Africa-Press – Liberia. You use your freezer almost every day. You shop, food goes in, and some get thrown out. And if you are like most of us, there is no real reason to how things are arranged.
You just squeeze new food into any available space, until that one sad day when you clean out your fridge, only to realise how many forgotten items have expired and gone to waste. But what if we told you that organising your freezer will save you time and money?
How will you ask? We found some answers from WikiHow, which detailed that you can turn your freezer from a disaster zone into a space that helps you cook and eat, by using a few simple tricks.
Repackaging and labeling food
Take everything out and throw away the old food.
Food doesn’t last forever, even in the freezer. That old bag of frozen burgers that’s been there for the past 10 years, the popsicles from last summer… you probably don’t even know all the stuff that’s in your freezer until you scoop everything out onto the counter. Throw out the food that’s too freezer burnt and the stuff you’ll never eat.
Remove items from their boxes so they take up less room.
There’s no reason you have to store items in the box you bought them in. If the box has been opened, repackage your food in an airtight container to avoid freezer burn. You can use a vacuum sealer or carefully squeeze the air out of a bag.
Freeze your items flat so they fit better.
You can freeze your items flat in unit-sized bags. First, put your food, such as soup or ground meat, in a freezer bag and remove all the air. Lay it flat in the freezer to freeze.
Label all your containers with contents and date.
It’s so easy to forget something in the back of your freezer, pull it out months later, and have no idea what it is. Save your future self by labelling containers before you freeze them with their contents, the date you’re freezing them, and when you should eat the food.
Organising with bins and bags
Group food in bins by category.
Use clear plastic bins that stack for maximal use of your freezer. Put food in the same category in the same bin. For example, you could have one bin for meats, another for soups, and another for veggies. That way you can easily find and pull out the food you are looking for.
Put frozen veggies in repurposed milk bottles.
If you have veggies you use all the time, like peas or corn, keeping them in a washed-out milk gallon will let you easily pour them out. First, freeze your veggies flat on cookie sheets, and once they are frozen, pour them into the container. Don’t freeze them directly in the container, or you may have trouble getting them out again.
Freeze individual servings to avoid defrosting whole containers.
Portion out meals and ingredients before time and freeze them in their bags or containers. For example, instead of freezing a whole pack of bacon, wrap a few slices in plastic wrap so that you can cook them directly from frozen instead of defrosting the whole pack to peel away the slices.
Keep an inventory of the items in your freezer.
If you find yourself forgetting what you have and what you should eat first, keep a list of your frozen items on the outside of your freezer. While it’s not feasible to keep an inventory of everything in your fridge, it’s much easier to keep track of things in the freezer, because they stay there much longer.
