Chefs’ Guide to the Freezer Aisle: What’s Worth Buying and What to Avoid!!

Adrienne and Joe crack open the freezer to destroy the stigma around frozen food, breaking down why frozen ingredients often beat "fresh" produce and how to turn a freezer into the ultimate culinary armory. In this episode, we also discuss: Why frozen produce is often picked at peak freshness and holds more nutrients Essential freezer proteins: shrimp and big cuts like pork shoulder and short ribs Vegetable workhorses: peas, frozen spinach, and peas Freezer fruit favorites: wild blueberries for baking, dark cherries, and instant smoothies Guilty pleasures and wild cards: hash brown patties, Uncrustables, Stouffer's lasagna, and Totino's pizza rolls What to skip in the freezer aisle Go-to ice cream and sorbet picks, from Häagen-Dazs Alphonso Mango to McConnell's Salted Caramel Chip Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Today on The Chef's Cut, we are hitting the freezer aisle and telling you which items are actually worth buying.

• 0:18Joe Flamm?

  Frozen doesn't necessarily equal bad.

• 0:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  We're gonna bust that myth that fresh is always better than frozen. They're frozen during the season that they're actually in, so you're getting really good quality year round. And we're telling you which items chefs would never buy frozen. They are just not good once they've been frozen. Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please take a moment to rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps.

• 0:55Joe Flamm?

  So today, we're gonna take a little walk down to the freezer aisle.

• 1:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 1:02Joe Flamm?

  You know, everybody shops frozen fruits, but there's kind of, especially amongst chefs, right? There's kind of a connotation sometimes, it's like, oh, we use, you know, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, right? But frozen doesn't necessarily equal bad. You know what I mean? There's things that are frozen at their peak. There's some things where it's like they're frozen at sea. You think of crab legs or things like that, where they're freezing them out on boats in the middle of the Bering Sea. And there are certain things where the frozen version is sometimes a preferred version.

• 1:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Thank you. People hate on frozen foods. Like you said, there's this like holier than thou, like I only use fresh this, fresh that. But if you open any chef's freezer, there are certain frozen items that I think across the board, we all agree are great quality.

• 1:49Joe Flamm?

  And I think there's certain things where chefs, like, we will freeze. Like, we will put in our freezer. So today, we're gonna talk about building out that freezer a little bit.

• 1:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  A well-stocked freezer can get you through any season. It's almost like a pantry, you know? You can create a meal.

• 2:03Joe Flamm?

  It's like an armory. You know, it's a sense of security to have a well-curated freezer. So we're gonna go through some categories today. We're gonna talk freezer, and we're gonna get ready for the cold winter months age. So to start it off, I wanna go right in and say, what's your one protein that you're keeping in the freezer?

• 2:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so this is very important, because I always keep one type of protein that I think the quality is fine after they're frozen. And there's different methods of freezing. There's IQF, which is individually quick frozen, where they go through this process where they're literally dropped through a thing that they freeze right away, so they don't come together in like a block. But for me, my protein that I always keep in the freezer is frozen shrimp.

• 2:51Joe Flamm?

  Hmm, what size? What size? You going eight 12s, you know, 12 16 girly?

• 2:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  I like the large size. I like the eight to 10.

• 3:00Joe Flamm?

  Eight 10?

• 3:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep. Sometimes eight to 10, if I can get 12. And for anybody who doesn't know, the count means the number of shrimp that equal a pound. So the fewer number in the count, the bigger the shrimp are. So you can get U10, which means under 10 pieces, will equal a pound. So you're getting some, you know, bigger sized shrimp. Eight to 12, it's like above a medium.

• 3:25Joe Flamm?

  It's like a cocktail shrimp. You know, eight to 12 is a cocktail shrimp at an average steakhouse. So it's an eight to 12.

• 3:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, sixteen to 20 is a pretty popular size, but I like the larger ones. And sometimes I'll buy them shell on, because I'll clean them and keep the shells for stock.

• 3:42Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, frozen shrimp's one of those ones where it's like they freeze a ton of the shrimp. Getting fresh shrimp, especially if you're not on a coast, is like damn near impossible. And usually, as you know, you worked at the best seafood restaurant in the world, basically. Even buying, you know, you can buy those crazy, like they have those U2 prawns that are like, you know what I mean, the size of a forearm, and they go bad in 14 seconds.

