We’ve been talking a bit over on the Attainable Sustainable Facebook page about how to store food in the freezer without using plastic containers. It’s a big stumbling block for people like me who want to preserve garden bounty (I freeze vegetables like green beans; their acid content is too low for water bath canning) or things like soup stock and premade meals without the health risks of plastic. Here are some options to consider:
Glass storage containers: This collection of Pyrex glass containers is on my wish list. These are oven safe, plus they’re good for both refrigerator and freezer storage and they have glass lids as well as plastic. I have some glass containers that I use for freezing, but they have plastic lids that are beginning to crack and I’m having a heck of a time finding replacements. Glass lids are so much more durable. If you are the parent of a baby and making your own baby food, rejoice! Check out these super cool freezer safe glass baby food storage containers. Alas, these aren’t exactly inexpensive options. Life Without Plastic has some great bpa-free storage options, but again, not cheap.
Glass jars: I freeze some things in glass canning jars. I’ve had some breakage, but honestly? I think that was my fault. I shouldn’t have used the narrow mouth jars with shoulders. When freezing in glass canning jars, you’ll want to use wide mouth jars that say specifically that they’re for canning or freezing and be sure to leave enough head space for expansion. I’ve also had good luck with recycling glass peanut butter jars. They’re straight sided and the glass is fairly thick. (And I’ll bet ole Laura Scudder is pretty happy right about now that she didn’t succumb to the plastic packaging craze.)
Recycled milk cartons and aseptic packaging: We’ve all filled a recycled half gallon milk carton with water to make ice blocks, right? Why not use them for freezing soups and stocks? If you buy broth or soup in aseptic packaging, you ought to be able to reuse those as well. Just make sure you have some freezer tape on hand to seal the containers.
Chinese take out containers: They serve food in them; I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t work for freezing. I haven’t yet tried this but now that I’ve thought of it, I’m excited to see how it works! I’m thinking this might be a really good way to freeze pizza dough, not to mention leftovers.
Freezer paper and foil: If you’re wrapping premade meals (think: burritos) or meats, these are a good option. If you don’t want the foil to touch the food directly (foil can react with certain foods), wrap first in a layer of wax paper. If you’re being especially careful to eliminate toxins, there’s a soy based wax paper available (regular wax paper is made with paraffin, which is a by-product of petroleum).
Muffin tins: If I want to freeze items in small portions, I’ll fill muffin tins and freeze them. Once frozen, I can pop them out and wrap in wax paper and foil.
Nature’s skin: This isn’t practical for most things, but you can stick some produce directly in the freezer without any sort of container. I’ve had luck doing this with tomatoes. Just toss them in a freezer safe bowl and voila! When you’re ready to use them in cooking, thaw them out and the skin slips right off. I’m told you can do the same with whole passion fruit.
I’d love to hear your suggestions, especially if you’re of a certain age and remember freezing before plastic – what did you use??
Thanks for this great post. I have been thinking lately about non plastic freezer options. I food grade plastic jars from purchases of honey and peanut butter, but I have wondered if these are healthy to use. You have several great ideas that I will try. The glass storage containers look ideal and will certainly go on my wish list.
Heather Anderson recently posted..Real Food Revival
I have recently been wondering about the safety of plastic and freezing food. I need to get some of these.
Definitely interested to hear what people have to say about this. Especially with 1/6 of a cow in the freezer now and another 1/3 of a cow coming.
Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi recently posted..One Sixth of a Beast
Melanie, when you have a cow butchered, does it come in plastic now? The last time I bought a portion of beef it came wrapped in white butcher paper. I loved those little packages in the freezer!
All in plastic from this butcher, sadly. I’d LOVE it if they were all in white butcher paper!
Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi recently posted..One Sixth of a Beast
Unfortunately, that white butcher paper is often lined with plastic coating.
These are great ideas for avoiding plastic freezer bags. And they don’t sound hard to put into practice. Great sustainable living tips!
Donna Hull recently posted..Three Years and Counting at My Itchy Travel Feet
Thanks, Donna. We’ve even started taking “road trip” snacks with us in alternative containers!
We use way too much plastic around here – including freezer storage bags. I’m vowing right now to change that. Seems like a few well-made containers would set you up forever.
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This makes me happy.
On Melanie’s point, I find that if I freeze meat in butcher paper it works out much better. I don’t know is it’s sustainable per se because it does have what appears to be a plasticy coding, but it could definitely work for veggies. I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
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We freeze alot of venison. My husband had the idea of using the regular white freezer paper, but turning it inside out so that the plastic coating is not touching the food. I’m sure it’s not a perfect solution, but it has worked for us. None of my meat has been freezer-burnt nor has any of it leaked out of the paper before the meat froze.
I’ve definitely frozen things directly on a baking sheet and then transferred them to a container… it’s the container part of the equation that gets expensive and frustrating. Would Pyrex dishes be a dorky Christmas gift?
Casey@Good. Food. Stories. recently posted..The Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich
I’ve got those glass containers with glass lids on my wish list. I am worried about breakage though because I am a complete klutz – always dropping things.
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[...] do. Refrigerate the broth for several hours or overnight, and skim off the fat. Divide into the freezer container of your choice (mind the head space if you’re using glass) and freeze for later use. I use [...]
