Every so often I’ll get inspired to make a dish that requires stock before I have time to pull one out of the freezer. When this happens, I create a little warm water bath for the jar inside the sink. This process seems to take forever. I’m always adding more warm water to speed up the process. Today I faced the same dilemma and thought there had to be a better way.
That is when I read about the idea of steaming the frozen jar. I was skeptical, but I needed to know. So I placed a steamer on the bottom of my large stock pot, added some water, put in a frozen jar of my beef broth and turned on the heat.
It worked. In about 30 minutes with no work on my part, the entire jar was thawed. No more warm water baths! Do you know any other ways to quickly thaw frozen liquids?
Stephan R
Dec 12, 2013 — 2:29 pm
This is probably the fastes way to thaw any liquid, but still – I don’t consider 30 min very short and this is usually how long I need to prepare most of my meals.
One suggestion to speed up the thawing would be to freeze the bone broth in Ziplock bags and lay down them down in the freezer such that the thickness is decreased compared to the glass jar. The glass jar takes considerably longer because the diameter is the equal throughout.
Txomin
Dec 12, 2013 — 10:08 pm
Ovens warm up quickly these days.
MAS
Dec 13, 2013 — 8:02 am
@Stephan – I often spend 20 minutes or so doing food prep. Usually I don’t have this problem, but I like your idea of using freezer bags.
@Txomin – Great idea, especially if I’m doing any food prep that will require the oven.
Dan
Dec 14, 2013 — 1:05 pm
Depending on the dish, I find that there’s often no need to completely thaw the stock beforehand. If I’m making a soup or stew, I just hold the (wide-mouth) jar under hot water until the part of the stock that’s touching the jar liquifies, allowing me to slide the still-frozen stock out into the stew. The stock thaws quickly once it’s surrounded by hot liquid. 😛
Orlando
Dec 23, 2013 — 1:54 pm
If you freeze stock in ice-cube trays you can add as much as you need to a dish directly from frozen…or microwave for a few seconds if you need to thaw.