Frozen Produce Will Always Be the Real MVP of Weeknight Cooking

I became a frozen fruits and veggies gal because of a box of frozen spinach. Besides the big bag of green peas I kept behind the ice cream in case of knee or ankle injury, I used to be a “fresh produce only” person, and kind of a snob about it. I considered managing the decline of my weekly grocery haul from picture-perfect to past-its-prime an ethical responsibility. I spent as much time cooking for fun as I did making mishmashed dinners out of a desperate need to use up all the miscellaneous fruits and vegetables before they went bad.

It was the tactical and logistical puzzle of grocery shopping during the pandemic that changed my tune. Now I know the truth—that frozen produce is just as good as fresh, and sometimes even better and more cost-efficient.

In the spring of 2020, two things happened simultaneously: I had to slow my shopping trips to twice monthly for safety, and I tried Priya Krishna’s saag feta recipe for the first time. Despite my best efforts, very little fresh produce could survive all the way until my next trek to the market, so I started buying frozen instead. And when I put a box of frozen spinach to use in Priya’s bright, comforting dish, I was forever changed. With a freezer full of spinach, I could have this greens-packed, weeknight-friendly meal whenever I wanted, with no special shopping trip required or timeline attached to use the fresh greens before they went slimy. I became a frozen produce lover, branching out from spinach to integrate green beans, berries, and even that languishing bag of peas more readily into my rotation.

Here are three reasons why you should be packing your freezer with fruits and vegetables for last-minute meals whenever the mood strikes you, with no compromise on flavor.

They won’t go bad on you

Bringing a quart of strawberries or few bunches of broccoli into your kitchen can go from inspiring to stressful really quickly; with a full fridge comes the added pressure of using it all before things go fuzzy or limp. Frozen produce eliminates that ticking clock, so you can chip away at a giant bag of blueberries on your own timeline, smoothie by smoothie (speaking from experience here), with no concern that you’ll let any go to waste. Like anything you keep at icy temperatures, you’ll have to be careful about resealing packaging and using airtight containers to prevent freezer burn, but in general, frozen produce is much lower maintenance than the fresh stuff.

They’re perfectly ripe

Freezer aisle fruits and vegetables are (pun sort of intended) frozen in time at the absolutely peak moment of freshness, so every peach wedge or leaf of spinach is as flavorful as possible—not something you can say for fresh produce that can get goopy or battered due to temperature fluctuations or rough handling in transit. When a recipe calls for something you have frozen, you can be sure that post-thaw it will be as good-tasting as a fresh version on its very best day.

They perform just as well as fresh

Some fruits and vegetables are particularly easy to work with frozen, such that they get specific callouts in recipes (we’re looking at you, “fresh or frozen peas” or “fresh or frozen raspberries”). But with a little foresight, anything frozen can be integrated into a recipe that calls for the same thing fresh.

Move a bag from the freezer to the fridge the night before you plan to use it if a full thaw is required, or stick the produce itself in a strainer and run it under warm water if you just need to take the icy edge off before adding it to a baked good batter. For grain or pasta dishes, you can add peas, corn, green beans, broccoli, and more directly from the freezer to the pot of boiling water a minute or two before everything else is done, then drain it all together and proceed as normal.

The more you work with frozen produce, the better you’ll get at shepherding each item from cold to hot—a skill I now consider just as important as using up a fresh bunch of kale before it’s compost-bound.

Put your freezer to work:

There’s nothing like a moist, fluffy, berry-streaked cake to make any weeknight (or, um, weekday morning) feel special.

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Saag Paneer, But With Feta

This riff on the classic dish swaps paneer out for salty chunks of feta (but keeps the garlicky spiced spinach sauce).

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