The humble ice cube tray is a kitchen marvel - and not just because they form the wonderful, slippery rectangles that keep your drinks perfectly chilled. Using your ice cube tray to freeze things other than water can yield amazing results and will step up your cooking game.
Not only does cube-freezing keep ingredients fresh for weeks or months longer than refrigerator storing, it also allows you to keep all your essentials on hand and ready to use. Just grab a cube, throw it into a pan and you're good to go.
Once the cubes are fully frozen, you can pop them out of the tray and into a freezer bag to free up your ice cube tray real estate for plain ice cubes.
Here's how to make our five favorite types of ingredient cubes:
1. Olive Oil and Herb Cubes: This is by far the most well-known ice cube tray trick. Chop up your fresh, oily herbs (like rosemary, thyme, sage or oregano) and sprinkle them into ice trays. Fill up the sections with olive oil and freeze. You can use the cubes in sauces, as a flavorful way to start a sautée pan or as a perfect meat-basting oil. Just throw it into a pan to thaw.
2. Oreo Milk Ice Cubes: Break apart some Oreo cookies, scatter across the ice cube tray and fill with milk. You can use these cubes to add a cookies and cream flavor to a vanilla milkshake or throw them in coffee or Baileys.
3. Wine Ice Cubes: Tossing out leftover wine is a total waste, especially when so many delicious recipes call for cooking wine. Fill an ice cube tray with what's left of your bottle from last night and throw the cubes into any pan sauce, tomato sauce or stew.
4. Fruity Ice Cubes: If you have a bunch of berries that are starting to lose their prime texture, don't let them go to waste. Throw them into an ice tray, cover with water or juice and freeze. You can add them to smoothies, eat them like mini-Popsicles or use them in a sweet and savory sauce.
5. Cookie Ice Cubes: Next time you make cookies, make a double batch and store one full batch of dough in a couple of ice trays. You'll have frozen cookie dough already portioned out into cookie size, so you can bake a fresh batch in just a few minutes.
