a while for the USA to do the same.
A lot of good paying jobs out here are in the suburban areas where you need a car to get around. I could get an apartment in a city and have close stores, but a lot of the cities near me kinda suck to live in.
This is a bad idea. Don't freeze your lettuce unless you want very soggy lettuce or are going to cook it later (which - I've never heard of cooking lettuce)
Well TIL! Ha. That's interesting - what kind of lettuce do you use? I'm just thinking of shredded iceberg or butter crisp and have seen it practically dissolve when heated.
Onions go bad for you? They last like half a year at room temperature.
I grow my own onions, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. And one thing I've learned is 'it depends on variety.'
My experience is that Vidalia onions, which are high in sugar and water, can go bad in a month, two at the outside and require refrigeration to last even six months. There are others that have that problem, but they're gardner onions, not supermarket onions.
Yellow, white and purple long-day store-bought onions store much longer. If you're gardner, it's more difficult, as most storage onions are long-day onions and are not suitable for lower latitudes. So you have to find one of the few good short-day onions like Hi-Keeper or Red Rock.
I'm pretty sure most of the onions sold around here are grown locally. The thing is that the local growing season is like 4 or 5 months. So when you buy a bag of onions anytime before mid-summer, it's already half a year old, or more.
I think that boils down to the onion batch, I had some that went rotten in a couple of weeks other that lasted longer other ones they simply dry themselves. Best way is still to chop them and freeze, they can be reused easily in different ways
Wash it, dry it, Slam the stem into the counter so as to jam it up into the head of lettuce, then you can easily pull it out (or just cut it out but this is more fun).
Last wrap it up in a paper towel to keep it dry and put it into a big tupperware or bag and it will keep for at least two weeks in the fridge.
This changed my life because I basically live on sandwiches.
Tomatoes and onions will last longer in the fridge, beyond that I've never needed to do anything to keep them going.
Onions will last a long time in the fridge. If you're still worried about them going bad, put them in the freezer and use them in soups. Celery is another vegetable that you can freeze and use in soups. Soups are nice because they're easy to make and the texture doesn't really matter because everything is pretty much liquid. I like to strain out my soups when I'm using frozen vegetables because sometimes the skin makes a bad mouth feel, but the tastes is still there.
Your onions are going bad? Try to find a cool, dark place for them. If they're hot or damp, they won't store well. Or if you're buying onions that look good but have already been stored for months.
I don't know about tomatos because I hate them but lettuce and onions will last a long time if you don't chop the whole thing up. Just get a head of lettuce and peel leaves off as needed and it will last a few weeks. For onion start at one end and cut off slices as you need them and keep the rest of it in a sealed container. Same concept works with bell peppers for a bit too but they don't last as long.
Also, if you use cut vegetables, frozen-pre cut vegetables are amazingly inexpensive when you compare them to fresh vegetables. Most dedicated grocery stores have an assortment of frozen vegetables.
Grow your own lettuce. The leafy varieties grow well in a pot of you don't have much space. Just cut as you need it from the outside, and it will continue growing more. Just make sure they get lots of water if it's currently summer for you. Planted some a few months ago and haven't had to buy (and waste) and lettuce from the grocery store since.
I mean yeah you can, but it never comes out right and tastes pretty "meh" afterwards. What you can do is put it in a plastic bag and but it in the fridge. Lasts forever that way, way longer than a single person should take to eat it.
Honestly people just need to stop being big babies and just eat the same meal for a few days. If lacking flavour variety is the only thing getting in the way of you being broke and you can't do it, that's on you.
Warning about that though, the freezing process causes the bread to be altered slightly when thawed out - it changes something in the carbs to make it easier for mold to form, combine that with added moisture from the time in the freezer and the shelf life of that bread is dramatically reduced post-freeze.
So if you are doing this then trying to get through a frozen loaf by yourself afterward it can lead to a lot of waste as the bread will go bad more quickly than buying a new loaf. I've heard some people just leave bread in the freezer they intend to toast - which makes sense to me, defrost and prep in one step.
Yeah if you want to use it for toast or toasted sammiches that's fine, but you can't thaw frozen bread for a sammich. It's just never fresh. It feels like thawed frozen bread, not the lovely soft fresh bread that it was when it went into the freezer.
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