Why I cook with Frozen Vegetables (& you should too)

Why I freeze my cutting board, NOT my vegetables

I just wanted to sincerely praise your efforts in making cooking understandable and easier. You genuinely single handedly changed my families overall health.

"A world without garlic and onions is a world I don't wanna be in." Truer words have never been spoken.

I am poor. Frozen vegetables are cheap and keep very well, so they can be bought in bulk when they are on sale. They are a staple in the household.

There are lots of solid cooking channels on YouTube, but none that explore efficiency & time saving techniques for home cooking while still using a rigorous methodology to test and explain your findings. Nicely done.

So happy you’re using the 2/3 blind test method, I think it’s such a better way to evaluate cooking experiments.

A while ago I realized I never ate leafy greens because every time I bought them they went bad before I used them up, so I started blanching and freezing them. Since then I've eaten greens much more often than before. Now I also prep and freeze things that usually come in a can like corn, beans (or chickpeas) cooked from dried, etc. Sometimes I'll pre-bread eggplants or tofu slices so they're ready to fry. But to be honest the big game changer is to have frozen meals ready to go. Stews and soups freeze and reheat really well, you just need to freeze it in single portions. Definitely gets me eating healthier and cheaper than takeout.

Every indian kitchen is already stocked with 'Ginger paste' + 'garlic paste' or a combo 'ginger garlic paste'. (I have a jar in my fridge right now). What you have is a step further in the preservation by freezing it (Nice!) but it already lasts longer than I need in the fridge. Love this idea though! Ethan - You'll love this: I froze a batch of cacio e pepe sauce (using your method of add cornstarch slurry) and you can whip up single portions of cacio pepe (just in single pot using your just enough water to cover method) in minutes and no leftover-heating! it's honestly amazing!

I switched to frozen veggies and fruit a couple years ago. Got tired of wasted food filling up my fridge. I do buy fresh sometimes, but try to chop it up and freeze it when I get home from the store. I grew up hearing people say frozen veggies would practically kill you, but realized frozen tastes better than rotten. I tried using ice cube trays but gave it up. It sticks and takes up too much space. I chop things and spread them out flat in a freezer baggie, and just break off a chunk the size I want.

I love these types of videos! I love to cook, but I have ADHD and it hugely affects how well I eat. The "activation energy" is a big hurdle, and long term planning is very difficult too. These kinds of tips are simple but honestly do not come naturally to me, it helps so much to see someone work out practical solutions for home cooks that are actually usable! So many are just shaming people about not cooking at home because it's so "cheap and easy!!!" while totally misrepresenting the actual cost and time investment. This channel is getting my kitchen together one step at a time ♥

For freezing soups, I recommend using Souper Cubes. They're like a silicone ice cube tray, but the compartments are bigger. They come in different sizes, too.

Experiment 1: The difference in taste could simply be the difference in the way you prepared it. Since you did run the frozen stuff through a blender and the fresh one was just chopped or diced... you do not have as fine a vegetable spread. Meaning the frozen will have merged more with the tomatoes by the sheer fact that it was paste like, while the other likely seared a bit more, because of the bigger dices.. this could lead to a different flavor profile.

Please do a part two with herbs: frozen, freeze dried, dried, and wet (sauce/paste).

My go to set is: - Jar of ginger-garlic paste from Indian shop in a fridge. Goes pretty much everywhere - butter chicken, stir fries etc. Really helps to start cooking, because I don’t have to go to supermarket for new knob of ginger (I usually throw away half of it) - Frozen veggie mix (basic one - carrots, peas, corn and something else) - works for pad thai, other fried noodles or rice - Separate bags of frozen peas and corn. Sometimes you need only one of them and they still could save you when you are out of veggie mix - Tomato paste (the simpler the better to my taste)- really versatile thing that could be used in many dishes and super shelf stable. - San Marzano style canned tomatoes. Makes great sauces. You could supplement them with simpler tomatoes to save money for “simpler dishes like chili etc. - Better than bullion - veggie is must have, beef and chicken are optional but nice to have - Chinese canned fish with black beans - tons of umami flavor, great for fried rice - Bunch of sauces, especially Lao Gan Ma, which makes everything better. You can simply drop it on plain rice and it’ll be tasty. Combine it with fishes, veggies and lao gan ma and you’ll have great base for the fried rice

If you don't want to expose ginger to the air but deal with it going bad in the fridge, freezing it whole really works! You can grate it from frozen or thaw off a piece in a couple minutes & mince it & i think it minces easier than fresh ginger. Also if your grocery store sells the world's dirtiest leeks, they do freeze very well so you can prepare some extra when you have time & freeze them. You don't have to cook leeks before you freeze them, they're plenty flavorful as long as you use them within a couple months, which you will

I'm so scared of getting canning wrong so I froze a TON of my garden's harvest this year. It's been awesome! Little to no difference. If anything, it's encouraged me to make more interesting and unique dishes with my harvest!

Right on about the aromatics. I use that method constantly. Here in puerto rico our sofrito( onions, garlic, sweet peppers, cilantro and culantro) is the base of so many soups, stews, sauces and other dishes. It’s purpose is flavor, not texture since it will be cooked down heavily. Same as italian sofrito, mirepoix, spanish sofrito, holy trinity. Freezing aromatics is a game changer. Peppers, cilantro and culantro don’t last as long as the onions and garlic, so having them in a frozen state allows me to use a fresh tasting and smelling sofrito when I need it.

One frozen food hack that I’ve never stopped using since is frozen garlic cloves. Not only it prevents molding before it’s even opened, but the texture is more soft so you can crush it or chop it so much easier. It also tastes more fragrant than fresh, wish I learned about it sooner.

I love that you’re making so many videos on using the freezer as a tool in cooking! I started freezing meals and leftovers when I started traveling for work during college semesters for career fairs. During my travel season I would eat out constantly and would always have leftovers that would last most of the weekend time too. So when the season was over, I would be craving home cooked food but also feeling massively lazy after months of the convenience of others cooking for me. So the few weeks before travel seasons would start, I would batch cook and freeze many different meals to get me through that lazy period and it really made me realize how convenient it is to not have to cook constantly. It also made me find take out very unappealing because I always have some version of what I’m craving homemade in my freezer whether it’s chicken curry, fried rice, pizza, burgers, etc… or at least the base ingredients to make it quickly. For instance having frozen velveted chicken to make a stovetop biriyani, noodles, chicken Alfredo, etc.. makes things so easy!

Every video you make like this really feels like a loving endeavor. I appreciate your work in helping people like me find the will to cook more often and more joyfully. You're doing great work, man!!!