The title of this post is mostly a lie. You see, I love Liege style waffles so much that I basically dedicated an entire weekend to eating them in Belgium but I had to figure out a way to make my own at home that ultimately involved as little work as possible on a weekend morning.

Spoiler: we froze them.

The shiny bits are sugar that has melted and covered the outside. It’s a crunchy, candy coated waffle. It’s excellent.

I tested a few ways to get the waffle from the freezer to my mouth quickly while still keeping as many of the desirable features as possible intact. Those desirable features are: delightfully crackly sugar coated exterior, steamy yeasted layers inside, and overwhelming sense of all being right with the universe.

Between the carefully nurtured yeast and the pockets of melted sugar the inside of the waffle has some delightful layers.

The recipe from a site conveniently located at liegewaffle.wordpress.com is outstanding, it is perfection for the home waffle maker really, and got thumbs up from friends who also have fond location-specific waffle memories. The recipe takes a number of hours spread over two days and while it’s definitely A Project it’s a project I’ll happily take on.

The trouble is that it calls for a last 90-minute rise before putting the dough on the waffle iron which, to be honest, isn’t how I want to find myself eating the waffles. Which ideally is about ten minutes after I’ve woken up on a Saturday morning. And so, here is what we tested, including a few deliveries to willing friends who reported back with great information:

Idea #1

Freeze the dough directly after the last rise and later waffle it right out of the freezer. Downside: still a little bit of work to do upon waking up, waffle iron to wash. Upside: makes the kitchen smell amazing. Result: while the exterior of our waffles were very satisfying the interiors showed signs of not quite being cooked all the way through, the dough was a little mushier than it should have been. Not unpleasantly so, mind you, just not the best.

Idea #2

The Winner. Fully cook the waffle and freeze it. Downside: it’s just not as magical to simply defrost something. Upside: no waffle iron to wash later that day and makes frozen waffles giftable. Result: this is my pick for the way to go. The waffles were a bit chewier than just-cooked and never-frozen Liege waffles but an acceptable alternative which retained all the crunchy candy shell, yeasty goodness and feelings of universal ok-ness that were required. Heat in the oven at 275 degrees for 6 to 8 minutes (more on this below). I was honestly surprised that this worked out better than cooking frozen dough in the morning, pleased though because you can take a batch of ready-to-go frozen waffles to a friend with the reheating instructions.

Idea #3

Do some parbaking, or parwaffling if you will, and cook the waffles just to the golden stage, then freeze. In the morning take the formed waffles and put them back on the waffle iron and finish cooking them. Downside: you’ll end up washing the waffle iron twice. Upside: as it turns out, nothing. The texture of the waffle was the worst of the three trials. Result: it was a fun experiment but skip it.

I don’t want to take away from my aforementioned opinion of perfection for the Liege Waffle recipe that I used but considering my impatience-based needs I did make a few changes. Since all of the early tests produced overly chewy and too dense waffles I switched from bread flour to all-purpose flour. Since I was intending to freeze them I doubled the recipe and I also adjusted the amount of dough allowed to each waffle (basically from ten waffles to twelve waffles).

A note on pearl sugar: If you only have the energy to fuss over one thing with this recipe I suggest you fuss over getting the right sort of sugar. The Lars’ Own brand Belgian Pearl Sugar shown here can be found in grocery stores or ordered online (you’ll need two boxes, or just over 10 ounces total). (Also note: affiliate links.) If you’re in Seattle I’ve found Lars’ brand Belgian pearl sugar for sale in Metropolitan Markets and Red Apple Markets and it’s sold in bulk at Big John’s PFI. (Thanks for that tip, Gastrognome!)

A note on the time you’ll need to allow: This recipe includes some long stretches of letting the dough rise so I’ve called out the waiting times in the recipe below. The first day of work will need at least 6 and a half hours (most of this is waiting time) before you get the dough tucked into the fridge for an overnight rest so plan accordingly and don’t start this recipe in the evening.

Four hours later.

