22 Italian Freezer Secrets That SAVE HUNDREDS Every Month

I am Rosa. Open your freezer and look at the back of it. The bag of something grey you cannot identify anymore and have not been able to for a while. Most American freezers are where food goes to be forgotten politely instead of thrown away immediately, and that is expensive, because everything in there was paid for at full price. An Italian freezer is not storage. It is a machine that makes the week cheaper, and almost nothing in it is a finished meal. In this video, twenty two things Italians keep in a freezer, how long each actually lasts, and the two mistakes that quietly ruin most of what Americans put in there. Three of these come with real food safety information and I want to be clear about them here as well as in the video. Garlic in oil. At room temperature this is genuinely dangerous, because garlic is low acid and oil keeps oxygen out, which is exactly where Clostridium botulinum grows. Freezing is the exception, and freezing is in fact the only safe way to keep garlic in oil, because that bacterium cannot grow at freezing temperatures. The rule is that it stays frozen until the second it goes in the pan. Never thaw it, never leave it on the counter. Blanching before freezing vegetables. Fresh vegetables contain enzymes that keep working slowly even in the freezer and destroy colour, flavour and texture. Blanching switches them off. And underblanching is worse than not blanching at all, because a short warm dip stimulates those enzymes rather than deactivating them, so either do the proper time for that vegetable or do not do it. Thawing. Never on the counter. The middle can still be frozen while the outside has been sitting between forty and one hundred and forty degrees, the range where bacteria multiply fast. Refrigerator overnight, or a sealed bag in cold water changed every half hour. The rest is money. Herb cubes in olive oil. Whole raw tomatoes frozen in season, where the skin slides off under the tap in January. Pesto frozen without the cheese, because cheese goes grainy in a frozen sauce. And getting the air out of every single bag, which is what freezer burn actually is. Sources for the safety points: USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service on safe defrosting, National Center for Home Food Preservation on freezing garlic in oil and on blanching vegetables.