How do I actually use my freezer well?

Most freezers are archaeology. Things go in, get buried, become unidentifiable and get thrown away years later. Two habits fix it entirely: labelling and a list on the door. Neither is clever, and both are consistently skipped.

What you'll need

• Freezer bags and containers
• Permanent marker
• A list on the door
• Baking tray for open-freezing (optional)

Step by step

1. Empty and audit the freezer once, discarding anything unidentifiable or very old.It stays safe indefinitely at -18°C but quality declines. Anything you can't identify isn't going to get eaten.
2. Organise into zones by category, not by date.Meat, vegetables, cooked meals, bread, batch ingredients. You look for a category, not a date.
3. Freeze liquids and portions flat in bags, then stack them upright like books.Flat freezes faster, stores far more efficiently, and defrosts much quicker than a solid block.
4. Label everything with contents and date, on the outside, before freezing.Writing on a frozen bag doesn't work. Label first, fill second.
5. Keep a list on the freezer door and cross things off as you use them.Low-tech and the single most effective thing you can do. It turns the freezer into something you actually shop from.
6. Open-freeze loose items on a tray before bagging.Berries, chips, meatballs, chopped herbs. They stay separate so you can take what you need.
7. Freeze the things people forget: bread, milk, cheese, herbs in oil, stock, wine, leftover tomato purée.All freeze well. Bread and milk in particular prevent a lot of waste.
8. Keep the freezer reasonably full.A full freezer holds its temperature better and runs more efficiently. Fill gaps with bottles of water if necessary.

Tips

• Freeze a bag of vegetable trimmings — onion skins, carrot ends, herb stalks — and make stock when it's full.
• Grate cheese before freezing. It's much more useful frozen grated than frozen in a block.
• Freeze leftover wine, stock and coconut milk in ice cube trays for cooking. They're the classic partially-used ingredients that get thrown away.
• Put newer items at the back and older at the front. Simple stock rotation prevents most freezer waste.

Common mistakes

• Not labelling — Frozen food is unidentifiable, and unidentified food gets thrown away.
• Freezing in large unportioned blocks — You have to defrost all of it to use any of it.
• No inventory — Food gets buried and forgotten, which is delayed waste rather than storage.
• Running a nearly empty freezer — It's less efficient and holds temperature worse during door openings and power cuts.

Questions people ask