Question about wine & cooking...

andreaindc

Well-known member
Ages ago, I saw Nigella Lawson saying you could freeze leftover wine for cooking. Unfortunately, no bottle sits around here long enough to be available when I find myself needing that cup of wine. Can I buy a wine I would cook with, but not too expensive (i.e., yellow tail), and freeze it in one-cup portions, or is this a bad idea?

 
Not what I would do.....

When I need wine for cooking, and don't have any open, I pick a wine that will work with the dish I am making. I open it, use what I need, then recork. If we don't drink the rest of the bottle with dinner, then it gets refrigerated to be consumed in tyhe not-too-distant-future, or used in the next dish I cook.

 
You can buy decent wine in 250 mL tetra paks which is great for cooking. I wouldn't freeze wine.

 
you could get a vaccum pump for under $10 which will.

extend the life of the wine considerably.

 
I've been dubious, which is why I've never tried it. I'll have to look for the paks...

hadn't seen them. Thought this kind of packaging was only used for larger volume. This might be the perfect solution.

 
I freeze leftovers ...

in half-pint canning jars. Great for when a recipe calls for 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup wine to be added to a pot of sauteed veg or something, and since there's only one drinker in this marriage it's a waste to open a bottle for that.

That said, I wouldn't add thawed wine to something like a wine sauce where the flavour of the wine is meant to stand out, or to something that wasn't cooked.

For cooking, I also stock up on perfectly decent wines in half-size bottles, and you can sometimes even find (in Ontario, anyway, maybe they're everywhere you look in other places) "airline" size bottles.

 
I use a vacuum pump all the time, plus store the bottle in the

refrigerator - lasts a very long time.

 
This is my problem... I need to have a stash we don't drink. A bunch of lushes here...

I figured it would be safe from us in the freezer!

 
LOL- here is another idea, Andrea

I use wine in cooking but we don't drink so having open bottles here is a waste. I buy the 18.3 ml bottles of wine that come in a 4-pack (the bottles are the individual serving size you get on an airplane). I keep Cab or Merlot in stock for cooking. For white wine I generally use Dry Vermouth which holds up well for a really long time open on the shelf. Bet you wouldn't be tempted to drink either of these.

 
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