Karrie Truman: To freeze or not to freeze?
That's the question we're going to tackle today.
I'm going to show you what the best and the worst foods are for freezing.
Karrie Truman: One of the most common misconceptions I hear all the time is, "I can freeze anything!"
While technically that's true, (you can freeze anything), the results of thawing doesn't
always come out how you want it.
Karrie Truman: In my cookbook, Seriously Good Freezer Meals, I have a great chapter in here
full of information on what is great to freeze and what isn't so great to freeze.
Karrie Truman: To teach you this, I thought we could play a little game.
I'm your game show host, Karrrrr Truman.
Today, we're going to be playing "Can I freeze that?"
Karrie Truman: This is a game that you're going to test the bounds of your knowledge
to find out if you truly know what you can freeze and what you can't freeze.
Karrie Truman: The first mystery item is cheese.
Can you freeze cheese?
If you guessed yes, then you'd be right.
If you guessed no, you'd be right too.
Some cheeses work really great for freezing and other cheeses don't do so well for freezing.
Karrie Truman: First thing I wanted to mention is that this is a hard cheese, and hard cheeses
typically do very well with freezing.
There is some texture change, you'll notice if you freeze and then thaw some cheddar cheese,
it will start to be crumbly texture.
It's still very usable in a lot of things, it's just not so good for slicing and things
like that.
Karrie Truman: Soft cheeses, say like Brie and some of those, can't freeze them.
They do not turn out well after thawing.
They're grainy and the texture is totally gone.
Karrie Truman: Now, one of my best techniques is to shred the cheese before you freeze it.
This bowl here is some mozzarella cheese that was pre-shredded and frozen and then thawed
in the fridge overnight.
This one was fresh.
You can tell that the textures are basically the same.
Karrie Truman: The second item is avocados.
Can you freeze avocados?
If you answered yes, you are correct!
Avocados are a little bit tricky to freeze, though, because as you'll know by dealing
with avocados, you can get browning really fast.
The big secret is to freeze avocados using a vacuum sealer.
I don't always recommend using a vacuum sealer for freezer meals, but if you are freezing
avocados, it's pretty much a must.
This one was frozen using the vacuum sealer.
See, it's green and lovely.
This one, I just got as much air out as I could in this quart-sized bag.
You can tell it's browned, the air got to it, so this is why I like to freeze avocado
in vacuum sealer bags.
Karrie Truman: The third surprise item is fresh herbs.
Can you freeze fresh herbs?
If you answered no, you'd be wrong.
You can freeze fresh herbs.
This is how I do it.
Take all of the leaves off of the fresh herbs.
You can chop them or you can just have the herbs whole, you add them to an ice cube tray,
and then you add oil.
I did olive oil in this half and vegetable oil on the other half.
Freeze them in ice cubes just like this.
Then you can take them out of their ice cube trays ... there's a few right here ... and
just go ahead and add them to a quart-sized freezer bag, like so, and then add them back
into your freezer.
Then when you have a soup, you can just pop one of these cubes right into the pot.
Karrie Truman: Mystery item here number four is pesto.
Can you freeze pesto?
If you answered yes, you'd be correct.
I like to freeze these in ice cube trays and you can just pop them out and stick them in
a quart-sized freezer bag and use.
Just toss one in a soup or on top of your pasta, whatever.
They freeze great.
Karrie Truman: Are you ready to find out what's under box number five?
Eggs, raw eggs.
Can you freeze raw eggs?
If you answered no, you'd be wrong, you can freeze raw eggs!
But the trick is that you have to remove the shells before you freeze them.
You can scramble them and then pour it into a gallon-sized freezer size bag, you can thaw
and have fresh scrambled eggs anytime you like.
Or you can crack each egg into its own ice cube compartment, freeze it, and then you
can make fried eggs.
You can freeze egg.
Karrie Truman: Mystery item number six is cabbage and lettuce.
Can you freeze cabbage and lettuce?
If you answered no, you'd be correct!
If any of you guys have ever frozen lettuce, even like things ... watermelon, cantaloupe,
anything with super high water content in is not great for freezing.
The texture changes horribly, it gets limp and sometimes slimy after it's been frozen.
