Can you freeze leek mac and cheese?
Yes, before its final cook. Freeze it in portions, one to each container.
How to freeze and defrost it, with the Food Standards Agency’s advice at each step.
The recipe
One batch makes 4 portions.
Ingredients for 4 portions
Method
Prep and pasta
- Boil the kettle.
- Pour the boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, add a good pinch of salt and bring back to the boil.
- Halve leek lengthways, wash, then slice 5 mm thick. Peel and dice shallot into 1 cm pieces. Halve cherry tomato.
- Grate extra mature cheddar cheese for the sauce and extra mature cheddar cheese for the topping, and keep them apart.
- Boil pasta (macaroni) for 6 minutes until almost tender, then drain and divide between your containers, one meal to each.
Cheese sauce
- While the pasta cooks, melt salted butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the leek and shallot and fry for 6 minutes until soft.
- Stir in plain flour and cook for 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in whole milk, then simmer for 3 minutes, stirring, until it thickens.
- Take off the heat and stir in the cheese for the sauce, dijon mustard and creme fraiche. Crumble in vegetable stock cube and season with black pepper.
Top and bake
- Mix panko breadcrumbs with olive oil and the cheese for the topping.
- Pour the sauce over the pasta in each container and stir to coat.
- Scatter over the breadcrumb mix and the halved tomatoes.
To eat now
- Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.
- Bake for 15 minutes until golden and bubbling.
How to freeze
-
cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Put the lid on the container.
How to defrost
-
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take the lid off.
- Heat it in the oven until it’s steaming hot all the way through and golden.
-
it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed
, says the Food Standards Agency.
How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety
Nutrition
Per portion- Energy
- 876 kcal
- Fat
- 44.9g
- Carbohydrate
- 81.8g
- Protein
- 29.9g
Nutrition details
- Energy
- 876 kcal
- Fat
- 44.9g
- of which saturates
- 26.5g
- Carbohydrate
- 81.8g
- of which sugars
- 16.5g
- Fibre
- 6.4g
- Protein
- 29.9g
- Salt
- 1.9g
Estimated from ingredient data.
Made some already? Add it to your stash. Mark it always in and Nomstash tells you when you’re running low.
Used in
No special kit
- Works best in foil trays with lids Any freezer-safe container does the job too.
- Everything from one shop Batch cook it with Nomstash and the foil trays with lids go on the same shopping list as the food.
Cook what you already cook
-
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Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.
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Freezing and defrosting safely
The Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words.
Label everything you freeze.
label food you freeze so you don’t end up with Unidentified Frozen Objects (UFOs)
The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
- Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.