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   Use ice cube trays to store leftover wine (and more!) Posted by Chica 
January 22, 2008 
Chica
 

Many of you may see this post title, laugh, and say “Leftover wine? What’s that?” But in my house, we never quite finish a bottle of wine, and I hate to throw away what’s left, no matter how little it is. The good news is that your leftover wine doesn’t have to go to waste. You can save it by freezing it.

freeze leftover wine in ice cube traysI pour the leftover wine into an ice cube tray and put it into the freezer. When the cubes are frozen solid, I transfer them to a little plastic container and keep them in the freezer, ready to go. I then use them as needed when cooking. They are especially great for de-glazing pans, and they keep you from having to open a whole new bottle when your recipe calls for just a little bit. This technique works equally well for red and white wines.

You can also apply this technique to other leftover liquids, such as lemon or lime juice. Jo often finds herself with several leftover lemons and limes after a party, and rather then let them sit on the counter and rot, she’ll squeeze them and freeze the juice into cubes. She then keeps them in the freezer for future use.

I also store leftover tomato paste as cubes in the freezer, for use later in tomato sauce for pasta or pizza. I’ve got a friend who regularly saves leftover chicken stock in cubes, and then re-uses it later.

The next time you’re about to throw an extra ingredient away… decide first if you can freeze it into cubes and use it later. If you find a new candidate, we’d love to hear from you about it!

5 comments so far:

  1. Jenny said: (January 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm)

    Ok – this is a really cool idea! I don’t cook with wine much, so I won’t use it for that. But I am forever having leftover chicken stock or lemons, and this is a great way to avoid wasting them! Of course, now I need to actually buy an ice cube tray…

  2. Samantha said: (March 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm)

    You can also freeze leftover pesto. I like to spray my ice cube tray lightly with a cooking spray (or you can wipe them with a bit of oil) before filling with tomato paste or pesto. It just makes it a little easier to slide them out.

  3. Deidra Grant said: (December 23rd, 2011 at 9:49 am)

    I also freeze my eggs this way around the holidays with all the baking, but every time I thought I had some eggs, either a neighbor borrowed a couple and hubby forgot to tell me, or he ate them. I also wipe just a bit of oil it the trays. I’ve had them in the freezer for up two weeks. Saves time to stop in the middle of mixing to go to the store.

  4. Karen said: (May 30th, 2012 at 7:37 pm)

    When the lemon tree is in full bloom, there are too many lemons for me and my honey to consume, so we juice them and pour the juice into icetrays. As they freeze, we put the cubes into a freezer bag in our deep freezer. When we make iced tea or lemonade or etc…, we take out our stash of lemon cubes for fresh, yet frozen, lemon juice.

  5. Chica said: (June 1st, 2012 at 7:01 am)

    That sounds amazing, Karen. What I wouldn’t give for a lemon or lime tree in my yard!

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