Years ago before we had kids, we left plastic storage containers and switched to Pyrex storage containers. We never looked back. They do have plastic lids, but 7 years later they are all in perfect condition. I do put them in the freezer sometimes, but they aren’t space efficient. We mostly use them for leftovers, taking lunch to work (just DH now, but I did it too when I was working). The other problem is they leave air in there, which contributes to the breakdown of your food. That’s not a big deal if you are freezing something for a few weeks, but for long-term storage it won’t work. I have 5 kids ages 4 and under, so I’m all about efficiency. I make almost all of our food from scratch. To be efficient I like to do freezer meals, I make several loaves of bread at once, batch cooking (like last night I tripled the amount of rice I made so I could freeze some for future meals), etc. Right now I’m freezing blueberries, raspberries, zucchini and squash. I use the FoodSaver because it maintains the quality of the food for the whole year (I usually finish it off by the next year’s harvest). I would have to buy several freezers and I couldn’t afford all those glass containers. I hate wasting all those plastic bags, but I haven’t found a reasonable alternative for the quantity that I do. I do can whatever can be canned, and dehydrate some things, but for other things, freezing is just the best method of preserving.
Excellent ideas on here. I re- use ice cube trays from thrift stores to freeze homemade pesto, and then toss the cube in my spaghetti sauce. Fruit pops with toothpicks too.
This is a tough conundrum. I’m having a baby in a few months and so I’ve been trying to think about how I can preserve baby food and pumped milk in the freezer without plastic. Thanks for the link on those containers! I don’t really have much advice to give since I’m sorta just starting off on this journey. I also use my food sealer, but try not to waste the plastic by cutting the bags extra big for multiple uses, which I then wash and reuse. Chemically speaking though I have no idea if that’s the right answer or not.
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I made an awful lot of my own baby food many moons ago. I used baby food jars from friends to freeze it. Just make sure you fill only about 3/4 full and you shouldn’t have any problem with breakage. Honestly, I don’t think there is a “right” answer. There’s often a “best I can do right now” answer, though. Good luck with your family expansion, and congrats!
Baby food in stainless steel ice cube trays freezes perfectly then you can pop the cubes out and store in the freezer in a glass container. The standard ice cube size is also considered a serving size for baby food so you can get a good idea of how much to serve that way.
Yes, the recycled baby food jars worked perfectly for me!
Awesome idea Kris. I bet you could collect tons of baby food jars on freecycle. I was going to add that I’m going to post on freecycle to get extra glass pans for doing my freezer meals like lasagna or stuffed peppers so I don’t have to use those foil pans. It would be too expensive to buy that many.
Great ideas. You should be aware, however, that the inside of paper milk and juice cartons are plastic coated.
I just did a huge freezer day and came up with a new trick. I don’t like to store in plastic in the fridge, but I do use plastic zippered bags in the freezer — but not until after the food is frozen because it’s pretty inert in it’s frozen state. (Aluminum is also a health hazard that we have to avoid, so foil is not a good option for us). First I expanded my Pyrex collection (from their website you can get replacement lids as well as cheaper versions of many of the basics). I froze all of the food in the Pryex with a piece of cotton twine underneath the food. After the food was frozen solid, I ran it under water to loosen and used the twine to pop the food out of the dish. I put the food into zippered bags which I reuse several times (some of my bags had labels from 2006!). When I am ready to use the food I’ll put it back into the glass container to thaw in the fridge and bake in the oven.
I did find a new product which is paper on one side and foil on the other so the foil never touches the food. I haven’t tried it yet though.
@lstroyan Love that trick with the twine! So clever.
@lstroyan Also, can you share the name of the paper backed foil product? I’m curious.
@Attainable Sustainable It’s Reynolds non-stick pan lining paper. Here’s a link: http://www.reynoldskitchens.com/plp/prod-info.asp
We use a lot of glass containers for leftovers but I’ve broken too many in the freezer. Or maybe my kids have broken too many. Nothing like retrieving glass-studded strawberries that have cascaded through freezer racks. I often freeze things solid, then transfer to freezer bags. Mainly I’ve gotten away from freezing and done more canning instead to avoid the plastic problem. I was happy with this until I read that the canning jar lids (as well as most baby food jar lids) have a coating that contains BPA in it. Screaming just a little bit over here.
@Laura Weldon That BPA in canning lids issue KILLS ME.
I know I have seen BPA-free canning lids on the Internet. Google!
Oh, I’ve googled my heart out. The only BPA-free lids I can find are the *plastic ones from Tattler. Not an ideal alternative, IMO.
One problem with milk containers is that they are layered paper and plastic, but I don’t know what kind of plastic. Waxed paper is waxed with parafin, a hydrocarbon. Butcher or freezer paper is plastic coated. So i’m pondering which is the least bad choice.
@nanr42 Seems like I’m constantly trying to determine the lesser of two evils.
Interesting Article in the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/opinion/eat-like-a-mennonite.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130119
Butcher paper is not the same as freezer paper. Reynold’s Freezer paper is plastic coated, butcher paper is not. I have switched to soy-based waxed paper with an over-wrap of butcher paper. I’ll freeze things in a pyrex then move it to this. I label it and the blocks stack nicely. No breakage and the package can be recycled.
And someone mentioned Canning jar lids? Tattlers are the only ones I know of also. They last nearly forever. I think they might be petroleum based but I don’t think that leaches into our bodies.
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