• 4:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And the price on fresh shrimp, it can be, you know, everything's gotten so much more expensive, so I can spend 25 bucks on a bag of shrimp, pull out a few, like if I'm making a pasta, or if I'm making a curry, or sauteing them, you know, it's like, I can have a meal and then still have a ton in my freezer for the next time.

• 4:26Joe Flamm?

  Plus, most of that shrimp, if you go to a grocery store, even nice ones, you'll see, it's like if you read the tag, it says previously frozen. Even if they're fresh shrimp, all they did was slack them out for you.

• 4:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, they just thawed them for you. That's literally it.

• 4:37Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it's like these are just pre-thawed, they're not, that they're not frozen. So I think shrimp's a good one. You know what I mean? They hold really well. Put them in cold water and they, you know, come back to life. They still cook up really nice from frozen, like.

• 4:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  The texture is great. You don't get that like soggy, you know, when things are frozen slowly, the cell walls have time to burst, and so it really changes the texture of the protein. But I think with shrimp, I've never experienced it where the texture is off-putting because they've been frozen. So I love frozen shrimp.

• 5:06Joe Flamm?

  If you're buying good shrimp, it doesn't matter. I think if they're frozen or fresh.

• 5:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  What's your freezer, like your go-to protein? If I were to open your chest freezer right now in the garage, like, what's your proteins?

• 5:17Joe Flamm?

  My chest freezer in the garage only has ice cream in it. It's a little mini one. But the one in the basement has proteins. But I go kind of the opposite. My thing is, I will freeze a protein if it takes a long time to cook. Like, if it's a big protein, like if it's a pork shoulder, like, you know, a brisket, a beef chuck, a whole chicken, like stuff like that, I'll have in the freezer. Like, I almost always have a whole chicken in there. Like, a big cut of like pork shoulders on sale, I'll buy it and I'll throw that in the freezer for, you know what I mean, a rainy day. And I think like, for me, it's the stuff that takes a longer time to cook, where it's like I know isn't as, you know, it's not as much about the sear of it.

• 5:59Joe Flamm?

  So if it's like small stuff where it's like, I'm gonna sear it and cook it quick, I'm less apt to freeze it, and I don't really want it in my freezer, like if it's like a strip, and not that that stuff won't freeze, but like a strip, or a chicken breast, or chicken thighs, or, you know, a filet of fish of some sort, I would rather have that fresh. But like big proteins, I'll throw those in the freezer all day. You know what I mean? Like a pork shoulder's a great example. Like a pork shoulder freeze is great. You thaw that out, I mean, you could cook it from frozen if you fucking had to.

• 6:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I mean, and that's so smart, because when you're braising or slow roasting something, the point is just getting the meat super tender.

• 6:34Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 6:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  So you're not cooking it mid-rare.

• 6:36Joe Flamm?

  It's not gonna affect it at all. So it's like big birds, or, you know, to be like a pork shoulder, or a big chunk of meat, like short ribs, throw short ribs in the freezer, and like stuff like that, like braises, like I always have like a braisey type meat in the freezer that will hold up forever, you know, because of the size of it.

• 6:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's great advice. Another thing that I love to keep in the freezer are certain types of vegetables. Now, not all vegetables, don't get me wrong. Some I do prefer fresh to frozen.

• 7:07Joe Flamm?

  Sure.

• 7:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  But I think across the board, this is like a chef's guilty pleasure, that we all know, but we don't always say it out loud, or, you know, tell people outside of like our one-on-one conversations, but the thing that I've heard every chef talk about having in their freezer for vegetables, frozen peas.

• 7:30Joe Flamm?

  Oh, the IQF peas.

• 7:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 7:33Joe Flamm?

  So I remember when I was working for Bill Kim, he told me a story about, he worked for Charlie Trotter, and they had Heston Blumenthal from The Fat Duck come over, when The Fat Duck was like, you know, number two in the world.

• 7:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 7:44Joe Flamm?

  And he did a dish that had a pea puree, and they were like, oh, we can get fresh peas, we can get them from Chef's Garden. And he was like, no, they have to be IQF peas.

• 7:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nice.

• 7:53Joe Flamm?

