The idea behind freezing food is saving time and saving money. Time, because you’ll have ingredients (or fully cooked meals) on hand for when you need them. Money, because you get a better deal by buying in bulk.
Believe me, cooking one of our freezer meal recipes is always a smart choice. How frustrating, then, to open your freezer to find your conveniently stored meal dried out, ice-encrusted and far from appetizing. You’ve been hit by the dreaded freezer burn.
What Is Freezer Burn?
We associate freezer burn with the layer of ice on the surface of the food, but the ice is only a symptom of the problem. The ice crystals come from the food itself; if there’s warmer air next to the food, moisture escapes and then freezes at the surface. Unfortunately, this also dries out the food itself. Though food with freezer burn may be safe to eat, your frozen chicken dinner may not turn out too tasty.
How to Prevent It
The key to preventing freezer burn is to prevent the moisture from escaping in the first place. For this to happen, you’ll want to keep two things in mind: keep temperatures consistently cold and keep the air out. This helps freeze the food fast and keep that icky freezer burn from forming. Keep the following tips handy the next time you plan on tossing together an easy freezer meals.
Putting hot food directly in the freezer brings the temperature of the freezer up almost as fast as it brings the temperature of the food down. Not only that, it will affect any food close to the hot food, making a warm place on the surface for freezer burn to strike. Put your food in the fridge for one to two hours before putting it in the freezer for long-term storage.
3. Freeze your food in small batches.
Filling the freezer with food all at once will bring up the temperature, and it will take much longer to get down below freezing point. Instead, put in just a few items at a time. (Try this freezer sweet corn recipe for fresh corn any time of the year.)
4. Don’t overfill—or underfill—your freezer.
Gallery: 12 Common Toaster Mistakes You May Be Making (Reader’s Digest Canada)
African American girl burning toast in toaster
Toasting back-to-back without adjusting
You know how you preheat your oven before baking? You can’t do that with a toaster, but that doesn’t mean the toaster doesn’t stay hot once you’ve toasted the first batch of bread. Take that residual heat into account before you start your next batch of toast, or you’ll find that bread gets a whole lot crispier in the same amount of time.
Never cleaning the crumb tray
Most toasters come with a built-in crumb tray, which is a small, removable tray at the bottom of the toaster that’s made to catch crumbs. It’s great for keeping the toaster clean, but you still have to remember to clean the actual tray itself, or it will get loaded over time and cause crumbs to build up at the bottom of your toaster.
You should be giving your toaster a good deep cleaning every few months or so. The crumb tray won’t be able to catch every fallen piece from your favourite toast recipes, so get in there with cleaning brushes and microfibre cloths (and please, don’t clean it while it’s still plugged in).
Don’t worry, we’ve all been there! Whether you’re nudging your toast out with a knife or digging out that large crumb with a fork, it’s tempting to stick silverware in your toaster. But please—don’t, and especially keep that knife away while the toaster is still warm or plugged in. Sticking silverware in a toaster allows the electricity in the toaster to flow through the knife and then to your hand, which can lead to shock (and disappointment). Instead, wait for your toaster to cool down completely, then clean it with a brush tool that won’t conduct electricity.
It doesn’t get better than a fresh grilled cheese, just make sure you’re using the right kitchen tools. Hint: It’s not your toaster. It’s possible to make gooey dishes in your toaster, but that leads to sticky messes and fire hazards, especially once foods start dripping and melting on the toaster’s wires.
Can you turn your toaster on its side and still use it? Yes. Should you? No. Much like how you should leave grilled cheeses out of your toaster, you should avoid making any sandwiches that require turning your toaster. Toasters aren’t meant to be turned, so when you do this, you change how the appliances heats and cooks, leading to unevenly browned sandwiches and heightened fire risks.
If you’ve got thick bagels or large slices of bread to toast, it’s best to shave them down until they’re slim enough to fit. If you shove them in your toaster, you’ll end up with extra crumbs and poor heating. The toaster’s wires become completely eclipsed when you shove too much food in, which means the side touching the wires will burn, while the rest of your toast stays cool.