This one's definitely a no, you cannot freeze cabbage or lettuce.
Karrie Truman: Who's ready to see what's under mystery box number seven?
Okay, here it is.
Raw potatoes.
Can you freeze raw potatoes?
That's your question.
If you answered yes, you'd be wrong.
You have to cook them if you want to freeze them.
I did a little test yesterday where I sliced and diced some raw potatoes, put them in a
freezer-safe bag, removed all the air, and froze them.
Then I added them to the fridge, let them thaw, and this is what you get with raw potatoes.
Gross, right?
It's so gross.
This is just disgusting.
They turned brown and they're just spongy, you can't really feel that but they're really
spongy and just a whole different texture.
Definitely a no, you cannot freeze raw potatoes.
You can cook the potatoes up before you add them to different soups and things like that,
but my favorite time saving tip for potatoes, save some time and buy your potatoes already
blanched when you're making your freezer meal.
Karrie Truman: Are you ready to see what's under mystery box number eight?
Raw meat.
Can you freeze raw meat?
If you yes, you'd be correct.
You can freeze raw meat, and I do it all the time in my freezer meals, actually.
I make freezer meals by adding raw meat to the bag and then I freeze it, and then thaw
and cook it fresh the day of.
Karrie Truman: One quick tip I have is if you are freezing hamburger, you have the choice
to freeze it in the raw state or you can freeze it already pre-cooked.
I do this all the time to save me time on the day of that I want to make a hamburger
soup or something like that.
Karrie Truman: Now it's time to see what item number nine is.
Ready?
Mayonnaise.
Can you freeze mayonnaise?
If you answered yes, you'd be wrong.
Wrong, wrong.
You cannot freeze mayonnaise.
It will separate after freezing, and it's not good, it's not good at all.
Don't freeze mayonnaise.
Don't even freeze mayonnaise in casseroles.
Just doesn't work.
Doesn't work so good.
Karrie Truman: Are you ready for the final mystery box?
Mystery box number 10 is so big, is so great that you are going to freak right out.
A whole lot of other dairy stuff.
We have butter, sour cream, cream cheese, milk, and half and half.
Can you freeze these items?
If you answered yes, you'd be correct.
If you answered no, you'd also be correct.
Let's dive into these items and I'll show you which ones freeze well and which ones
don't.
Here we go.
Karrie Truman: For sour cream, you cannot freeze sour cream.
It does not do well.
It gets all curdly and strange.
Here's what normal sour cream should look like, smooth and creamy, okay?
Freeze it, curdle.
Not freezing it, very nice.
Karrie Truman: Now cream cheese is one that does not freeze well.
Here is just a regular cream cheese, and here is the frozen and thawed cream cheese.
Definitely has some texture change.
Karrie Truman: Let's see how this taste.
I'm just going to use my finger ... [inaudible 00:09:18] cheese, delicious.
Let's see if this is changed taste-wise.
Whoa, I can't even get any.
It's all crumbling down.
Definitely not the same.
Now, you can still use this, even though it's a little bit texture change, in some of your
casseroles and things like that, but yeah, you will have some texture change for sure
when you're freezing cream cheese.
Karrie Truman: Now, a half and half and fresh whipping cream, it's not good.
They will separate after freezing.
That's definitely a no.
Butter is a different story.
Butter freezes perfectly.
Gallons of milk and half gallons of milk.
These can be frozen.
This one I froze and thawed, and this one is just fresh.
Let's see how they look.
Fresh milk, perfect.
I have noticed when you thaw frozen milk, sometimes it will separate a little bit, so
then all you have to do is just kind of shake it up and then it's usually just perfectly
fine.
But look, very, very similar.
I really can't tell the difference.
Freezing milk can be a great money-saving tip especially if y get milk on sale, you
can freeze it if you have the room.
Karrie Truman: Thanks for playing today's game, I'm so glad that you are here with me.
Congratulations to those who knew all the answers.
That means you're kind of like a freezer meal expert already if you got them right.
If you didn't, well now you know what you can and at you cannot freeze.
Karrie Truman: That's the end of today's game, I hope you enjoyed.
If you did, make sure and like and subscribe to my channel.
Bye for now.