  He's like, you have to get frozen IQF peas. And he's like, it was the first time we had ever ordered a frozen vegetable at Charlie Trotter's.

• 8:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my god.

• 8:01Joe Flamm?

  And he was like, to make this puree for Heston Blumenthal. He's like, but it was the brightest green, it was the prettiest puree, and he's like, you can't make it with anything else, it only works with the IQF peas.

• 8:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. And it was Eric Repair, who first told me how good frozen peas were. You know, I was like, I was in my like BS mentality of like, oh, I would never buy frozen veg, I would never do that. I'm, I work in a Michelin-starred restaurant. No, I would, we don't do frozen anything. And then we had an event at the restaurant where Chef Eric and Jose Andres were making competing paellas. And they were doing all these events together, and Chef Repair was like, frozen peas. He's like, no, we're not using fresh. She was like, are you kidding me? And he likes the little ones, the petits pois.

• 8:46Joe Flamm?

  Les petits pois.

• 8:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Petit pois. But it was, it's so true. They make great purees, they're frozen during the season that they're actually in, so you're getting really good quality year round. And it's consistent. If you're cooking fresh peas, sometimes you get that starfishy flavor, or if you undercook them or overcook them, they start to turn gray. These are perfect every time. Hands down, frozen peas are the best.

• 9:11Joe Flamm?

  Well, and I think like, I don't know about you, but when I think of like the frozen bags of veggies, I always think of being a kid, and like, you know, we would take them and like, put them in like the Pyrex bowl, and then just like put a little bit of butter on them, and then put a plate over it and microwave it, and that would be like the side of veg for dinner. Either the corn, or the medley, or like the carrot chips, you know, like, so it's like...

• 9:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Peas and carrots?

• 9:31Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, the pea and carrot combo. But so I think like sometimes in our head, we think of that, and we don't realize like, oh, there's levels to this. Like, you could buy super nice fresh peas, IQF, or fava's, or there's so many of those kind of like chuck legume type things, that it really works.

• 9:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  I do also love like frozen peas, and like you said, the legumes, like frozen black-eyed peas, all those things, I actually like sometimes more than buying dry beans. I mean, they're great. They take less time to cook.

• 10:01Joe Flamm?

  It's just less work, too, to pick that up quick. I mean, especially like private work, too. Like, it's like, you know what I mean, where it's like, you're not, you might not have three days to soak beans. It's like, hey, I need this today. It's like, well...

• 10:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and because I do my menu planning usually in the morning, like based on what I'm seeing at the market, and based on what I'm seeing at the, when I go to the fish counter, that's when I'm coming up with my dishes. It's not like I said two days ago, oh, let me soak these beans, because I wanna use fresh chickpeas, or, you know, I wanna use dried chickpeas for Wednesday dinner. Like, I didn't think about that on Monday. I thought about it on Wednesday.

• 10:34Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, especially at the house, like, I'm a sucker for like the vegetable like mixes, like the Asian stir-fry mix, or they, you know, they have like the protein-high-fiber mix, whatever, where it's like black beans and bell peppers and kale, and it's like, especially if I'm like actually on my shit, and I'm ahead, and I can like do some meal prep, where it's like, you know what I mean, get that going, just in, you know, a saute or a wok with like, you know, ground beef or whatever, and some sauces, and just like make a bunch of it for the week.

• 11:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you meal prep for the week?

• 11:04Joe Flamm?

  If I'm, if I'm on it. But it's like I meal prep for the week, maybe like every other month. But what I do, it's super, super nice for that. Usually if I cook on Sunday, I'll cook more than one. It's kind of what I do. I don't cook every Sunday, just, you know what I mean? With life, with kids, with sports, with family, with everything. But if I'm cooking on Sunday, I'm not just going to cook one meal. I usually cook two or three. So then I'll, you know, meal prep something, but it's like, if I'm cooking something more intensive for that day, just having where it's like, okay, I could throw some ground beef, two bags of veggies and a skillet. And have meals for me and Hill. It makes it super easy. And then it's like, I didn't have to buy, you know, four more bags of vegetables to cut them all down, do all the knife work. And it's like, you just throw it together and they're delicious and it works and it hits.

• 11:48Joe Flamm?

  And especially for something where it's like, I'm going to throw this in the fridge and reheat it in two days.