A note on protein content in the flour I used: I made my first three test batches with the King Arthur Bread Flour called for in the original recipe and found that our freshly made waffles were a bit more dense than the waffles we ate in Belgium, but our frozen waffles were very chewy. Too chewy. I switched to King Arthur All-Purpose Flour and while the frozen waffles were still a bit chewier than are ideal it was far closer to the waffles we remembered. King Arthur flours have a less than .2% protein difference between batches, their bread flour is 12.7% and their all-purpose flour is 11.7%, which is pretty high. Most brands of all-purpose flour fall near 10.5% so if you’re using a different brand you might consider subbing in a small amount of bread flour to boost the gluten amount.

A note on the waffle iron: I bought myself a stovetop waffle iron specifically because I wanted something that would be easy to clean. (Conveniently it also takes up less storage space in my tiny kitchen.) Friends who have made Liege style waffles report back that cleaning up after making them in an electric iron isn’t too much work, any sugar that melts out will harden when it’s cool and your waffle iron won’t be much harder to clean than usual. I bought the NordicWare stovetop waffle iron that is nonstick and made of cast aluminum but I’ve also had my eye on a cast iron stovetop waffle maker sold by Waffleburger (scroll down). I’ll report back if I get my hands on the cast iron one.

A note on the thermometer: Since I am, as you might have noticed, a little bit obsessed with getting these waffles right I found that an infrared thermometer was essential in getting the temperature of the waffle iron to the correct range. I bought a midpriced one (it’s nicely sturdy) at a hardware store and it’s worked great. It’s also really handy when you temperature of things around you house to try to figure out why your bedroom always seems ten degrees colder than the rest of the house.

This is step #3, its pretty dramatic.

Liege Waffles for Freezing

Recipe adapted from the Gaufre de Liège Recette Blog, which is excellent.

Makes 12 waffles.

Ingredients

• 3 tsp. (8 g) active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup (120 g) whole milk at 110-115 degrees F (43-46 C)
• 5 Tbsp. and 1 tsp. (80 g) water at 110-115 degrees F (43-46 C)
• 4 cups (480 g) King Arthur all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature and lightly beaten
• 2 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. (40 g) light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. (9 g) salt
• 17 Tbsp. (240 g) room temperature butter (just over two sticks)
• 2 Tbsp. (30 g) honey
• 4 tsp. (20 ml) vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup (300 g) Belgian Pearl Sugar

Directions

1. Put heated milk and water in the bowl of a stand mixer, sprinkle yeast over the top and stir to moisten.

2. Add the eggs and about 1/3rd (160 g) of the flour, mix to blend.

3. Sprinkle the remaining flour over the top of the mixture but don’t stir it in. Cover the bowl and let it stand for 75 to 90 minutes at room temperature. You’ll see the yeast mixture bubble up through the flour.

after 90 minutes

4. Add the brown sugar and salt, mix on slow to combine everything in the bowl. (I just go ahead and use the dough hook.)

5. With your mixer on low speed add the honey and the vanilla. Add 2 Tbsp. (60 g) of butter at a time. Mix everything for 4 minutes at medium-low speed, scrape down sides a few times. Let the dough rest for 1 minute and mix again for 2 minutes. Do this again a few times until the dough starts to want to stick mostly to the dough hook.

6. Transfer the dough into a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let this rise at room temperature for 4 hours.

after 4 hours

7. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. This step is for yeast respiration, it will slow it down which you’ll need to do before the next step.

after 30 minutes

8. Using a silicone spatula press down on the dough to deflate it. Scrap this onto a piece of plastic wrap, stretch into a long rectangle and then fold into thirds. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and weight it down with dinner plates. Refrigerate overnight.

after an overnight rest

9. Divide your pearl sugar in 12 equal piles, about 2 Tbsp. (25 g) each. Divide the dough into 12 pieces (about 88 g each). Mix the pearl sugar into each part of dough, I usually flatten the dough, sprinkle sugar on top and fold it over a few times.

10. Shape each waffle into an oval lump, cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 90 minutes.

after 90 minutes

11. Spray your waffle iron with cooking spray. Heat until it registers at 365-370 degrees F (185 – 187 C). (Hotter than this and it will burn the sugar.) Cook until the waffle is dark golden brown and you can see the sugar melting and coating the outside. If you’re using a stovetop waffle iron I recommend turning it over every 90 seconds or so to keep the temperature on both sides up and allow for as much sugar to coat the exterior as possible. Carefully transfer the waffles to a wire rack to cool — be aware that the hot sugar will drip and can burn your fingers (ask me how I know) so use tongs and a flat spatula or small plate to help you move them. When cool tuck each waffle into some parchment paper and freeze in an airtight container. When you are ready to cook them preheat an oven to 275 degrees F and place the waffle directly onto the wire rack. Heat for 5 to 7 minutes, carefully transfer to a plate, maybe line the plate with that strip of parchment paper.

