Hi there it's Nisha. Today I'm going to
give you a tour of my vegan freezer. I'll
show you how to smartly stock your
freezer so that you can have healthy or
relatively healthy meals in just a few
minutes. So let me show you what I keep
in my freezer and I'll also give you some
ideas for how to use these foods.
One of the things I like to keep in my freezer are almond milk ice cubes. And I know
that sounds a little hipstery but I do
live in Brooklyn, so sometimes those
crazy hipsters have really good ideas
and I steal them. And I just take
store-bought almond milk and I pour it
into ice cube trays and freeze them. And
the reason I do this is because if you
want your smoothie to be cold,
you could add regular ice cubes made of
water, but it's gonna water your smoothie
down, so if you want a cold smoothie
that's also creamy, adding almond milk
ice cubes is a great way to do that. And
it's a fun treat to add to your iced
coffee in the summer. This wouldn't be a
proper vegan video if I didn't have
frozen bananas in my freezer because
vegans freakin love frozen bananas. We
put them in smoothies and smoothie bowls
and nice creams and desserts. To get the
creamiest, smoothest texture, for your
nice cream or smoothie, you want to
make sure you're using really ripe
bananas. Basically they're gonna be
really brown and almost have gone bad,
and that's when you want to slice them
up and put them in the freezer. To make
sure they don't stick together, I slice
them up and put them on a baking tray or
a flat surface and then once they're
frozen, I transfer them to a jar or
container. As you may have noticed on
Instagram, frozen berries are all the
rage and I'm here to share the secret
with you to achieving that frosty berry
look! Well, it's not really a secret
because all you do is put fresh berries
on a plate or a tray, you freeze them and
then you take them out. And then they're
frozen! Now you have the secret to the
hottest food trend on Instagram, you're
welcome. In all seriousness, I always have
some sort of frozen berry in my freezer
and I like to buy them fresh when
they're in season and they're the
sweetest and cheapest. And then I freeze
the leftovers. I add them to smoothies,
obviously. It's a great way to get a
little bit of sweetness into your
smoothie without adding too much sugar.
And you have all those antioxidants from
the berries. But I also like to make
berry compote out of frozen berries.
I just take some frozen berries, heat
them up on the stove until they're
defrosted and their juices run, and then
I add some lemon juice and maple syrup
and it makes a really great topping for
oatmeal or ice cream. If there's one thing
you should know about me, it's that I
love dessert. So right now I have some
vegan ice cream in my freezer. It's from
the brand NadaMoo, which means no cow
which is really cute. And they make such
delicious vegan ice cream. It's made with
coconut milk but it doesn't have that
super strong coconuty taste. It's
decadent, its rich, its creamy -
everything you're looking for in ice
cream. When you think of smoothies you
probably think of fruits or if you're
thinking vegetables, maybe something like
spinach or kale for a green smoothie. But
if you are a foodie who likes to make
beautiful smoothie bowls, you might want
to create a particular color for your
smoothie But adding kale with
blueberries and almond butter and
protein powder is going to give you a
smoothie that looks like poop. So I use
two vegetables that are neutral colored
in order to add bulk and nutrition to my
smoothies without changing the color. And they are zucchini and cauliflower.
For zucchini just peel back the green layer
of skin and then slice it up like you
would a banana and add it to your
morning smoothie or your smoothie bowl.
And the second vegetable, cauliflower, is
super easy because it's already white
you don't have to do anything. And the
reason I use these vegetables frozen
instead of fresh is because the frozen
texture gives it more of a smoothie-like
consistency similar to bananas but
without all the sugar. I like to keep
some sort of leftovers in my freezer so
that I can have a quick and healthy
option even when I'm in a bind and don't have
any other food instead of going out to
get fast food or eat junk food. Right now
I have some butternut squash soup and
lentil soup in my freezer.  Usually
when I make a big batch of food, for meal
prep for instance, I get tired of eating
it after a couple days so instead of
throwing it away, I store it in the
freezer as leftovers, which saves time
and money. And if I wanted to eat this
for dinner after work one day, I would
put the jar in a bowl of hot water and
let it come to room temperature. I love
nuts. So I eat a lot of nuts. Usually I
just store them in my fridge or pantry
because I go through them pretty
quickly. But if I buy a particular type
of nut that I don't eat as frequently or
I'm buying a big bag of nuts that could
go bad
quickly, I will stored in the freezer to
preserve the freshness. Right now I have
pecans and hazelnuts in my freezer, which
I love to bake with as well as snack on.
I keep them in my freezer because
they're a little more pricey than
almonds and cashews, which I eat pretty
regularly. Another thing I keep in ice
cube trays in my freezer is vegetable
stock. And the reason I freeze it in ice
cube trays is so that I have sort of
like individual-sized servings of stock.
If I only need a few tablespoons or just
half a cup, I can just pop in a few cubes
and I know exactly how much I need. 
Of course you can freeze homemade stock
like this, but I'm not quite on that
Martha Stewart, Barefoot Contessa,
homemaker level, so I just use
store-bought stock. Okay back to my sweet
tooth. I also have this frozen whipped
topping in my freezer and it tastes like
the Cool Whip you probably grew up on, but it's better and it's better for you
and it's completely vegan.I  usually
reserve it for topping desserts with it
because it gives it a fancy elegant
flair without you having to do any extra
work. These are two items that I keep in
my freezer so that I can have healthy
meals in just a few minutes. The first
one is a frozen brown rice from Trader
Joe's. All you have to do is microwave
the brown rice and it's ready to eat in
a few minutes. And the other one is a
veggie burger from Dr. Praeger's which is
probably one of the better veggie
burgers I've tasted. And you can cook it
on the stove or in the microwave or in a
skillet. Did you know that you can freeze
homemade waffles and they'll still be
delicious when you warm them up? Did you
also know that you can buy frozen
waffles and it's really easy? Sure,
they're not as fluffy or as delicious
but they certainly work when you're in a
bind or if you don't have a waffle maker
like I do. You can make them as healthy
or decadent as you like. If I want
something healthy maybe after a workout
I will take multigrain waffles, top them
with almond butter and some plant-based
yogurt, some fruit, nuts and seeds. And if I want something a little more sinful, I
will top my waffles with vegan butter, chocolate chips, maple syrup, powdered
sugar. Basically anything sweet and
sugary will do.
If you've seen my previous videos, which
I hope you have, you know that I love
edamame. Edamame are just soybeans. And I know sometimes soy gets a bad rap
but it's super packed with protein, it's
got a lot of health benefits, and if
you're buying organic soybeans--which are readily available these days--you're
avoiding all of those GMOs that people
are scared of. I like to add edamame to
whatever I'm eating, whether it's salad
or a rice bowl or grain bowl and it just
adds a quick protein boost so I keep
some in my freezer that I can always
have it around. It's always good to keep
some sort of frozen vegetables on hand
so that you can easily add them to meals.
You can saute them, you can bake them, you
can add them to stir-fries, soups, chilies,
stews, casseroles, you name it. So if
you're having trouble eating veggies or
you don't have fresh veggies on hand,
just keep some frozen vegetables in your
freezer and it will make your life a lot
easier. Well that's everything in my
vegan freezer. I hope you found this
video helpful and it gave you some ideas
of how to stock your freezer. If it did
please leave me a comment below and
don't forget to subscribe because I post
a new video every week that helps you
live a healthier and more delicious life.
Thanks so much for watching and I will
see you next week!