• 11:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes, exactly. So I used to kind of hate on those, like, I thought about them as like the mixed veggies from when I was a kid. The like, you know, the, I don't know what the brands were, bird's eye or eagle eye or whatever. And then like, you know, green giant, you know, which are actually, I feel like they've up their quality. That's one of the things where quality has gone up instead of down. But there were some newer ones that are different blends that have like bell pepper and sweet potato and this. And I'm like, wait, so I don't have to separately cut each vegetable? And sweet potatoes and bell peppers don't cook at the same rate? So you're telling me these are already par cooked? It's going to save me having to cook these things separately.

• 12:33Joe Flamm?

  Especially like for the stuff where it's like ahead of time. If I'm going to reheat it, like, you know what I mean? If I'm making something fresh for that day, then it's like, I'll buy fresh stuff and I'll do all the knife work and do that. But if I'm making something that's for, you know, the next day, two days, three days down the road, it's like, well, it does the trick. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's, you know, one of my two days home. So it's like, you know, I can't spend six hours in the kitchen today, but I could spend three.

• 12:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And you know, there's something I didn't know about frozen vegetables. You know, when you buy fresh vegetables at the grocery store, they're picked before they're ripe.

• 13:08Joe Flamm?

  They rip it on the truck and.

• 13:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly. You're losing a lot of vitamins. You're losing a lot of the nutrients that these vegetables would have. Whereas frozen vegetables are actually picked and cut when they are ripe, like at their peak. And then they're frozen fast, like blast. So it takes like two seconds for these things to freeze.

• 13:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  My next one, frozen spinach.

• 13:38Joe Flamm?

  Oh, the frozen spinach place, babe. I mean, you want to talk about saving space?

• 13:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. I mean, if I'm making something that's like spinach heavy, if I'm making a quiche where I just need like, I don't know, one container of spinach that I'll, you know, steam or put in the microwave and then chop it up. That's fine. But if I'm making like a spanakopita or a spinach pie or something that I need a big volume of spinach, then I'm going to probably. I actually make, I love spanakopita.

• 14:07Joe Flamm?

  Just crank out spanakopita? No, I'm not making.

• 14:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sometimes, yeah. Like when my family gets together, yeah, I'll make like a spanakopita.

• 14:14Joe Flamm?

  You're just making a spanakopita for a family gathering.

• 14:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Sometimes before they arrive, so I have something to feed people when they, when they come over. I love spinach heavy dishes like that. Or if I want to make like a filled pasta, then a lot of times I'll use either half and half frozen and fresh or two thirds frozen, because just to cook down that volume of spinach is wild.

• 14:37Joe Flamm?

  Ten boxes of spinach, you get like three cups. No, we used to use it all the time, like for like pasta fillings, like, like growing up, like when we make the raviolis for Thanksgiving. You just get the frozen spinach, you know, chop it up, press it out, mix it in with the ricotta filling to fill the raviolis or for a lasagna layer or whatever. Like, we used it all the time. You know, I never saw a fresh box of spinach until I was, you know, in my twenties.

• 15:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, me either. I literally didn't even know spinach was fresh until I was like much older.

• 15:06Joe Flamm?

  But the same, and I've used it like for purees. You know what I mean? Cause like the frozen spinach makes everything super green. So it's like, if you're trying to like, you know, you need like a bump of green in something, you take a cube of that off, especially frozen, because then a puree's in, it doesn't get too hot. And it just kind of like, it, it does a lot of little tricks for you. Where it's like a block of frozen spinach could kind of get you through some things.

• 15:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  It really can. It's so versatile. It's like the gift that keeps on giving.

• 15:32Joe Flamm?

  Right. Or if you're just trying to like, you're like, oh, the soup needs like something a little bit more like, I'll throw it in like a sausage, white bean soup.

• 15:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:39Joe Flamm?

  And like, you know, you throw the like tomatoes in there and then like, you know, throw a block of frozen spinach in there. And you're like, okay, now it's got like more shit in it to make it healthy.

• 15:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. It's got more heft, it's got a little more weight and you know, it's super healthy. So you feel good about it. What's, what's another thing you keep in the freezer?

• 15:56Joe Flamm?

  So this one is super specific. So it's not a vegetable, but fruit.

• 16:01Joe Flamm?

