I remained blissfully unaware that one could freeze cheese until Foods 9 in high school. Our teacher had told us that she got a good price on cheese and had put it in the freezer. I had no idea this was possible and talked to my Mom about it when I got home from school that day. She informed me that yes, you can freeze cheese, but it changes the texture and makes it more crumbly.
After cheese has been frozen, it can be a pain to cut and grating it is a bit of a disaster. I learned that the grating doesn’t work very well in that Foods 9 class. It is really not the end of the world, but it does affect the quality of the cheese and what you can do with it.
As a result, I can’t say that I have ever elected to freeze cheese myself, but I always knew that it was a theoretical option.
Then I Had Too Much Cheese
Right now, there are about three large blocks of cheese in the fridge. A pretty critical piece of information here is that I am the only person in the household who can eat regular old cheese. All of that cheese is for me! (I can’t really say “little old me” here, because the cheese consumption has a tendency to go straight to my waistline.) My darling Spouse brought those three home for me after noticing that they were a stellar price, a few weeks ago.
Enter grocery shopping last Sunday. There were clearance crates of cheese. They were $5. I wanted them.
So What Were My Options?
So, I bought them. Then I took them home and grated each block, using my KitchenAid Slicer/Shredder Attachment
I already tested it out by making quesadillas for dinner later that week. They were delicious.
Grating the cheese before freezing makes all of the difference in the world. It doesn’t end up crumbly and unworkable. Another awesome benefit is how easy it is to use! It’s grab and go, and it doesn’t take long at all to thaw, so you can basically use it straight out of the freezer.
This grated freezer cheese has a future on pizzas, on pasta, in quesadillas, in tacos, on top of casseroles, in wraps and pretty much any place I would normally use grated cheese. So, I’ve figured out how to store cheese when you have too much, without turning it into crumbly freezer cheese. All for $5.
I didn’t know you could freeze cheese until a few years ago. We went to this dutch store nearby and bought a whole bunch of cheese but it turns out that our eyes were bigger than our stomaches so we couldn’t eat it all. We shredded it and froze it too – worked great!
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It also makes life so easy when you want to make things like quesadillas for dinner! Grab and go and no worries about waiting for it to defrost 🙂
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Yup, I’d rather grate and freeze my own cheese anyways as I think the stuff pre-shredded is dusted with flour/corn starch or something. I always freeze grated cheese 🙂 Guess it’s one of those things that I take for granted that EVERYONE knows about 😉 Good deal on the cheese, I might add!
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It was a great deal 🙂
Yes… those pre-grated bags definitely have additives in them to keep stuff from clumping.
It’s funny the things that some people take for granted. I only found out that most blenders can have mason jars screwed onto the bases… my spouse thought I was nuts for being so excited. It turns out that my mother in law has been doing that for decades!
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Cheese! I love cheese, but we rarely buy it because of the price. I don’t think we’ve ever had too much cheese on hand (I scarf it down so fast when we actually do buy it 🙂 ). But, I now know that should a cheese bonanza ever befall me, I can freeze it :)!
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Cheese bonanzas are a thing of miracles, really.
The cheese bonanza day shall be a glorious day!
I’m pretty sure I’d never have to worry about it because that cheese would be in my belly before it went bad. 🙂
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“Get in ma belly!”
You’ll just have to buy lots and lots and lots all at once sometime. I also devour cheese!
I freeze 5lb bags of grated cheese that I buy in the city and use them for pizza. But you have to use them quite quickly or they may absorb odors from the freezer. I’d say 3-6 months max.
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Interesting. Mine have been in there for maybe 3 months now and so far, so good… but I guess we’ll see.
I love cheese…but cheese doesn’t love me LOL!
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Soft cheeses don’t love me and it makes me oh-so-sad!!
I love cheese and when it goes on sale, I want to buy all the cheese. Sounds like you found a good deal and figured out a good way to salvage the excess. I might be stealing this for my own kitchen 🙂
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When it was $5/block, I could NOT pass it up, so decided I would give this a try. Usually the sales aren’t good enough for me to justify all of the extra effort.
I’ve done this before, but just use it for cooking afterwards. Great for pizza or lasagna or anything like that. The surprising thing for me was my parm still went moldy in the freezer. I guess it’s because I grated it finely (more surface area to bug-filled mold?), but I learned I didn’t save anything from that huge block of Costco parm.
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Parmesan of all things, too. It usually lasts forever! What a bummer.