I recommend the oven over a reheating in a toaster because I don’t want hot sugar to drip into your toaster. A friend reported that even at the lowest heat setting the waffles burned in her toaster oven. So, regular oven it is.

12. If you are freezing the dough to cook later: Transfer the sheet with your dough directly into the freezer and let the dough chill for at least half an hour until set. Wrap each lump of dough in plastic wrap and place together in an airtight container in the freezer. When you are ready to cook follow the directions above for cooking. I remove as many ovals of dough as I want to make and place them onto the hot waffle iron, pressing the iron down slowly to flatten them out as they thaw. If you freeze the dough on parchment you can cut around them and use that parchment when you wrap them up, it will peel off cleanly before putting them in the waffle iron.

Enjoy!

The other day I found myself caught between being hungry and lazy. (You know how to know when you’ve become an adult? When you no longer have foodstuffs that don’t require thirty minutes of cooking and other ingredients to make them edible. That’s how.) We had almost nothing to eat in our house but I just couldn’t get myself to put on pants that were respectable enough to go to the grocery store. And then (!), accompanied by rays of sunlight and angelic music, I found a jar of homemade tomato sauce in the back of my freezer. Suddenly (or with ten-ish minutes of effort) I’d gone from So Hungry to eating delicious tomato sauce on polenta (always stock corn grits for times like this) topped with an egg. I ate this again for lunch since new food hadn’t magically appeared in my fridge. Having this tomato sauce in my freezer made me feel like a genius. Or at least somebody who is occasionally able to feed myself with dignity.

This sauce I refer to is Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter. Its an amazingly simple and delicious recipe so if you’re already familiar with it then high five, and if you’re not already familiar with it then you’re in for a treat. This is how it goes:

– a 28-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes, with the juice
– one onion peeled and cut in half
– 5 tablespoons of butter
– a pinch of salt if needed

Simmer uncovered for 45 minutes. Done.

Ok, there is a little more than that. You let the whole thing simmer slowly for about 45 minutes and near the end crush the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Discard the onion before serving. Done and done.

For a more detailed version of this see Orangette, or Amateur Gourmet, or Smitten Kitchen.

For this recipe I make a double batch. Doubled it fits in a 4-quart dutch oven nicely and I freeze the leftovers in portions for later. I’ve been using small canning jars (note: affiliate links) with the very handy plastic screw caps lately for freezing foods, it’s easy to take of the lid and thaw the whole thing in a microwave. Or at least I find the jars less fuss than I anticipated them to be. I bought a bunch of jars a few years back expecting they’d eventually be cycled out of my house when giving food gifts to friends and I’ve honestly been surprised at how much I enjoy using them for dry food storage and freezer storage. The caps, though, make all the difference. They are easier to remove and clean and keep track of and won’t rust.

This is a little tip I learned somewhere that I cannot recall. (I think Cook’s Illustrated?) If you want to break up whole canned tomatoes with as little mess as possible use kitchen scissors to cut them up while they are still in the can. This recipe doesn’t require you break up the tomatoes first but I do it anyway because I can get a little obsessive over smashing the tomatoes later on and I like to give myself a head start. I’ve read that when deciding whether to buy whole or diced or crushed canned tomatoes it’s better to buy whole because there is less processing time before the tomatoes hit the can so they are fresher. I’m not sure if this is true but it’s good to keep in mind. Maybe a taste test is in order?

While I’m here let me just say that I’m totally in love with my no-sharp-edges can opener. I know there are not exactly breaking news but every time I open a can I find myself being gushingly appreciative of not being able to cut my fingers on anything sharp. (Because I did, every time.) I own the Zyliss and have no complaints. Sweethome recommends the OXO Good Grips version. In conclusion: not having the culinary equivalent of a throwing star weapon in your trash is good.

Ok, go, make the easy sauce and feel like a genius.

