Most of the Vietnamese and Chinese dishes I cook start with the same handful of aromatics: garlic, ginger, green onions, lemongrass. Too often, a bunch of any of them goes bad before we use it up. So I’ve been testing what actually survives the freezer combined with what I’ve seen my family do.
Freezes well: garlic, ginger, green onions, lemongrass, Thai chillies, dill
Doesn’t: culantro (and probably other leafy herbs)
Minced garlic and ginger
Run them through a food processor (or a blender in my case), put them in a Ziploc bag, flatten it, and score it with a chopstick into little sections. When I need some, I snap off a piece, and it goes straight into the hot oil in the wok. I don’t need them to be a perfect size because a little extra garlic or ginger never hurt me. You lose some of the aroma anyway in the freezer, so that is something to consider in your recipes.
Green onions: sliced two ways
When it comes to green onions or scallions, I’ll put aside what I plan to use for the week and freeze the rest. I learned this from @chefchrischo: cut green onions in two sizes. For me, longer pieces, about 2 inches, go into soups and stir-fries. A second batch of sliced is for topping soups or scallion oil at the end. I freeze in separate bags. Use them straight from frozen in hot dishes, since they go mushy if served raw.
Lemongrass: minced and stalks
I wash the stalks, cut them into 2 to 3 inch pieces, and freeze them in a quart freezer bag. Lemongrass smell is pretty strong even after being frozen, but that is quite alright. One note: I buy my minced lemongrass from the grocery store since I don’t have a food processor…yet.
Thai Chili: whole and cut with scissors
I learned about freezing whole Thai chillies from my parents. Need to add them to fish sauce? Cut with scissors straight from frozen. Need them for braised catfish in claypot? Throw them in the pot whole. I’ve found that the spice holds up very well, though the texture will be less crispy than when they are fresh.
Dill: minced
Dill has such a strong aroma that I find freezing still works just fine when I’m making cream cheese spreads or even as a final topper at the end of making turmeric fish.
Culantro: just buy it fresh
I washed, dried the culantro, and chopped them into 2-inch sections. I like them in my phở, but they always come in such big bundles. I froze them in a quart-sized Ziploc bag to test, but after putting it back in a phở bowl 3 weeks later, there was barely any scent, and it was just a sad-looking wilted culantro.
At this point, I’m not even going to try with the other leafy herbs like Thai Basil… probably better to buy them fresh.
What should I try next? Shallots?
What are some of the herbs or aromatics that you’ve been able to successfully freeze?