How To Hack Your Ice Cube Tray This Summer

Freeze your coffee

It may sound strange and perhaps a bit counterintuitive, but trust us. Usually, you have to choose between having an iced coffee that is watered down by ice melting or an iced coffee that is light on ice but not as cold as you’d like. If you freeze some black coffee into ice cubes, you don’t need to compromise on either as the ice cubes will melt releasing more coffee. 

Frozen herbs rule

If you don’t think you’re going to use up any fresh herbs before they die, freeze them into ice cubes. Herbs like basil, parsley, tarragon, chives and mint freeze well, locking in flavour. You can then add the ice cubes to your cooking, releasing punchy, fresh herby flavours, or you can add them into your favourite drinks. Mint is an especially great one to add to lemonades and mojitos, which are perfect for all your barbecues and picnics this summer. 

Lemonade cubes

With the same principle as the coffee cubes hack, lemon and lime make great additions to your ice cream tray. Simply peel the lemon, put them in a blender then pour into ice cube moulds and freeze. Add them to your favourite fruity drinks this summer for some extra zing. 

Wine cubes

No, really — wine cubes are great to have in the freezer. Though it may pain some to think of red wine being any colder than room temp, this hack is actually really great. If you have an open bottle that’s been out for a while, simply add it to your ice cube tray and add to delicious pasta sauces and stews for added richness. 

Save your stock

Making your own stock is cheap, easy and a sustainable hack that your freezer will help you with. Simply freeze offcuts of vegetables and herbs in a bag, and once it’s bulked out, boil with water for at least an hour and strain and let cool. When you’ve got your delicious, concentrated veggie stock, you can pour it into your ice cube tray ready for whenever your recipes call for some stock cubes.