The Secret to Successful Summer Cooking Is in Your Freezer

There is a treasure trove of usefulness hiding in your freezer right now. It might just look like ordinary ice to you, but those frigid little cubes have tremendous potential to elevate your cooking and food-prep habits, particularly during these hot summer months filled with abundant seasonal produce.

Let me explain why and how. Ice cubes are a crucial material in making ice baths, which consist of ice, cold water, and a bit of salt if you want to keep things really chilly. Ice baths are helpful for many things in the kitchen, not least of which is cooling foods down rapidly to discourage bacterial growth. The following are a few various ways in which you can use an ice bath.

Blanch Vegetables

Summer often means excessive amounts of seasonal vegetables, particularly if you subscribe to a weekly CSA (community-supported agriculture) share. If at any point you feel inundated with vegetables and want to freeze the surplus for future eating, you can blanch them in boiling water, then plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking and maintain their crispness. If the vegetables are small, like peas, set them in a colander before submerging them.

The general recommendation is a 1:1 ratio of time spent cooking to time spent chilling in ice water. Drain, dry, and freeze in a sealed container or bag.

The same technique applies to boiled eggs, whether hard-boiled or soft-boiled. Transfer from cooking water to ice water, and you'll stop their cooking at whatever stage you prefer.

Revive Vegetables

An ice bath works wonders for leafy greens that have become sad or limp. Submerge lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, bok choy, spinach, or even herbs in an ice bath and leave for several minutes. The water will be restored to the leaf's cells and, like magic, they will perk right up. Pat or spin dry before eating or cooking.

Keep Salads Cold

If you are serving salads at a picnic or outdoor dinner on a hot day, set the bowls over a small ice bath (ensure the bottom is touching) to keep them cold. Not only does this make them safer for consumption, but they will taste better if they're cool. No one likes sun-warmed salad!

Chill Ice Cream Base

If you're into making homemade ice cream (like I am!), an ice bath is the fastest way to chill the custard base. As advised by Jeni Britton of Jeni's Ice Creams, transfer the cooked base to a new ziplock bag, seal it well, and submerge it in an ice bath until fully chilled. Then you can proceed with churning in a (pre-frozen) ice cream maker faster than if you had only refrigerated the base.

Chill Cookie Dough

We have covered this tip before, but it's worth restating. Use an ice bath to chill the cookie dough before baking. Put the dough in a zip-top bag, place it in the water, and leave it to cool and harden. It will be ready in far less time than refrigerating overnight.

Cool Foods for Storage

When you are doing post-dinner kitchen cleanup, take advantage of ice baths to chill containers of leftover food. The ideal temperature for refrigeration is around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). You don't want to put hot food into the fridge because it will cause the interior temperature to fluctuate too much, so instead chill it on ice for a few minutes beforehand. It's always a good idea to cool foods quickly because they need to get out of the temperature danger zone—an optimal temperature range for bacteria growth—within two to four hours. The temperature danger zone is 40-140 degrees F (4-60 degrees C).

As soon as you start playing around with ice baths, you'll discover that they are a useful technique in the kitchen—and you may wonder how you went so long without them!