Guide to Freezing Christmas Dinner Leftovers (2024)

FAQs

Guide to Freezing Christmas Dinner Leftovers? ›

Freeze your food in manageable portions – sizes that you will be able to eat all in one go. It's better to have lots of smaller bags with sliced ham in, rather than one large chunk which is hard to defrost and too much to eat all at once. Once you have thawed the food, you shouldn't refreeze it.

I've learned, over the years, to make and freeze most of the trimmings in advance – stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce, even parboiled potatoes."

The food can sit on the table within a two-hour window, and if it's stored in the fridge in that time frame, it can be eaten as leftovers. While it depends on the food, it's usually safe to eat within the next two to three days, and it's essential food that was hot is reheated well.

Leftovers stored in the fridge should be eaten within three days. When freezing Christmas meats or stuffing, wrap them in heavy freezer wrap and put them in a container suitable for your freezer. Cooked meat will keep in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Christmas dinner isn't complete without turkey. But no matter how many curries or sandwiches you make, there's always some leftover. Try freezing your leftovers, so you can enjoy it at a later date while reducing your food waste.

Freeze large batch recipes in smaller, sensibly-portioned containers for easy cooling, freezing and defrosting. Use bags to save space. Freeze soups, sauces and other leftovers in reseable bags, then lay flat until frozen. These flat, frozen sheets can be stacked horizontally or vertically to maximize storage capacity.

Leftovers can be kept for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. After that, the risk of food poisoning goes up. If you don't think you'll be able to eat leftovers within four days, freeze them right away. Frozen leftovers will stay safe for a long time.

Once your turkey is cooked and cooled, slice and then batch it into portions to store in the freezer. You can then take out what you need when you need it. Just remember that meat previously cooked and frozen should only be reheated once.

Which two types of food should never be frozen? ›

"Generally speaking, anything that has dairy, or a very high water content, is not going to do well when frozen," Patel says. "Freezing these ingredients—or recipes that feature these ingredients up front and center—is going to be disappointing."

Macaroni absorbs moisture from the sauce as it freezes and thaws, so the best recipes for freezing are those that start with a big pot of creamy, cheesy sauce. If using a baked mac and cheese recipe, freeze the prepared (unbaked) mac and cheese, then bake once thawed and ready to serve.

You can freeze a raw egg, but it shouldn't be frozen in its shell. The contents of the shell will expand as the egg gets colder, likely causing the shell to crack. Another change that occurs when an egg freezes is in the texture of the yolk.

Properly stored butter can be frozen for up to four months if frozen prior to the USE BY date on the package. Butter may begin to lose its fresh butter taste and pick up flavors and odors from the freezer if stored for longer than four months. Once the butter is removed from the freezer, use it within 30 days.

Leftover ham is a great thing to freeze. Simply cut the ham off the bone, wrap the meat in plastic wrap, then in foil and place in a snap-lock bag with all the air removed.

Honey baked ham can be frozen, whether it's a spiral ham or actual honey baked ham deli slices. In fact, deli meat is easy to freeze because it comes in weighed-out portions. Use the technique above, but slide pieces of parchment paper between deli meat slices so they don't freeze together into 1 block.