Some toasters have three settings and others have thirty. Whether you’ve got a simple toaster or a complex one, ignoring these settings altogether is one of the greatest toaster mistakes you can make. Toaster settings are made to help you get the most out of your appliance—you should absolutely play with them to find your perfect bread setting, but be sure to adjust your settings depending on what you’re making.
Learn about the 40 kitchen hacks you’ll wish you knew sooner.
Unplugging your toaster improperly
As with any appliance, you should never grab its cord and yank it from the wall. This could lead to stripped cords and electrical mishaps—and a broken toaster. Play it safe and always grab the cord by its wall base. And always unplug your toaster after using it!
There’s nothing better than a toasted bagel. And there’s nothing sadder than a bagel that’s been toasted wrong. Make the most of your toaster’s bagel settings by loading the bagel slices facing inward—the wires get hottest in the middle, so the insides of your bagel will get deliciously browned while the outsides stay chewy.
If you find yourself toasting more than two slices of bread at a time, it may be time to invest in a four-slice toaster that can handle more bread per cycle. Investing in the right toaster can save you time in the long run, especially if you find yourself frequently frustrated with your standard toaster. If you’re a bagel aficionado, check out a toaster with robust bagel settings.
At the end of the day, the biggest toaster mistake you could be making is…using a toaster. Some dishes are best made in other appliances with toasting abilities. Garlic bread, for example, should be left to the broiler. Grilled cheese should be made with a skillet, while bagel sandwiches are really better in a toaster oven. Examine what you’re really toasting each day, and pick up the appliance best suited to your tastes.
Already frozen food acts like ice in a cooler, and helps chill other food. But an overstuffed freezer prevents the even circulation of cold air, creating warmer pockets. Ideally, your freezer should be about three-quarters full. If you have the room, use freezer shelves to give your food a couple inches of air beneath it, too.
6. Use freezer-safe containers to store your food.
Plastic containers, glass containers or jars, or freezer bags all work great. Be sure you have freezer bags instead of “storage bags”; storage bags use a thinner plastic, and aren’t designed for the freezer. (These are the 15 food storage guidelines you didn’t know.)
7. Give your food an extra layer of protection.
You can do this by wrapping it in plastic wrap or aluminum foil before putting it in your container or freezer bag. Only use plastic wrap, waxed paper and aluminum foil if you are also using a container or freezer bag. None of these, on their own, will keep enough air out to prevent freezer burn. If you’re storing a liquid, like freezing soup, for example—pour it into the container, leaving about ½ in. of headroom (the liquid will expand when it freezes). Cover the surface of the liquid with plastic wrap, smooth the plastic so that it makes contact over the surface of the food, then put the lid on the container. (This is how long you can really freeze food for.)
8. Squeeze out the air.
When using freezer bags, press out as much air as possible from the bag before freezing the food. If you have a vacuum storage system, this is the best possible solution.
9. Know when to toss it.
Finally, it may go without saying, but don’t keep food for too long. No matter how well wrapped and protected, food will hit its expiry date after about 9 months in the freezer. So make sure you record the date on the food you freeze, and that you use or discard it after 9 months.
The damp days of early autumn send me, spoon in hand, in search of soup. Cloudy miso broths the colour of fallen leaves, old fashioned leek and potato so hot it steams up my glasses, sweet pumpkin, and in particular a bowl of deep and earthy mushroom. I rarely make […]
![a plastic container of food](https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrXnCAppadfXUgASATQtDMD;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzgEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1604851113/RO=10/RU=https{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}3A{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2F{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Fwww.msn.com{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Fen-ca{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Fhealth{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Fwellness{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Fhow-to-protect-your-food-from-freezer-burn{c33c21346ff5e26ab8e0ae3d29ae4367143f0d27c235e34c392ea37decdb8bed}2Far-BB1aH24P/RK=2/{"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"60","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1aGV0L.img?h=600&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"47","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1aGV0L.img?h=468&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"47","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1aGV0L.img?h=468&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"}})
