How to Freeze Your Way to Half-Price Groceries

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Freezers are great to prevent food waste. And this also has a knock-on effect of saving money on grocery bills. Always label what goes into the freezer, and add the date. Avoid overfilling your freezer, since cold air must move around for even freezing.

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (many foods are unsafe near animal friends). Bin allium scraps (onion, leeks, garlic, shallots, chives) and citrus/tomato/rhubarb scraps, as acids could harm compost creatures. It’s okay to put them in food waste bins (made into biogas).

Before recycling cans, rinse then remove lids (pop ring-pulls over holes). Then step on cans to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

Tips for saving money with freezers

• Bread (a main source of food waste) is easily frozen. Buy sliced, then pop slices straight into the toaster.
• To freeze green veggies, blanch in boiling water then plunge in iced water, drain, freeze on a tray and transfer to a silicone freezer bag. Boil (don’t steam) from frozen. Don’t freeze high-water foods (lettuce, cucumber, radish).
• You can freeze homemade pastry for a few months. It will thaw in around an hour, if you’re in a pie-making mood!
• Use a fridge/freezer thermometer to check temperatures weekly (Food Standards Agency says fridges should be 0 to 5 degrees and freezers below 18 degrees C (wait for food to cool, before adding).
• If defrosting a freezer, don’t leave food out more than a couple of hours ((keep doors closed during power cuts, and food should be okay for a few hours). If the temperature goes above 4 degrees C, throw food away.

For fridges, transfer opened canned foods to containers, and store animal foods on the bottom shelf, to avoid dripping onto surfaces below.

Moonmoon Reusable Silicone Ice Cube Trays

Moonmoon reusable silicone ice cube trays are plastic-free and create six large slow-melting ice cubes, ideal for summer drinks, freezing herbs, meal prep, leftover sauces or portioning baby food.

The flexible trays make release effortless, and the matching lid keeps everything fresh, and with no freezer odours.

Use code NATURALLY10 for 10% off orders.

Also sold on Etsy (no discount).

And at end of use, just send back for recycling, they do all the work for you, so there’s no waste!

As these ice cube trays are so large, you can add fruit or garnishes for a burst of flavour to drinks (keep edible flowers away from children and pets).

And as they are made from silicone, you can safely also use them in the dishwasher or even the freezer or oven (up to 230 degrees Celsius).

The giant ice cubes don’t just look better, but transform your drinks. As they keep beverages colder for longer, but without diluting flavour. So your soft drinks, cocktails or iced coffee stays cool for longer.

Avoid caffeine for pregnancy/nursing.

You can fill them with fruit, and make ‘fruity ice cubes’

Or use them for meal prep. Make that vegan stock recipe, then freeze the rest and just pop out a giant cube when you are making soup or stew.

You can also use these cubes to batch-freeze everything from herbs to citrus juice. Keep citrus and some herbs away from pets, read more on food safety for people and pets.

Why choose reusable silicone ice cube trays?

Most ice cube trays are made either from metal (so they are not flexible) or plastic (which you likely don’t want to use). And those reusable ice cubes usually contain silica gel and are sold in plastic packaging.

Just one purchase of a silicone ice cube tray can last you years, and save money long-term.

Choosing and maintaining freezers

To clean a freezer, unplug and move food to a cool box. Remove shelves and baskets to wash and rinse in the sink, and dry everything before switching the freezer on again.

Look for A-rating freezers, ideally with a Quiet Mark (freezers that make a noise could be faulty, Curry’s offers a ‘no-fix, no fee’ service). Cleaning the condenser coils with a vacuum cleaner soft hose every few months can prevent noise, as can adjusting the feet and tightening screws.

If you are on a low income, you can buy (PAT-tested) fridge/freezers from Reuse Network. Some places (including councils) give grants for those in need:

• Turn 2 Us has a national grant search tool
• British Gas White Goods Fund offers help by referral
• Family Fund provides grants for families with disabled children

Silicone souper cubes (sold in Lakeland)

Souper Cubes are an American invention, a great invention. At present we don’t appear to have anything similar in England. They are sold in Lakeland (so get these while you can, as the trade tariff fiasco is affecting imports).