This post is part of an occasional series that I consider my Freezer Pantry. Here is the link to the category: Freezer Pantry, and here is a list of all the previous posts:

• Caramelized Onions
• Fresh Pasta
• Baked Brown Rice
• How to blanch and freeze kale
• Bolognese Sauce
• Freezing Bacon (so you can just grab a few slices at a time)
• Dorot frozen herbs and garlic

I love brown rice but I’m too impatient to make it for dinner so I borrowed an idea from Trader Joe’s and cook it in advance and keep it in the freezer so it’s just a microwave away from being ready to eat. It’s also great to have around for a fast breakfast of an over easy egg on rice, which I default to a lot when I’m feeling lazy.

I’m terrible at cooking rice in a pot (burned rice, melted pots, other tragic results) so instead I bake it using instructions from Alton Brown and Good Eats and no pots have been ruined since.

To make: Put 1.5 cups brown rice and a teaspoon of salt in an 8×8 baking dish. Pour 2.5 cups boiling water over the top, stir and cover tightly with tin foil. Bake in a 375 degree oven for one hour. Allow to cool, divide into portions and freeze.

I do two or three batches at the same time and I’ve used larger baking dishes and even pie plates with good results, no need to have multiple 8×8 baking dishes hanging around. If you’re a rice texture snob this cooking method probably won’t make you happy, but hey, convenience.

I recently received a KitchenAid pasta roller attachment as a gift. I asked for just the single pasta roller, none of the other cutter attachments, because my kitchen is tiny and I’m happy enough to cut my own noodles into wide strips. And if it comes down to something as thin as linguine I’m far more likely to used a boxed pasta anyhow.

It is so much fun to make pasta but with all the flour being scattered about it’s worth making a whole lot of noodles at the same time. A little research tells me that freezing fresh pasta will preserve the flavor better than drying it and the best way to freeze it is in bundles or nests.

Technique: Toss your just-made pasta with extra flour so it won’t stick together. Let it dry for a few minutes then fold and twist into bundles. Freeze those on a parchment lined baking sheet, then transfer to an airtight container. When you are ready to cook simply drop one bundle into boiling water, the noodles should separate from each other easily. Also, voilà, fresh homemade pasta appears before you like magic!

Before I did nests I decided that individual pasta strands rolled up, frozen and stacked together would be charming. And they were, but obviously they stuck together like mad in the boiling water. Oops.

Scott and I have schedules that mean during the workweek we only cook dinner together about two times a week. This makes it impractical to keep a lot of fresh food in our fridge (cleaning it out got depressing, so many unidentifiable items) so we tend to pick something up to cook earlier in the same day. To make it even easier I’ve been figuring out what half-prepared foods to keep in the freezer. For whatever reason if I made something complete (say lasagna) and freeze it we never seem to actually eat it, we prefer to make something we are craving so having components that will cut down on dirty dishes and chopping time have been making a big difference. It nearly makes me feel like I’m qualified to be an adult.

I’ve mentioned a few things I keep in the freezer before — kale, bacon layered so it’s easy to just grab a few slices, bolognese sauce — and the latest staple I’ve added is caramelized onions. I use the recipe from Tea and Cookies which mostly calls for “time, patience, and faith” which isn’t an exaggeration. The first time I caramelized onions I had to restrain myself from them off the stove too early. They need to be nice and dark:

Image by Tara Austen Weaver, Tea and Cookies.

Basic technique: two sliced onions in a 10-inch pan, 1/4 cup olive oil, medium high heat, stirring every five minutes and patience. It will take about 30 minutes. For a more detailed description go read the entry at Tea and Cookies and follow her tip about slicing bits a little thicker than others. I let these cool, put them in ziplock bags pressed flat and freeze them. Then I break off a tablespoon or so as I need it.

So far we’ve mostly been using them in egg dishes. For the omlette pictured above I used mushrooms, spinach and goat cheese left over from a salad with some of the caramelized onions to create a way more delicious breakfast than I usually have. Tara describes caramelized onions as the bacon of the vegetarian world, they are smoky and salty and add a hit of flavor whatever you add it to. And people, yum. Also, having them on hand will make you feel like a genius.

