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.

• Cream

  Whip any leftover cream before you freeze it to stop it from becoming grainy when it’s thawed.

• 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.

• Christmas Eve Stuffing

  Making stuffing on Christmas Eve is always a fiddle, and your guests will never know if it’s been made in advance and frozen. Take the stuffing out of the freezer on Christmas Eve and thaw in the fridge.

• Cool storage

  If you are cooking for lots of people and need to keep the food cool and safe in your small kitchen. Save the fridge for highly perishable foods and use an unheated garage, balcony or even an animal-free area of the garden for drinks, eggs, root vegetables and hard cabbage. Use coolboxes and ice packs kept ready in the freezer.

• Roulade

  If you’re freezing a delicate pudding like a roulade, put it on the lid of a large Tupperware box as a base and place the bottom of the box over the top. This will make it much easier to transfer the pudding to a serving dish.

• Leftover bread sauce

  You can freeze leftover bread sauce, as long it has not been frozen before.

• Naughty bread saving

  Submitted by Jaqui Van Der Hoeven, WEST YORKS

  Cut ANY left over bread into cubes, toss in olive oil and a little garlic, herbs and chilli powder, freeze on a tray and transfer into bags/boxes when frozen. You have an instant crouton mix, wonderful shallow fried in oil straight from the freezer or for the more health conscious, baked in the oven...add to any soup or salad ...naughty but nice!

• Swede also freezes

  Submitted by Sheila Wilmac, Porthcawl

  After removing the skin, slice and cut into chips, but don't put into water. Pop into a plastic bag and freeze. Can be cooked from frozen. Great!