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.

I 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!