Here is my handy guide to the maximum storage times for freezer friendly foods.
Tip: remember to label and date things when you freeze them to prevent leaving them in your freezer too long.
Raw meat and fish
- Bacon: 3-4 months
- Beef: 8-12 months
- Chicken: 8-12 months
- Duck: 6 months
- Game: 12 months
- Lamb: 6-8 months
- Mince: 3-4 months
- Oily fish: 2-3 months
- Pork: 4-6 months
- Prawns and scallops: 3-4 months
- Sausages: 3-4 months
- Smoked fish: 2 months
- White fish: 4 months
Remember, larger joints of meats will keep their flavour longer than smaller ones.
Cooked Foods
- Baby purées: 2 months
- Biscuits and Flapjacks: 4 months
- Bread: 3 months
- Butter: 6 months
- Cakes: 3 months
- Casseroles, soups and sauces: 3 months
- Cheese, hard: 6-8 months
- Cheese, soft: 3 months
- Cooked meat: 1-2 months
- Cream: 3 months
- Eggs, raw, yolks/whites: 1 year
- Meringues and pavlovas: 1 month
- Mousses, ice cream and sorbet: 2 months
- Pancakes and yorkshire puddings: 2 months
- Pastry: 3 months
- Stock: 6 months
- Tarts, quiches, sausage rolls and pies: 3 months
Fruits and Vegetables
*see notes
- Apples, peeled, cored and sliced: 4-6 months*
- Asparagus, blanched: 1 year*
- Beans, blanched: 6-8 months*
- Butternut squash, raw: 1 year*
- Chips: up to 1½ years*
- Corn on the cob: 6-8 months*
- Herbs, fresh: 4-6 months
- Rhubarb, raw, chopped: 1 year*
- Seville oranges: 6-8 months
- Stone fruit, halved and stoned: 1 year*
- Stone fruit, unstoned: 3 months*
- Summer berries: 1 year*
- Tomatoes, halved: 6-8 months*
Notes:
- Apples: open freeze slices and then bag
- Asparagus: cook from frozen.
- Beans: cook from frozen
- Butternut squash: open freeze, then bag. Cook from frozen
- Corn on the cob: cook from frozen
- Rhubarb, raw, chopped: cook from frozen
- Stone fruit (both stoned and unstoned) cook from frozen
- Summer berries: (strawberries need to be puréed before freezing), defrost and use or cook from frozen.
- Tomatoes, halved: open freeze then bag. USE ONLY FOR COOKING OR GRILLED TOMATO HALVES.
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