Frozen corn brings grassy sweetness all year long
Frozen corn is my favorite frozen vegetable. (Actually, corn is my favorite vegetable. Period.) It doesn’t really need cooking, merely heating, and adds a light, grassy sweetness to everything from pasta sauces to cake. Frozen corn is what makes these Thai Fritters sing, playing off the warm, nutty notes of the coriander, slightly bitter aromatic lime zest, and crunchy, deep-fried batter.
It’s also the star of two of our favorite soups—a summery Two-Corn Chowder, which combines frozen corn with just-as-convenient canned hominy, and a Corn and Coconut Soup with Ginger and Scallions that hits all the salty, spicy, sour and sweet flavor notes emblematic of Thai cooking.
And if you have a lot of corn to use up, or just love it as much as I do, use a big bag to make esquites, a popular type of Mexican street food, made with grilled or roasted corn and finished with crema (a kind of Mexican sour cream), mayonnaise, lime, chili and cotija cheese. Don’t stir the corn for the first minute it’s in the skillet. Undisturbed cooking allows the kernels to begin to develop flavorful browning and caramelization.
It also makes an incredible creamy but cream-free pasta sauce. Puree thawed kernels in a blender with some scallion whites and a little salt and pepper, then toss with bucatini, pecorino, chilies, and a little butter, with as much pasta-cooking water as you need to thin the sauce and help it cling to the noodles.
And don’t put the blender away just yet—you can use it to make our Mexican Sweet Corn Cake, the tender, sweet cake that kicked off our obsession with blender cakes, cakes you make in a blender. Chris Kimball had it for breakfast at La Cocina de Mi Mamá in Mexico City, but finished with a dusting of powdered sugar, it also makes a casual, homey dessert.
Frozen peas add fresh, verdant flavor and color
Risi e bisi (or Venetian-style rice and peas) is a pea-studded rice, bathed in pale green broth, enjoyed as a holiday tradition for St. Mark’s Day (April 25), but you don’t have to wait for spring to enjoy it, thanks to the bag of frozen peas in your freezer. It’s a perfect dish for still-chilly not-quite-spring nights, with a consistency that’s equal parts creamy risotto and brothy soup, and bits of pancetta that provide a savory backbone for the grassy pea flavor.
Frozen peas can also add pops of color to pasta dishes. Toss them into our ultra-easy, single-skillet version of pasta con piselli e pomodoro (farfalle with tomatoes, peas and pecorino), or our one-pot, super-creamy Rigatoni Carbonara with Ricotta (we cook the pasta in a minimal amount of water, concentrating the starch in it to help thicken the sauce.) You can also use them to make a fresh, no-cook sauce with goat cheese, lime zest, and mint for a simple spaghetti that comes together in under half an hour. (Make sure to thaw the peas first so they’re easy to work with and don’t bring a chill to the dish.)
Convenient vegetables are more likely to be eaten
Butternut squash is delicious, but peeling it is a chore, to put it mildly. In our Chilean-Style Bean, Butternut and Corn Stew, we combine a bag of frozen squash chunks with canned beans and tomatoes (and frozen corn!), and simmer them in a savory tomatoey chicken broth, with jalapeño heat and vibrant red paprika.
In our take on risotto con zucca (risotto with squash), we opt for the convenience of frozen butternut squash cubes and simplify the cooking by baking the risotto, eliminating the need to add hot liquid in batches and stir the rice as it simmers. We roast half of the squash to develop a rich, caramelized sweetness and cook the other half directly in the rice to infuse the risotto with flavor and add another dimension of creaminess.
Instead of trying to coax crispness out of a bag of ice-crusted, frozen broccoli, blend it down to make (yet another) creamy, cream-free soup—this one is vibrant with fresh ginger, chilies, and cilantro. There’s no need to thaw the broccoli before use, and cooking is brief so it retains its bright color. An immersion blender, if you own one, makes the recipe even simpler, as it can puree the soup directly in the pot.
Got a couple of boxes of frozen spinach? Thaw them and pat the leaves dry, then combine them with potatoes to make a simplified version of the classic Indian dish known as saag aloo (“greens potatoes,” literally translated). We season ours with a simple combination of spices—turmeric for its golden hue and cumin for earthy warmth. For frozen edamame, make a quick and savory fried rice with ham. And I do not know a better use for frozen artichoke hearts than our Lemony Wine-Braised Artichokes, which delivers big artichoke flavor without the hassle of preparing the fresh prickly flower buds. “I've made this more than half a dozen times in the last three months,” wrote one reader. “It's just delicious.”
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