Tips from the Freezer

The freezer is a food lover's hero because there's not much that can't be frozen until its needed: homemade ready meals (see Timesavers); veg and wonderful herbs; grated cheese for toppings and meat cut in strips for quick stir-frying. This section has a few surprises for us all. Visit the freezer often to keep tabs on what's inside.

• Frozen veg when cooking for one

  Submitted by Claire, London

  If you buy a large number of peppers or onions, chop them all up when you get home; bag them and stick them in the freezer. When you go to cook a stir fry/pasta sauce/chilli you can just take a handful - no prep needed. As a bonus, I found that the frozen veg gets soft a lot quicker than fresh, so tea's ready even sooner!

• Bagels

  Slice fresh bagels and freeze in plastic bags. When you want to eat a bagel, put it directly into a toaster. They pop golden and delicious!

• Large tins

  Submitted by Mo, Hull, Hull

  Buy large catering tins of veg, devide up into portion size you use , place in old yoghurt pots and freeze

• Coriander

  Submitted by Jaqui Van Der Hoeven, WEST YORKS

  Have a look at your local asian store if possible , around here it's about £1 for three large bunches. (less than 1/4 of supermarket price)Freeze the remainder whole in a re-useable plastic bag or box then just take out of the freeezer...bash with a rolling pin before adding to recipe, it crumbles perfectly, much better than chopping and retains it's taste 100%!

• Coriander and lemon grass

  Submitted by Claire, London

  If you've bought a bunch of coriander and have a lot left over, freeze it in a sandwich bag and then crumble it into curries etc. The stalks survive freezing particularly well, but do it quickly or it defrosts and goes soggy rather than crumbling. Lemon grass also freezes well, and you can cut thin slices off when it's frozen and put it back in the freezer.

• Ginger can last for a long time

  Submitted by Julie , Barnsley

  Keep root ginger in the freezer and grate it as you need it - straight from frozen. It lasts for ages (top tip I picked up from Madhur Jaffrey).

• Corn

  Submitted by Selina, Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA

  Excess fresh corn can be cut into "cobbettes" and frozen in freezer bags until ready to pop into a saucepan with boiling water for cooking. Thought I'd try it and see - it worked!

• Freeze crumble mixes

  When making fruit crumbles, make extra topping and store it in a freezer bag. It is then ready to sprinkle over fruit with no need to thaw it first.

• Fresh ginger

  Fresh ginger often ends up wrinkled and dry in the salad drawer of the fridge. The best way to keep it is to cut it into manageable chunks then peel it. Put the chunks into a polythene bag and freeze them. Ginger is much easier to grate from frozen than it is from fresh.

• Frozen nuts

  Submitted by keenz, South Hants

  Store nuts in the freezer to prevent them going off. They can then be used from frozen.