Freezing Milk

Since my Facebook comment about freezing milk started off questions, thought I would try to answer them all at once. I started out freezing milk years ago. My family didn't do it - we weren't big milk drinkers - but a friend in college once commented that his mom (an Army wife, by the way) froze milk just to keep up with how much they drank.

Fast forward a few years and we're living in Germany and Robert is either in the field or deployed all the time. I am still not a milk drinker but like cereal and always need some to cook with. I got tired of throwing half of the half gallon away because I couldn't drink it before it went bad. My mind recalled that comment about freezing and I thought I would try it. When I would open a new half-gallon, I would pour half of it into old water bottles (before we knew this was unsafe!), leaving room at the top for expansion, and freeze them. It worked and I rarely threw out bad milk again but always had some on hand when I needed it. I kept doing this as long as we didn't have kids.

Fast forward to Gabby, my milk monger. That kid would have lived off of milk until she was three. I finally had to cut her back to 2% when she turned three just so she would eat a little. Milk all the time. Couldn't leave the house without it. That kid loved milk. So we started going through 2-3 gallons a week. That was when I started freezing whole gallons. Since then, we have added Sam, another milk drinker, and our little evening latte habit (Robert likes coffee, I like chai). So now we consume 3-4 gallons a week. That barely fits in my side-by-side fridge and I do NOT like to have to make an emergency trip to the commissary. Plus I like to buy the milk at Costco. It's cheaper. But Costco is far away.

I have frozen whole, 2% and skim. Skim has the most water, of course, so it expands more. It also melts faster. If you ever wondered what those circles on the side the milk jugs are for - it's for expansion when they freeze. Only a couple times have I had a jug crack on me and have never had them come out the top or anything. The new Costco jugs have more space in them so they barely expand at all. They do take a while to thaw. A couple of days in the fridge so you do have to be planning ahead. In a pinch I thaw them on the counter for a day. We do start using it before it is completely thawed but you do want a good bit of it thawed to taste right - the sugar and fat thaw first and the water last. Just give the jug a good shake and that will help break up the ice and mix it back up.

Even if you don't need to freeze lots of milk to keep up with your family, you can still take that half gallon left when you leave for vacation and pop it in the freezer (if it hasn't already been frozen, of course). Then put it back in the fridge when you get home and it doesn't go to waste. We have also put a frozen gallon in our cooler when going on a roadtrip and it will thaw along the way, keep the cooler cooler, and last throughout the trip.

This saves a good part of the little sanity I have left since we never run out of milk. I do have a small chest deep freezer, which is the only way I could keep a bunch on hand. But I wouldn't dream of going without my stash of milk. We might run out of other things, but never milk!

BTW - I also freeze cheese. I buy the big bags of shredded cheese at Costco, split them up into small ziploc bags (about 2 cups' worth) and freeze. Unlike milk, cheese takes hardly any time to thaw and we always have cheese for whatever we need. Already shredded! I started out grating it myself but did the math on it at that time and found buying the shredded at Costco was cheaper than buying the block and doing it myself. I haven't checked the math in a while but I'll bet it's close and worth the time it saves me.

I've heard you can also freeze chopped onions and peppers but I haven't tried that yet. I freeze bananas, blueberries and strawberries that are about to go bad for smoothies.

So, what do you freeze? Always interested in ways to save money, waste less, and keep more food on hand!