Instead Of Dumping Old Wine Down The Drain, Freeze It For Future Recipes

Managing and minimizing food waste is a great way to save on a budget and make the most of your ingredients. It follows the proverb from Richard Edwards, "Waste not, want not," meaning that if you allocate your resources carefully, you'll never be wanting (via The Paradise of Dainty Devices). However, for leftover bottles of wine, it's a little trickier. To begin with, the shelf life of an opened bottle of wine varies, and properly recorking a bottle of wine can be difficult without the proper technique, which may result in wine going bad.

Apart from the lip-puckering dissatisfactory taste, spoiled wine can make you sick on rare occasions, so pouring the remnants of a bottle of wine down the drain is common. It's a habit that in the United States alone results in over $1.5 billion worth of wine wasted annually. Fortunately, there is a better way to deal with your half-drunken bottles of wine that'll leave you ultra-prepared for future cooking endeavors.

If you're quite not sure you'll finish that bottle from dinner, consider pouring it into an ice cube tray or other container and popping it in your freezer. This will prevent the wine from spoiling as quickly, allowing you to add it to recipes in the future. Once you're ready to use the wine, simply add it still frozen to your recipe of choice or allow it to thaw first, depending on your plans.

Perfect for tomato sauces or a braise, this technique can be used with basically any recipe that calls for wine – like drunken spaghetti or sautéed mushrooms. Thawed red and white wine can also be used for sangria or other wine cocktails or added in to your batch recipe to keep it cool on a warm day; just be sure not to freeze an unopened bottle of wine since wine, when frozen, will expand. Also, be sure to store your frozen wine in a closed container to avoid freezer burn.