How to Flash Freeze

Whether you're a home chef or a professional chef, there's many reasons why you might need to freeze food. A process called flash freezing is often the best way to go when it comes to freezing portions. Often home chefs will use flash freezing when they make a large batch of food and want to be have meals throughout the next few months. Professional chefs, on the other hand, will use it when prepping food so they can defrost it as needed. It's a great way to save time and prevent waste for both kinds of chefs.

So what exactly is flash freezing? It's a bit more than simply taking food and placing it in a freezer. Instead, this process helps to preserve food as best as possible. By flash freezing, you'll attempt to keep as much moisture in the food. Often when you freeze food improperly, food can end up dry, shriveled and lacking taste. Flash freezing attempts to keep in the moisture and in turn the flavor throughout the process, allowing you to later enjoy the food as though you just prepared it.

As it is a process of freezing and reheating food, there are certain types of food that hold up better than others. For example, foods that you should flash freeze are things such as fruit, desserts, and meats. All of these are best done in portion sizes. You'll want to divide your foods up into portions before placing them in the freezer for best results. So you'll want to freeze a slice of cake at a time, or an individual chicken breast. This helps to ensure that the food defrosts properly.

So now that you know what you can flash freeze, how do you do this? First you need to make sure that you have the right utensils. You'll need a baking sheet and some sort of packaging, whether it is freezer bags, aluminum foil or cling wrap. Any of these will work for wrapping up the food. To begin, you'll take the food that you're wanting to freeze and prepare it. Divide it into your portions and put the food into your baking sheet, ensuring that none of the food touches another piece of food. If your food is touching, it can cause damage to be done to foods like berries. It will end up freezing smashed and will cause moisture-loss.

Next you'll want to take the pan, and place it in the freezer for a short amount of time, approximately 20 minutes or until the food's edges start to harden. Then you'll remove the pan, remove the food from the pan, and place it into the freezer bag. Place this bag back into the freezer and keep it there until you are ready to enjoy it at a later time. It's a quick process from beginning to end.

How long you can keep the food in your freezer is up to you. The freshness does start to dwindle throughout time depending on the food item, but most will keep for weeks if not months. When you're ready to enjoy your flash-frozen food, simply thaw in the refrigerator or microwave. It's that easy! Now that you know how to flash freeze, you should test it out with a large batch of cookies or meat.