If you regularly buy cheese for tacos, salads, pizza, burritos, or quiche, then you’ll want to stock up when you see sales and freeze cheese for later. When you do this, you guarantee a good price on a grocery staple as well as the convenience of having it all ready to go into your recipes.
It’s not difficult to freeze cheese. Once thawed you can use it in Easy Mac & Cheese or Bacon and Spinach Quiche. It goes equally well in a taco bar as it does in a pan of enchiladas or atop a pizza.
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Cheese is one of those lovely inventions that makes so many things extra comforting and delicious. Whether it’s melted atop a pizza or casserole, stirred into a burrito filling, or topped on a salad, there’s no end to the flavor and texture that cheese brings to your cooking.
In many kitchens, it’s a regular grocery staple, so it’s worth it to freeze cheese.
Why Do This
It helps you avoid food waste. If you’re not going to use a package of cheese fast enough, freezing it allows you to avoid waste. The freezer extends its shelf life until you can use it when you want.
It will save you money. Wasting food is akin to wasting money. If you can stock up on cheese when it’s on sale and stash it for later, you can stretch your grocery dollar a little further.
It can be more convenient. Having a pantry and freezer stocked with staple ingredients gives you convenience and flexibility to cook what you want when you want it.
Ingredients
There are a variety of cheeses you can freeze, including:
- shredded cheeses like mozzarella, Monterey Jack, pepper jack, cheddar, Swiss
- creamy cheeses like goat cheese or cream cheese – Sweet Cream Cheese freezes beautifully!
- crumbling cheeses like feta, gorgonzola, or blue
Avoid freezing very soft cheeses like Brie, camembert, ricotta, or cottage cheese as well as cheese that is sliced or in bricks. When cheese freezes and then thaws, the texture changes slightly so that slices and bricks will crumble afterward.
An exception to this is that you can put sliced cheese in Freezer Sandwiches because you won’t be handling the cheese to cause it to crumble.
Step-by-Step Instructions
You don’t need to do a lot to prep the cheese for freezing, but keep these tips in mind:
- Goat or cream cheese can be frozen in its packaging.
- Shredded cheese should be divided into recipe-size portions so that you don’t have to thaw more than you want to use.
- Crumbled cheese like blue or feta can be frozen in its packaging if you will use that size promptly upon thawing. Otherwise, divide into smaller size bags prior to serving.
FAQs
You may notice minute changes in texture of frozen cheese, but it should not be highly noticeable if you package it well. There shouldn’t be much flavor change provided you practice good packaging techniques for frozen food.
If you have a lot of cheese, you’ll want to store it in a way that extends the time you can use it up. If the best-by dates are several months away and the package is still shrink wrapped, cheese can be stored in the refrigerator. For cheese from an open package or that is close to its best-by date, freezing is a better storage option. Wrap the shredded or crumbled cheese in recipe-size portions and store in airtight containers in the freezer.
Shredded melting cheeses like cheddar, mozzarella, Swiss, and jack as well as crumbled cheeses like feta or blue cheese freeze best.
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How to Freeze Cheese
Equipment
- ziptop freezer bags
Ingredients
- 1 pound your favorite cheese
Instructions
For freezing shredding cheese:
- Shred the cheese if it's not already shredded. Divide the cheese into recipe-size portions in ziptop freezer bags and store in the freezer.1 pound your favorite cheese
For freezing crumbling cheese:
- Crumble the cheese. Divide the crumbles into recipe-size portions in ziptop freezer bags and store in the freezer.1 pound your favorite cheese
- Alternatively, you can cut it into usable-size chunks. Since cheese will crumble after thawing, it doesn't matter. Wrap the chunks tightly with plastic wrap and place in a ziptop freezer bag and store in the freezer.
For freezing creamy cheese:
- If the goat or cream cheese is packaged in a portion you will use after thawing, just place it in a ziptop freezer bag and store in the freezer.1 pound your favorite cheese
- For large logs or bricks, cut it into usable chunks, wrap each with plastic wrap, and store the chunks in a ziptop freezer bag and store in the freezer.
To use:
- Remove what you need from the freezer and allow to thaw in the refrigerator prior to adding to your recipe.
Notes
- shredding cheeses like mozzarella, Monterey Jack, pepper jack, cheddar, Swiss
- creamy cheeses like goat cheese or cream cheese
- crumbling cheeses like feta, gorgonzola, or blue
Linda Practical Parsimony
I freeze cheese in the package it came in and deal with the changes when thawed. I never knew all you published.