Fall Freezer Reset

Start with an inventory

The first step is simply figuring out what’s there. I work through the freezer one section at a time and make a quick list. Meat. Vegetables. Fruit. Broth. Prepared foods. Bread and baked goods. Anything I’ve preserved from the garden. And random, unlabeled things from holidays past.

This year, that includes some of the corn and green beans I’ve frozen from the garden, as well as homemade chicken broth. I’m also looking for older food that needs to be used sooner rather than later. Freezing keeps food safe for a long time when it remains continuously frozen, but quality doesn’t last forever. Eventually even well-wrapped food develops freezer burn or loses flavor and texture.

Those older packages become my USE-FIRST FOODS.

Put the Oldest Food Where You Can See It

This sounds ridiculously obvious, but it makes an enormous difference. Food can’t save you money—or feed you during an emergency—if it’s buried underneath six other things and you forget it exists.

Once I’ve inventoried everything, and after I’ve tossed the mystery things, I move older food toward the front or top of the freezer. Newer items go behind or underneath them. If I find something that needs to be used soon, I add it to the next week’s meal plan. A package of frozen vegetables might go into soup. Frozen chicken broth becomes the base for a stew. Fruit can become a cobbler, crisp, smoothie, or sauce.

I might even defrost and can some of the food, using either a tested water-bath or pressure-canning recipe. That’s what happened when I discovered several bags of strawberries I’d frozen more than a year ago. Instead of letting them languish in the freezer, I turned them into strawberry-rhubarb jam. I now have six half-pint jars of delicious jam on the pantry shelf to enjoy this winter.

This chore is not particularly exciting, but neither is discovering an expensive piece of meat under a bag of frozen peas two years after you bought it.

Make Room Before Fall Cooking Begins

One reason I like doing this in September is because the way I cook changes with the weather. Summer meals give way to soups, stews, casseroles, breads, and other foods that often freeze beautifully. Then the holidays arrive, bringing their own collection of make-ahead dishes, leftovers, baked goods, and ingredients. I tend to do this chore four times a year, around the traditional Ember Days.

I don’t want to discover in November that there’s no room for any of it. Using older food now creates space for the things I’ll want to freeze later.

Label Everything

I know this. I have always known this. And yet occasionally I still put something into the freezer convinced that I will recognize it later. Except Future Sharon rarely has any idea what Past Sharon was thinking.

Now everything gets a name and a date. This is especially important with homemade broth, soups, sauces, and cooked foods, which can look remarkably similar once they’re frozen.

Check Your Freezer Supplies

While I’m doing the inventory, I also check the supplies I use for freezing food. Do I have enough freezer bags? Vacuum-sealer bags? Containers? Labels? Permanent markers? If I’m running low, I’d rather replace them now than discover it when I’m standing in the kitchen with several pounds of vegetables that need to be dealt with immediately. I also double-check my canning supply inventory. I don’t keep a lot of new canning jars and lids on hand, but I have at least six of each size the most. That way I can quickly can something that I no longer want to keep frozen but can’t use up quickly.

I use my FoodSaver frequently, especially for garden produce and food I want to store longer, so September is a good time to make sure I have enough bags on hand. FoodSavers can be expensive, but I bought a refurbished one from the FoodSaver website for less than 1/2 the original cost and it still works great. I also buy the FoodSaver bags in bulk from Amazon.

Clean Before You Restock

Once I’ve worked through the inventory and created some empty space, my next step is to clean the freezer before I start filling it again. I wipe down shelves and bins, clean up crumbs and spills, and get rid of those frozen peas that somehow escape their bags and migrate into every corner. If the freezer needs a more thorough cleaning or defrosting, this is a good time to do that too. It makes no sense to organize everything beautifully and then put it back into a freezer that still needs to be cleaned.

Turn the Inventory Into Meals

The final step is probably the most important: I need a plan for actually using all this food. Once I know what I have, I make a running list of meal ideas for the next few months based on what’s already in the freezer and pantry. This isn’t a rigid meal plan assigning chicken soup to November 12. It’s simply a list of possibilities—soups, stews, casseroles, pasta dishes, roasted meats, pot pies, breads, desserts—using ingredients I already own. Then, when I’m planning meals each week, I can choose from that list instead of staring into the freezer and wondering what to make for dinner. It also helps me use the oldest food first, saves money at the grocery store, and makes those busy fall evenings a little easier.

Remember That a Freezer Is Part of Your Pantry

For me, preparedness isn’t about accumulating enormous quantities of food. It’s about knowing what I have and being able to use it. My freezer is simply another part of my pantry. It holds ingredients I’ve grown, cooked, preserved, or bought when prices were good. It gives me options when the weather is bad, when I’m busy, or when I don’t want to make an extra trip to the grocery store.

But it only works if I know what’s inside. So before fall cooking begins in earnest, I’m taking a little time to reset the freezer, use some of the older food, and make room for the next season. Because if I’m going to spend all summer growing, cooking, and preserving food, the least I can do is remember where I put it.