The Cold Food Storage Hack You Need To Know This Winter

For a lot of us, the holiday season means inviting scores of family and friends into our homes. While there are certainly negative aspects of this guest influx, like an uncomfortable political conversation or lingering hugs from your scratchy sweater-clad aunt, there are also perks. Perhaps the best part of having folks over for the holidays is the staggering amount of food that they leave behind. After the party dies down, you're often left with mountains of meat, heaps of sides, and an overabundance of desserts. These holiday leftovers can be made into hearty meals for months to come.

However, one issue lingers. Even after spending hours rearranging your fridge, you can't find a way to stuff all the food inside. You may be tempted to toss some of it out, but you should resist that urge. Per KMTR, food waste increases by around 25% during the holiday season. 

Fortunately, there's a solution. As long as you live in an area with a colder climate, there's another easily accessible freezer for you to use, and it's closer than you think.

According to BuzzFeed, if the winter weather is consistently freezing where you live, you can store food outside. Alternatively, if you want to avoid losing your leftovers to hungry critters or a snacky, wine-fueled neighbor, you can store your food in the garage. Erica Marcus of RISMedia celebrates the fact that she lives in an area that gets so cold around Thanksgiving that her turkey can roost in the garage.

However, when you've chosen to utilize this rather rustic freezing technique, it's more important than ever for you to be aware of food safety. Properly storing your leftovers will keep them safe to eat for longer. As Penn State Extension explains, temperature fluctuations can cause your leftovers to warm up past the point of being okay to eat. Additionally, the various contaminants that can be found outside could ruin your food. As such, you might want to consider restricting your winter cache to nonperishable beverages. It's probably safer to store your uncle's forgotten six-pack outside than it is to try and freeze your cousin's famous casserole in the garage.