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One Quick Tip: How to Freeze Stock in Glass Canning Jars |  |
Just strain your chicken stock into glass canning jars and freeze the jars. Yes, you read that right. Freeze chicken stock in glass jars! I've been doing it for almost ten years. It really works.
And naturally, the same technique also works for vegetable stock, beef stock, shrimp stock and any other kind of stock you might make!
Whole Food, Simply Prepped, "Plain" But Perfect. Chicken Stock Made from Scratch, Fast & Practical. A New Addition to The Homemade Pantry, a Kitchen Parade Specialty. Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Budget Friendly. So Easy!!
Once Upon a Time
Every few days, I carefully ladled still-warm chicken stock, beef stock, seafood stock and other stocks into quart-size freezer bags, then oh-so-carefully, arranged them flat in the freezer to freeze. Ha! I see that in this long how-to post for chicken stock, I even show a freezer bag full of stock!
Trouble was?
- Despite all my careful work, the whole process was messy: filling the bags, freezing the bags, even thawing the bags.
- Those bags had to be closed just-so or they would leak!
- When it came time to defrost the bags, the bags always-always leaked!! So I'd double-bag them. Pretty soon? I was a major but unhappy shareholder in the Ziplock Freezer Bag Company.
The Revelation! Re-usable Glass!
Inspired by a now-inactive blog called Tea & Cookies, I switched from single-use plastic freezer bags to multi-purpose glass canning jars that may be used over and over again.
The stock gets strained straight into wide-mouth glass canning jars, mostly quart jars, some times pint jars. I label the jars with a Sharpie pen, it washes off later, no problem. And then the jars go into the freezer! A few weeks or months later, a jar or two can be defrosted in the fridge overnight or in the microwave, lid off, in three or four minutes.
Two Very Important Tricks to Know
- LEAVE ROOM FOR EXPANSION You can't fill the jars to the top, it's important to leave room for the stock to expand as it freezes. In my experience, that means filling the canning jars just to their "shoulders", where the jars start to curve in to form the mouth.
- LOOSE LIDS I also leave the lids slightly loose, well, not loose, exactly, but not tight either. If the jars were on their sides, they'd definitely leak. But since I freeze the jars upright, it's no problem.
Don't the Jars Crack?
Honestly, I have lost a couple of jars – but that's among hundreds of jars and most importantly, only when I overfilled them. And even then, cleanup was no problem. Since the stock was still frozen, it was easy to lift the cracked jars out of the freezer to let the stock thaw in the sink, then recycle the broken glass. Lesson well learned! Don't over-fill the jars!
I also get the idea that's it's better to move completely chilled jars to the freezer, rather than warm jars to the freezer. This isn't scientific, just the sense I get.
What About the Schmaltz?
The chicken fat that forms on the top of chicken stock once it's cooled is called "schmaltz". It seals the stock and acts as a natural preservative, preserving the stock for some while longer.
But when the stock is frozen, the schmaltz cracks like ice on top of a river during the spring thaw, it's harder to remove. So some times before freezing the canning jars, I'll chill the stock, letting the chicken fat firm up, then remove it. Other times, I just let it go, so be it.
Cool Lids, Alanna!
Aren't they?! You can definitely use the lids and rings that come with the canning jars. I did for awhile but found the two pieces both fussy and hard to clean.
So now I buy these one-piece BPA-free plastic canning jar lids and use them over and over again in the fridge, the freezer and the pantry.
Here's a tip. I only buy wide-mouth jars, mostly in quarts and pints but also some half pints. That way I only need to keep one size lid on hand, the wide-mouth lids. Cool, eh? And a small point of household simplification: small decisions add up!
Unfortunately, it appears that the Ball company no longer sells these same lids, which ran about $.80 each when I made my last purchase back in 2018. In 2024, it appears that plastic wide-mouth lids are just no longer out there although they are for the so-called "regular" width.
Ball does now offer leak-proof One-Piece Plastic Lids for Glass Wide-Mouth Canning Jars (affiliate link) albeit at nearly double the old price. Still, many will appreciate the leak-proof feature.
Hmmm, Could You Just Re-purpose Leftover Glass Jars?
Instead of buying canning jars especially to freeze stock, could you just use empty glass jars? Yes, I think so, especially the heavier jars used for spaghetti sauce, etc. I'd want to keep the inside of the lids super-clean, however, so nothing would grow in there.
THAT'S IT! Really! One Quick Tip!
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This is the latest in an occasional series of posts I call "One Quick Tip" ... because, well, each one will include a single quick tip, quick to absorb, easy to adopt, memorable to use.
Do you have One Quick Tip you'd like to share? Leave a comment or send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. This time, I'd love to hear how you made a kitchen change for both convenience and sustainability. Old or new, big or small, I'd love to know what's useful in your own kitchen!
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Use Up That Stock: It's Time for Soup!
- MASTER RECIPE How to Make Homemade Vegetable Soup Never the same twice.
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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences.
Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, for more scratch cooking recipes using whole, healthful ingredients, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.
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How long is it good for in the freezer?
ReplyDeleteRhonda ~ Great question! It lasts for a good six months or so, I know that because I pulled some out yesterday that I froze back in March. There’s very little freezer burn on top, just a tiny bit. So I’d say you’d be good for a year, based on that. I tend to stock up over the summer, then it gets used mostly in the fall and winter when the weather’s colder and so I make soup all the time.
ReplyDeleteHi Alanna, I use this freezing technique all the time - it's great for cranberry sauce, for example, for leftover spaghetti sauce, etc. - the jars stand up in the freezer and take less room.
ReplyDeleteLynda ~ That’s so funny, it never occurred to me to use glass jars to freeze other things! I do have some one-cup wide-mouth canning jars that would be perfect for bits and bobs of things. Thanks for the idea!
ReplyDelete