Can you freeze onion and red wine gravy?
Yes. Freeze it in containers, one meal to each.
How to freeze and defrost it, with the Food Standards Agency’s advice at each step.
The recipe
One batch makes 8 portions.
Ingredients for 8 portions
Method
Brown the onions
- Boil the kettle.
- Peel onions, halve them and slice thinly.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Fry the onions with sprig of thyme and dried bay leaf for 25 minutes, stirring now and then, until deep golden brown.
Make the gravy
- Stir in plain flour and tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes.
- Pour in red wine and let it bubble for 3 minutes until it has reduced by half.
- Crumble in vegetable stock cube, then pour in water from the kettle a little at a time, stirring so it stays smooth.
- Stir in dark soy sauce, marmite and cranberry sauce. Simmer for 15 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon.
- Fish out the herbs and season with black pepper. Leave the onions in, or sieve them out for a smooth gravy.
How to freeze
-
cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Pour into your containers, one meal to each, and seal.
How to defrost
-
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take it out of its container.
- Tip it into a pan and heat it, stirring, until it’s steaming hot all the way through.
-
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
Made some already? Add it to your stash. Mark it always in and Nomstash tells you when you’re running low.
For Christmas Day
- Serve it with Any of the Christmas Day mains, and the bubble and squeak.
- 1 container for each meal One batch makes 8 portions.
- Vegan Check the wine and the stock cube say vegan.
No special kit
- Works best in freezer bags Any freezer-safe container does the job too.
- Everything from one shop Batch cook it with Nomstash and the freezer bags go on the same shopping list as the food.
Cook what you already cook
-
Already keep a freezer spreadsheet?
Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.
Bring in my freezer list
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.