Can You Freeze Milk

Milk is one of those staples which can go from fresh and fine to out of date and pig-swill-scented super quick.
Sometimes you can’t get round to drinking the milk before it will go off, for whatever reason, but worry ye not – you don’t have to throw it out – you can freeze it and use it at a more convenient time. As long as it isn’t ‘off’ and isn’t in a glass bottle it should be fine.

– The milk may become a more yellow shade when frozen.
– It may separate but a good shake should sort that out.
– You may prefer to use it for cooking rather than drinking due to the above factors.
– Use an airtight container and leave a 3cm gap at the top because milk expands when freezing.
– Your milk should be thawed in the fridge for around 10 hours.
– Use within 2 days of defrosting.

This might seem like a really basic tip but it’s one of those basics which slip your mind or you don’t realise for years and years. Don’t throw milk away! It might not cost the same as a steak but every penny counts and throwing milk down the plug hole once a week will soon add up. P.S. Some people have suggested you can only freeze skimmed and semi-skimmed milk but not full fat milk. I hadn’t heard of this however a little reading around suggests this is a bit of a troublesome question and freezing full fat milk wasn’t easy some years ago. Many supermarkets and dairies now have ‘freezeable’ signs on their full fat milk packaging however full fat milk which is not homgenised is likely to (not always) separate upon defrosting. I’ve encountered separation when defrosting with organic milk and a quick shake rectified the problem.