  The frozen, like frozen fruit in general, I always have in the freezer, smoothies, stuff like that. But specifically, so you know, I make a lot of pancakes.

• 16:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Absolutely.

• 16:09Joe Flamm?

  Pancake guys, pancake household. Everybody knows this. And my kids love blueberry pancakes. Now, if you're a blueberry pancake connoisseur like myself and my children, there's levels to this shit. So if you use fresh blueberries, they get too hot, too fast, they leak out. And then you're not going to get a nice crispy pancake. If you use the regular frozen blueberries, they're too big. And there's too much water crystals on them. They mess up, like you gotta make your pancakes too thick so that the blueberry will sit in it. If you get the wild frozen blueberries, like Whole Foods has a Whole Foods brand where it's like wild frozen blueberries. They're smaller, they're still really, really sweet. They're not sour. They're smaller, so you can sit them in a less thick pancake.

• 16:54Joe Flamm?

  So you could still have a crispy pancake with blueberries in it.

• 16:58Joe Flamm?

  And it's the best blueberry for a blueberry pancake. And I would assume for muffins too. I don't make muffins, but if I made muffins, I would probably use that too.

• 17:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is a life hack right there.

• 17:09Joe Flamm?

  I have them specifically for making blueberry pancakes.

• 17:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's great. And I know exactly what you're talking about. I've had wild frozen blueberries. I think I did use them in muffins. And they were phenomenal, because you're right, when you use fresh ones, they leak out so much liquid that the muffin will fall apart.

• 17:29Joe Flamm?

  They lose their structure. So you don't get that like, when you use the little frozen ones, they warm up just enough when you bite up. When you bite the pancake, they like burst still.

• 17:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, man. So you put them in the batter, still frozen, you don't like bomb?

• 17:41Joe Flamm?

  No, no, you put them in still frozen. So you drop your pancake and then you go bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop.

• 17:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 17:47Joe Flamm?

  Usually Sydney does that.

• 17:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  And do you make that sound?

• 17:50Joe Flamm?

  Either her or I do, you know what I mean? It's, it's a group effort.

• 17:55Joe Flamm?

  But it, it sets up perfect.

• 17:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is genius. And they have such an intense flavor. The wild, small guys, they have so much flavor to be so small. And the color is like more deeply blue.

• 18:08Joe Flamm?

  The other one I love is like the dark cherries, the frozen dark cherries. I always have a bag of those in my freezer. Like I'll just put those like with a little bit of maple syrup and like microwave it for 10 seconds and put it over yogurt.

• 18:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Those are now that I fricking love frozen cherries, because again, they are frozen at peak season. So they are delicious.

• 18:28Joe Flamm?

  Oh, they're just flavor bombs.

• 18:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  You don't have to take the pits out.

• 18:30Joe Flamm?

  They're, they're, oh, they're just like total, total flavor bombs. But if you do have small children, I would recommend keeping them away from them because they dye their hands red. And then all of your stuff is now red and you have little red, it looks like a murder scene in your kitchen. Little fingerprints everywhere.

• 18:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  I love those frozen cherries, because sometimes, like you said, like I'll pop them in the microwave for a few seconds, add a drizzle of honey or a sprinkle of sugar, maybe, or just like a dash of like Grand Marnier or some kind of liquor, a little orange zest.

• 19:01Joe Flamm?

  Grandma.

• 19:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Grand Marnie. And then just like, put them on top of cakes. So if I want to make a cake, like even if it's a store bought cheesecake or a store bought, you know, walnut cake or something that's kind of on the plainer side, I'll use those frozen cherries as like a topping to really kind of like zhuzh it up a little bit without having to do it.

• 19:21Joe Flamm?

  To make like a quick mastarada for like a charcuterie board or something in the winter time. Or like if we need a jam, make like, you know, a cherry jam or a cherry filling or even like, uh, we, we use them for like sorbet. Like, cause we'll buy, we can buy frozen, like during, during the winter, like from the farmers. You know, they really don't have much here, but like our fruit farmers will sell buckets of frozen cherries that they froze during the summer. So we'll buy buckets of frozen cherries and we'll run cherry sorbetto through the winter months. Because I mean, these buckets of cherries are so good. We just take them puree them, you barely have to add any sugar and you spin it.

