PRACTICAL PLATE

If you cook from scratch, make big batches, or simply hate throwing good food away, the freezer is one of the best tools you have for reducing food waste.

The problem is figuring out how to freeze liquids without creating a mess.

Soup, broth, stock, sauces, gravy, and other liquid foods don’t always play nicely with freezer bags. Bags can be difficult to fill without spilling, they don’t stack particularly well, and reusing them can become a headache—especially when they’ve been through the cycle of freezing, thawing, washing, and freezing again.

I mainly use two different solutions for storing liquids in my freezer. One is a purpose-built product: Collapsible Freezer Cubes with Lids. The other costs nothing at all: reusing food containers that would otherwise go into the recycling bin.

Both work. And as I’ve been using them, I’ve realized they don’t necessarily have to be competing solutions. Sometimes the best system is to use both.

Option 1: Collapsible Freezer Cubes with Lids

If these are new to you, they’re new to me too. And I’m beginning to understand why they’ve become so popular.

They’re silicone freezer trays with individual compartments designed for portioning food. They come in several sizes, including ½-cup, 1-cup, 2-cup, and 2-tablespoon portions. The trays have fill lines, and the lids fit over the top for freezing.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

The big advantage for me is the ability to freeze more reasonable portions.

If I make a big pot of broth, for example, I don’t necessarily want to freeze it all together in one giant container. But I also don’t want to freeze it in ice cube trays because ice cubes are just such a small amount.

I might need a cup for a recipe, or a couple of cups for soup. Freezing it in measured portions means I can take out exactly what I need.

Plus, ice cube trays aren’t actually made to freeze things like mashed potatoes, cooked green beans, or other types of food. I’ve tried removing things like this from ice cube trays before and broken the tray because they’re just not made for that job. And green beans? Lol. Forget it!

Collapsible Freezer Cubes Cubes offer versatility that ice cube trays don’t.

That’s especially useful for things like:

• Broth and stock
• Soups
• Sauces
• Gravy
• Side dishes
• Tomato sauce
• Chili
• Leftover cooking liquids

Freezer Cubes are also designed to stack in the freezer, and the rigid tray makes transporting a liquid to the freezer much less nerve-racking than trying to carry a floppy bag full of soup or an ice cube tray threatening to splash tomato sauce all over the inside of the freezer.

The trays are dishwasher safe and made from food-grade silicone.

The downside

There’s one obvious drawback: you have to buy them.

That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. If you freeze food regularly, a reusable freezer tray can be a worthwhile kitchen tool.

But I don’t think everyone needs to buy a specialty product to freeze leftovers.

Which brings me to my other favorite option.

Option 2: Reuse Containers Your Food Came In

Ever since I started using “single use” plastic food containers for freezing food, I look at my yogurt and cottage cheese containers a little bit differently now.

The same goes for containers from cottage cheese, sour cream, deli foods, take out soups, and others.

If the container is in good condition and appropriate for the food you’re storing, why not give it another life in the freezer?

This is the option I particularly like from a waste-reduction standpoint because I’m not buying anything new.

I’m taking something that already exists, something that would have been single-use plastic, and giving it another life. Plus, if nothing else, I’m not putting a plastic food storage bag into the landfill. And that’s worthwhile.

And I don’t mean to completely disparage bags, sometimes they’re the right tool for the job, but honestly, these Freezer Trays containers have some real advantages over freezer bags.

1. They stack

Rigid containers are much easier to stack than bags filled with liquid.

You can make a neat little tower of containers instead of having slick bags that want to slide around the freezer even after becoming rigid from freezing.

That’s a bigger deal than it sounds if you are trying to make every inch of freezer space count.

2. They’re easy to label

I can write directly on many of these containers with a marker, which makes it easy to identify what’s inside and when I froze it.

That’s important because freezer food has a tendency to become mysterious freezer food.

You know the stuff I’m talking about.

“I’m pretty sure that’s chicken broth…”

A quick label eliminates the guessing.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written on plastic freezer bags only to have most of the “permanent marker” rubbed off the freezer bag by the time I am trying to actually use what I need. I don’t find that happens with the plastic storage containers.

3. They’re reusable without buying anything

This is the part I really like.

I’m not purchasing a new container every time I need to freeze something. I’m reusing packaging that came with food I already bought.

That doesn’t make the container immortal, of course. Eventually it will become cracked, warped, or otherwise unsuitable for reuse. But getting several additional uses out of something before it leaves the kitchen is still better than treating it as single-use packaging.

What About Reusing Freezer Bags?

Some people wash and reuse disposable plastic bags, and if that works for you, great.

I’ve done it too.

But I’ve found that liquid foods are where this strategy starts to unravel.

A freezer bag that has held something dry or relatively clean is one thing. A bag that has held soup, broth, sauce, or another liquid is much more difficult to clean and dry thoroughly.

Then there’s the repeated cycle of:

freeze → thaw → wash → freeze again.

After going through that process, inexpensive bags can become less reliable. The seams and zipper can weaken, and a bag that seemed perfectly fine when I started filling it has left a goopy frozen mess in the bottom of my freezer as soup leaked out while it was freezing.

That’s one reason I prefer rigid containers for liquids. Plus, even if I’ve reused the bag, it’s still more plastic I’m introducing to the landfill that I don’t even need at all if I’m reusing my food storage containers.

You Don’t Have to Pick Just One

Here’s the thing: these two methods don’t have to be an either/or choice.

In fact, I think they can work really well together.

For example, I can freeze broth in ½-cup or 1-cup portions in Freezer Cubes. Once those portions are completely frozen, I can pop the frozen blocks out of the tray and transfer them into a reused yogurt or cottage cheese container for longer-term freezer storage.

Now I get the best of both systems.

The Freezer Cubes give me convenient, measured portions, while the reused container gives me a rigid, stackable storage container that I didn’t have to buy.

And those smaller portions can be incredibly useful.

Say I’m making a pan sauce and I need just a few splashes of broth to deglaze the pan. I don’t want to thaw an entire 24-ounce yogurt container of frozen broth just to use a few tablespoons.

A ½-cup frozen portion is perfect.

I can grab one from the freezer, use what I need, and put the rest back in the refrigerator or use it for something else.

The same idea works with sauces, gravy, tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, cooked vegetables, and plenty of other foods.

Portioning isn’t just about saving freezer space. It’s about making the food easier to actually use.

And that’s important when we’re talking about food waste. There’s not much point in successfully freezing leftovers if they’re stored in such a way that you never want to use them.

The Best Low-Waste Ways to Freeze May Be a Combination of Solutions

You don’t have to buy an expensive set of matching containers and completely reorganize your kitchen. And in fact, I wouldn’t.

Sometimes the most sustainable storage container is the one you already have.

Sometimes spending a little money on a well-designed reusable product makes sense because it solves a problem you deal with regularly.

And sometimes you can use both together.

For me, that’s where Freezer Cubes really make sense. I can use them to portion food into usable amounts, then transfer those frozen portions into containers I’ve already got.

I’m not trying to find one perfect storage system, that’s not really what it’s about.

It’s about finding ways to keep good food from going to waste while also getting more use out of the things we already own.

Use what you already have. Buy reusable solutions when they genuinely make your life easier. Portion food in ways that make you more likely to use it. And freeze the food instead of letting good food end up in the trash.

That’s a pretty practical approach to reducing food waste.