I have to admit something to you, I only found these because I was attracted to the packaging which is just so European-y. I was walking down the frozen foods aisle at Trader Joe’s trying to avoid looking all the delicious cookies straight in the eye and these bright red trays just screamed, “We are imported! Come fondle our clever packaging!” But I’m glad I found them because I love this stuff. These are small frozen cubes of minced garlic or herbs which you pop out of their tray like ice cubes. So darn easy. You might not think that mincing some garlic is all that much work but my lazy self only sees a cutting board, knife and garlic press that I’ll have to wash later and on a weeknight I’d rather not. I’ll still prep fresh garlic for our slower paced weekend meals but for now I love my frozen stash. I found these at Trader Joes and, ooh, according to Dorot’s website they also have ginger, cilantro, dill and chili.

This one might be something a lot of you do already, but if you don’t please allow me to recommend that the next time you buy bacon you get an extra package to squirrel away in the freezer. It leads to happy Saturday mornings like this one:

Him: Let’s make french toast. Do we have something to go with it?
Me: Let me check the freezer… YES! WE HAVE BACON!

I cut the whole package of bacon in half only because I find it easier to separate later (it also is easier to cook crispy when you don’t have to worry about the other end burning). I cut a strip of parchment paper the width of the bacon then put a strip down, fold over, put another strip down, fold that over, etc. Put it in an airtight container in the freezer and when you need some you simply unroll the package and pop out a few strips at a time. There, so much nicer than trying to pry off a strip from a frozen mass of bacon.

update: I just wanted to add that I have seen this a few places before I started doing it. The one that immediately comes to mind is this post over at Eating Well Anywhere.

Here is another thing I make in bulk and freeze so I can have something very nearly ready to go at dinnertime. By the end of the day I have no imagination left for dinner so often our nutrition suffers (Annie’s mac and cheese again? yay!). But, I can be virtuous and lazy if I have kale in my freezer.

If you would have told me two years ago that I would fall deeply in love with kale I wouldn’t have believed you. I only tried in initially because I felt guilted into eating better (see: Annie’s mac and cheese). However, preparing it for dinner can seem like it would just take too much effort what with all the washing and chopping. It took me way too long to realize that I could blanch it to freeze and have ready to go. One note: I did find bags of frozen kale for sale at Amazon Fresh but they are cut the same way that cut frozen spinach comes, roughly and too small, and I find it rather unpleasant to eat.

Below is step by step instructions on how I get it ready. I put it here because I figure I cannot be the only person who has no idea how to do this. I used the instructions from Pick Your Own, and these here are what I’ve figured out in order to do a lot of kale in batches as efficiently as possible.

If you just freeze greens they get bitter, but if you dunk them in boiling water for a few minutes, then stop the cooking abruptly you kill of the enzymes that create the bitter flavor. This is called blanching and except for watching Martha Stewart do it to green beans years ago I never knew much about it.

I usually buy four bunches of kale, which is a lot of kale. First, start boiling water in a huge stockpot. (My electric kettle gets a lot of work here.) Put a large bowl in your sink and fill it with water. Dunk the kale around to wash it. If you bought it from your local organic market look closely for little buggies. Sometimes they just hug the stem and you can get rid of them in the next step. I usually don’t find bugs but there was this one time when I just re-fused to throw out four whole bunches of kale and had to work carefully.

Next, trimming. The easiest way to trim out the stem is to fold the kale leaf in half lengthwise with the stem facing away from you. Run the tip of a knife along the stem to separate it. (I learned this in Everyday Food, I think.)

Then you can leave the kale where it is and quickly chop it. Now move that into a bowl and do the next one. If you develop an assembly line rhythm at this point you can get through all your kale pretty quickly.

(Let’s talk briefly about knives. I have an expensive 8″ chefs knife, but I nearly always reach for my Oxo Santoku Knife, which is $20. Just saying. Good stuff.)

Now get the following things ready: a huge pot of boiling water with a lid, a huge bowl of ice water, a strainer you can use to move the kale from the boiling water to the ice water, a salad spinner, a large kitchen towel laid out flat on your counter and a kitchen timer set to two minutes.

When the water is boiling dump a bunch of the kale in it, put on the lid (the steam helps cook the bits bobbing on top) and let it cook for two minutes. I usually just stir it once.