• 19:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. I mean, I think frozen fruit is highly underrated. If I buy berries and I know we're not going to finish eating them before they start to go bad, I'll just throw them in a Ziploc in the freezer. And then like you said, for smoothies, you know, if my niece and nephew are hanging out or something like that, or, you know, if I just want a smoothie.

• 20:16Joe Flamm?

  You don't have a magic bullet, so how could you make a smoothie?

• 20:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, fricking magic bullet. Cause I use a blender, you know?

• 20:24Joe Flamm?

  See, I bought a new.

• 20:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Can you even put frozen fruit in a magic bullet? Will it not break the blades?

• 20:27Joe Flamm?

  I can't put it in mine anymore because I killed mine. So I had to buy, I had to, I had to upgrade. I bought a beast is a new one.

• 20:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  What is that?

• 20:34Joe Flamm?

  It looks like a, a newer magic bullet. It's the grown up elder millennial like magic bullet now. Just has a bigger canister and it rips a little bit harder, a little bit more HP in it.

• 20:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  The motor stronger?

• 20:47Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Better horsepower. I think it's got the V six twin turbos on it and it rips. And I am a fan. I bought it.

• 20:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  I see, I'd still, I throw everything in my Vitamix, you know? But maybe, maybe I'll, I'll break down one day and get an air fryer and a, and a beast or something.

• 21:06Joe Flamm?

  I mean, well, just like the Vitamix, it's like, I don't need three quarts of smoothie.

• 21:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's true. You do have to put a lot of stuff in there to be able to make it turn.

• 21:15Joe Flamm?

  I'm not running a Jamba Juice.

• 21:25Joe Flamm?

  So we talked about the essentials, but now let's talk about the little off kilter ones.

• 21:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 21:31Joe Flamm?

  So what's your one where you're like, I just always have this because I like it?

• 21:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's kind of like a wild card because I don't see them all the time, but these are things that I find sometimes at Costco or Trader Joe's now that I'm a Costco convert.

• 21:45Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah. Now that you're a big Costco girlie.

• 21:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  I know. It's like, how did I not do this sooner? I don't know what I've been missing my whole life. But you know those sleeves of frozen hash brown patties?

• 21:56Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah. I got a case of those in the freezer right now.

• 21:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  I love those things. When I was growing up, my mom worked for Kraft, right? So Kraft Foods used to supply all manner of food products and especially frozen food products. So that was our breakfast a lot of times. Like I'd walk to school with my little hash brown patty folded up in a napkin and I'm just like snacking down the street. So I grew up, didn't have them for years, came upon them at a grocery store. So anytime I see a sleeve, I'm buying it. Because now in my like fancier, you know, now that I'm an adult.

• 22:30Joe Flamm?

  You sit in the anti air fryer camp, don't you?

• 22:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, but I mean, I have a toaster.

• 22:35Joe Flamm?

  Air fryer are electric.

• 22:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, okay. Now you've got me. Okay.

• 22:41Joe Flamm?

  Are like, and I don't even really like those that much, but like Luca loves them, but you could pick up like six of those in an air fryer in like six minutes.

• 22:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. Now that, because either I have to turn on the oven or I have to put them down in the toaster like five or six times.

• 22:55Joe Flamm?

  Toasting them?

• 22:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Joe Flamm?

  You're throwing a frozen hash brown in a toaster?

• 23:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. I'm sometimes I'll microwave it for 10 or 15 seconds to thaw it and then I'll put it in the toaster on the high setting, put it down like twice and it's nice and crispy.

• 23:13Joe Flamm?

  Today years old.

• 23:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God, are you kidding me?

• 23:15Joe Flamm?

  You're toasting hash.

• 23:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Browns. They're literally called toaster hash browns.

• 23:19Joe Flamm?

  I thought that was because like they're crispy, like they're toasted.

• 23:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause you put them in the toaster.

• 23:24Joe Flamm?

  I've never seen anybody put a hash brown in a toaster.

• 23:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  My favorite way to do these things is like, it's, it's kind of like indulgent, but it takes so little work. So I'll take out some smoked salmon. I'll put like a little schmear of like sour cream or creme fraiche on top of the hash brown and put some smoked salmon on there or put some avocado on it. It's like, instead of using bread.

• 23:48Joe Flamm?

  Quinels of caviar on there too.

• 23:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  If I got it, hell yeah.