In short, these are made from silicone (made with sand, a kind of eco-alternative to plastic that is food-safe, lasts for years and is easy to recycle). Looking like giant ice-cube trays, you basically make a batch of soup (or bread or anything else), then pour leftovers into the trays.

Then when you want some soup, you just pop out a cube to thaw in the fridge, or heat up (to the correct temperature and don’t re-freeze, for food safety). They are great to avoid food waste.

If you live alone or as a couple, you can then make normal soup recipes (that often serve 4 to 6), and have your own homemade soup on tap, which will save you money, and give more variety than tinned soups.

The sturdy lids prevent spills and frost, and the flexible containers push out cubes easily (no more banging plastic containers on the counter, to get your soup or sauce out. You can also use them for homemade pasta sauce, curry, vegan pesto or broth. Silicone also resists stains and odours.

Souper Cubes are also easy to stack and dishwasher-safe. They were created ‘in her head’ by a busy mother, then designed by her husband, who thankfully is an engineer!

If you like making soup, invest in a stick blender, it’s a lot less faff than using blenders that you constantly have to wash out. It’s UK law that stores selling electronic goods have to recycle the old ones for you. So take along that dusty old blender in the kitchen cupboard, and swap it for a sleek modern hand-blender, to use with your Souper Cubes.

Pack’d (organic frozen produce in paper packs)

PACKD is a unique food brand that sells frozen organic fruits and vegetables, in paper packaging. It offers small portions to get your 5-a-day, without food waste. So if you can’t find fresh organic produce at the local market, this is the next best choice.

Choosing organic produce is better for your health and the planet, and with this brand, you don’t have to worry as recycling the packs is super-easy. It’s also helping to support local organic farmers.

Produce is flash-frozen just after picking, which locks in vitamins, texture and flavour. Ideal for busy lives, just take what you need, and seal the pack, to return to the freezer.

Organic vegetables

• Spinach (check medication before eating)
• Petit Pois
• Broccoli
• Sweetcorn
• Sweet Potato
• Cauliflower Rice

Organic fruits

• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Cherries
• Summer Berries
• Blackberries
• Peaches
• Bananas
• Pineapples
• Mango

Plant-based goodness bowls

This brand also makes plant-based goodness bowls (not in paper packaging, but you can recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if kerbside does not recycle). Choose from:

• Sticky Soy & Sesame (an Asian-inspired dish of brown rice, vegetables and tempeh in a soy sesame sauce, with mushrooms).
• Mexican Smokey Bean (a protein-packed blend of beans, rice and vegetables in a smoky sauce with turmeric for added nutrition).
• Thai Green Curry (tempeh and brown rice, with vegetables in a spicy sauce).

Move to Minus 15 Degrees campaign

The Move to Minus 15 Degrees C campaign is well underway, asking households, shops, restaurants and hotels to join up, to help stop climate change, and also save money too. Bath’s community shop The Galleries is just one of those on board.

Cold appliances run all day, so tiny tweaks matter. Standard advice has always been to set the fridge above 4 degrees C and the freezer to minus 18 degrees C. This is because too warm temperatures spoil food, but too cold wastes energy.

It’s good to left leftovers cool before chilling in the fridge, as putting them in hot forces compressors to work harder. It’s also good to clean door seals now and then, as grime can stop them closing properly. And try if you can to put milk in the actual fridge if you have room, as opening and shutting doors just keeps warming it up.

Why minus 15 degrees C?

Ground-breaking research has found that by raising the temperature at which frozen food is stored and transported from -18°C to -15°C we can change the world by:

• Saving 17.7 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year (the same as annual emissions of 3.8 million cars)
• Creating energy savings of around 25 terawatt-hours
• Cutting costs in supply changes by 5 to 7%.

The minus 15 degrees advice was given almost 100 years ago, but things have changed since then.  For a start, modern freezers have better technology. Morrisons supermarket have already got on board, by turning up the temperature of many of its freezers.

One supermarket on board (unsurprisingly) is Iceland, which the campaign says is three times more carbon-intensive than ALDI and LIDL, due to nearly all foods being frozen.

But of course all big supermarkets could do better. 70% of England’s sold apples are now imported, and of course these (and pears) are frozen in central distribution houses, until transported to stores. What temperature are they being stored at? It would also save them money.