Anything soft and individual that goes into a bag wet comes out as one mass. Freeze the pieces separately first and the bag stays a bag of pieces, which is the entire point of having made thirty meatballs at once.
Method
- Spread the pieces in a single layer on a parchment-lined sheet pan, not touching.
- Freeze until hard — 1–2 hours for meatballs or patties, 30 minutes for berries.
- Bag them, press the air out, and return to the freezer.
They will not fuse once they are frozen through, because there is no unfrozen surface moisture left to bridge between them.
What this is for
Meatballs, burger patties, sausage links, cookie dough balls, berries, sliced peppers and onions, bacon portions, pierogi — anything you will want six of rather than all of.
The shortcut when you skip it
Parchment squares between stacked patties work and take less freezer real estate than a sheet pan. They do not work for anything round.
Cook from frozen
Pieces frozen separately cook from frozen without thawing, which is most of the value. Meatballs go straight into sauce. Patties go on the griddle and take a few extra minutes a side. A thawed-then-cooked patty is a worse patty anyway — it weeps while it waits.