• 23:51Joe Flamm?

  Little chive batinees.

• 23:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, I love caviar on those things. That is like, now that is living right there. If I get like, if somebody sends me like a little sample of caviar, I am like, oh, I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow.

• 24:03Joe Flamm?

  Fire up the, fire up the hash browns.

• 24:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Those things are so good. And it's like a base instead of using bread, instead of like avocado toast, I'm having avocado hash browns or like put a hard boiled egg on it.

• 24:14Joe Flamm?

  I was gonna say throw some scrambled eggs on top of that bad boy. You got a flavor boat.

• 24:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God, I love those. Okay. So what is, what is your unexpected, kind of like wild card thing that you would have?

• 24:24Joe Flamm?

  You know, I don't know if it's unexpected, but I will tell you in full honesty, I will say the one thing I always have in my freezer now in life is Uncrustables.

• 24:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 24:37Joe Flamm?

  It was a thing. I remember when they came out, I thought they were so dumb. I thought they were so stupid. I was like, who buys these things? You know what I mean? Make a peanut butter and jelly. That's crazy.

• 24:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 24:45Joe Flamm?

  Now two kids in, I have those things locked and loaded like in every freezer.

• 24:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  But are they for the kids or are they for you?

• 24:53Joe Flamm?

  They're for the kids. I'll eat them though. You know what I mean? I can't tell you the amount of times I've come home from work at, you know, nine 30, 10 o'clock at night and starving. I'm just like, no, I'm eating Uncrustable now. And like I call it, you know, I, I have toddler dinner where I just eat an Uncrustable and like a mini bag of chips and like, you know, go to bed. But it's like, I always have them. They're like the ultimate safety net, you know, like you gotta go, you got a soccer game, you have anything, you throw eight of those in your bag, you got six kids in your car. It doesn't matter. It's gonna get you through. It's gonna get you to the next meal period. They're like emergency little grenades of peanut butter and jelly. Cause it's like the ultimate like, well, I don't eat that. It's like, here, eat this then. You know what I mean? This will buy me an hour.

• 25:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 25:31Joe Flamm?

  So it's like the Uncrustables. And I'll tell you, the other thing is you bring a box of those to one of the restaurants. My line cooks will rip through those like a pack of cigarettes that got left on a bar top at 2:00 AM. It is like a hungry pack of raccoons, the big Uncrustables, like rip through those. They will not survive the night.

• 25:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  To the restaurants again. I'm bringing Uncrustables.

• 25:55Joe Flamm?

  They will not survive the night. I tell you, if you bring it, if you bring a case of Uncrustables, like those will be dead before the end of service.

• 26:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  So wait, I have questions about Uncrustables because I've never actually had them. So I've seen commercials for them. I've seen them in the frozen aisle, but like you don't have to heat them up. You don't have to like microwave them or, or do anything like that?

• 26:12Joe Flamm?

  So you just like let them thaw out. You know what I mean? You throw them to lunch, you let them thaw out, but you can microwave them. You know, you microwave them for like 10 seconds. People have different theories about them. I like, I throw them and, you know, toaster oven. Let them get a little crispy on the outside. Some people just eat them straight up frozen. They like, like the crunchy peanut butter part of it. It's pretty savage.

• 26:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God. Okay.

• 26:32Joe Flamm?

  Throw them on the grill at work. Little wood fired Uncrustable?

• 26:38Joe Flamm?

  Not bad.

• 26:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God. Do you ever toast them in a like, in clarified butter or like give them the grilled cheese treatment?

• 26:43Joe Flamm?

  You know what? I haven't, I haven't, but that might be something, something coming down the pipe.

• 26:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  That sounds kind of delicious. Okay. I, you, you've got me curious about Uncrustables now, but I do have a question, Joe. So I think every chef or every person, we also have that thing in the back of our freezer that we don't want anybody to see, right? We have that guilty pleasure that either you feel like people will judge you for having, either because you're a chef. What is your guilty pleasure? What's the thing that you tuck in the back bottom of your freezer? So nobody sees it.

• 27:16Joe Flamm?

  And I don't care if people see it. It's just a matter of like, I can't be trusted with it. It's like Tostinos pizza rolls, like the pepperoni ones, like.

• 27:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you serious?

• 27:27Joe Flamm?