When the time is up quickly lift the kale from the pot of water into the ice bath. You’ll reuse the boiling water for the next batch. The water turns progressively darker green with each batch but I cannot imagine that would hurt anything. Bet it would be great for making vegetable stock. Someday I’ll make stock of some sort.

Now we need to get it dry. I spin it in a salad spinner. (The OXO Salad Spinner still totally rules. I have the little one and it works fine for two people.)

Then I lay it flat on a kitchen towel. When all the batches of kale are done I roll the towel up…

and squeeze.

Then I lay the kale out on a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet. Pop that in the freezer and in about 30 minutes it will be frozen enough for you to shake into your airtight container of choice.

And there you are, it’s all ready to pull out of the freezer, saute in olive oil with a little minced garlic (I’m not ashamed to love my garlic press) just until it’s hot, shake a bit of crushed red pepper and salt on top and, ta da!, excellent leafy green side dish that allow you to be smug about your eating habits and level of cleverness for the next 24 hours.

This is another in the series of foods I make in bulk and freeze. This recipe came from Oprah Magazine (I have lost track of which issue), and while there are a gazillion bolognese recipes out there this is the one that ended up in my routine. I have altered the instructions a bit. Note: It takes a few hours of simmering so make it on a day when you want to be hanging out at home.

Bolognese Sauce

• 1 medium onion [for some reason I find the gnarly yellow onions sold at my nearby hippie market to make the best sauce]
• 1 large or 2 small carrots
• 2 to 3 stalks celery
• 1 pound ground beef (not lean)
• 1 ounce pancetta, very finely chopped [I freeze it a bit first, helps to keep it from sliding around as it’s chopped]
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. freshly ground pepper
• Pinch allspice
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup dry white wine [I always end up with Hogue Fume Blanc, probably because it’s the only one at the hippie market that clearly states “dry white wine” on the label]
• 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes with their juice [I usually use the fake San Marzano kind with the pretty label even though Cook’s Illustrated proved they actually don’t taste the best.]
• 1 pound pasta, such as rigatoni [I like the oversized chiocciole made by Bionaturae]
• Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, for grating

1. Finely chop onion, carrot and celery. [Right, I did that the first time, now I just run each through my food processor.] In a heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over low heat, cook pancetta until all fat it rendered and pancetta is just beginning to brown. Add chopped vegetables, raise heat to medium, and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent and soft.

2. [Don’t forget to crack open some windows in the house, this is going to be simmering all day the smell, as good as it will be, will be strange when it’s lingering in the tv room. Good job, why not crack open that wine and have a glass now that all the bits of cooking that involve sharp knives are done with?]

3. Add ground beef, breaking it up with a spoon, 1/4 tsp. (to start) salt, plus pepper and allspice. Cook until meat is brown. [Experience has proven to me that I don’t need to obsessively break the meat into smaller and smaller pieces, though I do run a knife through it crosswise before it goes into the pot.]

4. Add milk. When it begins to simmer, reduce heat to low and cook at a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally until milk has mostly boiled away, about 30 minutes. [Experience has told me to add about 15 minutes to this and the next step. Am I not simmering the same way everybody else is?] Add white wine [you still have enough, right?] and cook as with milk, until it has mostly boiled away. Add tomatoes and juice, bring to a simmer. [I obsessively crush the tomato bits in the pot at this point, I bet it would be fine if you don’t do that.] Cover pot, reduce heat to low, and allow sauce to cook very gently at barest simmer, 2 1/2 to 3 hours. [I swear there is a point where you check the sauce and suddenly it just tastes like everything came together, it’s magical.] Season to taste with remaining salt.

5. Just before sauce is done, bring a pot of water to boil, salt it generously, and boil pasta according to package directions. Drain, mix with a third of sauce, then serve with remaining sauce on top with lots of grated Parmigiano cheese.

Makes 4 cups sauce. [Unless you double or triple the recipe. I cannot quite fit a tripled recipe into my 4 1/2 quart Dutch oven, clearly I need to buy a larger one.]

I allow the sauce to cool, then spoon into freezer bags, squeeze them flat, and freeze them on a cookie sheet until they are solid enough to be stacked on their own. When you are ready to eat you can pull one out of the freezer and run the bag under hot water to thaw. This is the easiest way to do it when you, like me, don’t own a microwave.