Cream Cheese, Yogurt and Sour Cream

Last night we looked through the grocery sale circulars for this week, and with the great sales going on for SuperBowl Sunday party supplies, a few questions came to mind. Thought we'd post them:

Cream Cheese:
Can cream cheese be frozen and successfully thawed for regular use? Hubby can't have it (lactose intolerant) so I don't usually buy it, but King Soopers (Kroger) is having a sale this week, plus I found some almost-expired marked way down last week. So, again, could I buy it when I find it on sale/marked down and freeze to use later? Will it be a similar consistency once thawed? Will it blend and whip the same way? Bought some yesterday and is now in the freezer. We'll see.

Yogurt:
Even though I'm learning how to make my own yogurt, I often find yogurt discounted at King Soopers with an orange sticker, sometimes for $.26 each, and with a coupon, sometimes we get these for just one penny. We buy these and try to use them before they turn bad, but sometimes we still have to leave several on the grocery shelves because we just don't have that much room. In addition, VHTS loves goat yogurt, so when we find it discounted to more than 50% off, we'd love to bring it home and freeze it for later (otherwise, it's soooo expensive). So... can we freeze yogurt in the same container, or would we need to pour into a different kind of container to freeze? Is it like "frozen yogurt" that is in the freezer section of the grocery?

Sour Cream:
Same question: Often almost-expired sour cream gets an orange sticker so we pick up one or two. VHTS uses lots of sour cream on his baked potatoes, which he gets about 2-3 times a week, and on his nacho chips. I use a little sour cream about once a week, if that. Would love to stock up on sour cream when it's discounted very low, and freeze. Is this possible? Does it thaw to original consistency?

Cheese:
We already buy block cheese and freeze. It makes a little crumblier texture when grating, but that's ok because we just melt it anyway. We also buy bags of grated cheese and freeze those.

Thanks for your opinions!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cream cheese
The texture of cream cheese I've frozen has changed. It was granular, but worked fine as an ingredient in cookies. I haven't tried whipping it or otherwise using it in a way that would show its texture; maybe whipping it would take care of the problem.

Yogurt
Yogurt freezes just fine. I've grabbed a small one from the freezer in the morning and left it at room temperature to thaw out for lunch many times. As with cream cheese and regular cheese, the texture changes.

It's not the same as frozen yogurt from the freezer section of the grocery, but you could try making it more like that by putting it through a cycle of partially freezing then stirring a few times before letting it freeze solid.

And thank you for writing this blog. I'm impressed by how prolific you are, the quality of your writing, and the amount of useful information I get from reading it!