A frozen quart of braising liquid is all-or-nothing: you want three tablespoons for a pan sauce and you have to thaw the whole thing and refreeze the rest, which nobody does. Frozen in cubes, the same quart becomes thirty separate decisions.
What goes in a tray
Anything concentrated and pourable. From this collection: birria consommé, carnitas juices, pot roast gravy, the braising liquid under short ribs, reduced stock. From the pantry: the rest of a can of chipotles in adobo, tomato paste by the tablespoon, herbs packed in oil, compound butter, lemon juice.
The chipotle one earns its place on its own. A recipe calls for two peppers, the can holds seven, and the remainder dies in the fridge every single time.
Method
- Cool the liquid completely. Warm liquid in the tray melts a path through whatever is beneath it and refreezes as one solid piece.
- Fill the trays and freeze solid, 4 hours or overnight.
- Pop the cubes out and bag them. They will not pop out while soft, and they fuse back together if bagged soft.
- Label with the contents, the volume per cube, and the date. The bag is the only information you will have in two months.
Know your tray
- Standard ice cube tray: 2 tbsp (1 fl oz) per cube
- Silicone muffin tray: ½ cup
- Souper-style cube trays: ½ cup or 1 cup
Pick one tray per kind of thing and stay with it, so "two cubes" means a fixed amount rather than a guess.
Reduce first
Freezer volume is the scarce resource, and most braising liquid is water. Reduce it by half before it goes in the tray and add water back when you use it. Half the cubes, same flavour, and the concentrated version makes a better pan sauce anyway.
What not to freeze this way
Dairy-heavy and starch-thickened sauces break on thaw — the cream separates, the roux weeps. Freeze the base and add the cream or the thickener when you reheat. This is the same rule the dump bags follow, for the same reason.