  Those things are so fucking good, man. Like I love those things. Like I can't buy them because I'll, I'll take a straight whole bag to the dome. You know what I mean? Like after work, it's just like, oh, I will eat a whole bag of Tostinos pizza rolls. Also picked up in an air fryer. Super nice.

• 27:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Like I'm not being funny, but how do you, do you air fryer or do you microwave?

• 27:47Joe Flamm?

  Throw them bad boys in the air fryer. About six minutes later, you're burning the inside of your mouth like you wouldn't believe. And it's just like texturally, they're awesome. They're delicious. Like I love a Tostinos pizza rolls. Again, it's one of those things. Sometimes somebody will drop a bag for the kitchen, drop them in the deep fryer for about a minute. Then you throw them in a 350 degree oven for two minutes and three minutes you have pizza rolls. And it's like,

• 28:13Joe Flamm?

  they're so good. They're so good. I don't buy them because I know they're just horrible for me. Like I know I shouldn't just be like crushing a bag of pizza rolls, but like if they are available to me. Like if I owned a dive bar, the only food I would serve is Tostinos pizza rolls.

• 28:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  I would serve them like tater tots, like in a little basket.

• 28:33Joe Flamm?

  No, it would be a basket and I would serve them by the sixth or the 12th. Like, you know what I mean? You get a half dozen or a dozen pizza rolls.

• 28:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  How big are they?

• 28:40Joe Flamm?

  They're like, I don't know. They're like little, little guys.

• 28:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, okay. And it's, but they have enough.

• 28:46Joe Flamm?

  Pizza roll?

• 28:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't think I've had a pizza roll since I was in like third grade. No. But wait, isn't it Totino's? Not Tostinos? It's Tostinos. T O T.

• 28:59Joe Flamm?

  No, it's T O S.

• 29:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  I don't, I've never had them, but I know how to, I know how to say it.

• 29:04Joe Flamm?

  Tostinos.

• 29:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Tostino is the, is the tortilla chips. You're so Chicago.

• 29:12Joe Flamm?

  It's a Tostinos pizza roll.

• 29:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  We changed the name of everything. I feel, okay. Do you want to put money on it? I think it's Totino's.

• 29:19Joe Flamm?

  No, I don't.

• 29:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  We gotta call Jordan or Sean. Jordan or Sean to the rescue. Settle this debate. Is it Totino's or Toastino's?

• 29:28Joe Flamm?

  No way.

• 29:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  For the win.

• 29:32Joe Flamm?

  It's Totino's? It is Totino's. Holy, what's that thing where they talk about where like you've seen something your whole life that's not real? Like the Mandela thing? Like.

• 29:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Your whole life you thought it was?

• 29:46Joe Flamm?

  I would have bet the farm on there was an S in that word.

• 29:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, there is now. Look, I'm, I'm, I'm not gonna fault you for calling it Tostinos.

• 29:55Joe Flamm?

  Whatever. I'm still gonna call them Tostinos. They're delicious.

• 29:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  In Chicago, we add an S to everything. Jewels.

• 30:00Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Aldi's, you know?

• 30:02Joe Flamm?

  Soldiers Field?

• 30:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Soldiers Field, you know?

• 30:05Joe Flamm?

  Midways Airport?

• 30:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hell yeah.

• 30:07Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. So what's, what's yours? What, what do you, what do you got going over there?

• 30:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. So I was ashamed of this for years. I didn't want to tell anybody. And then when I was dating Steven, I found one in his freezer and I knew I had found my person. It is Stouffer's lasagna.

• 30:23Joe Flamm?

  The Stouffer's.

• 30:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Stouffer's lasagna. That thing is so good. Oh, that little brick. Oh my God.

• 30:33Joe Flamm?

  I think that is like the low key height of Irish cuisine. I don't know, an Irish family growing up, that didn't, you know what I mean? That wasn't like big dinner night. It was like Stouffer's lasagna.

• 30:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  And they have the family size too, the big one?

• 30:48Joe Flamm?

  Oh yeah. Cause they all had six kids.

• 30:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 30:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes, we definitely got down with that growing up. And then as I got older, like, you know, being a line cook, there were so many things that like, yes, like you said, on my day off, I had one day off of most weeks. I didn't want to cook something. And I didn't always have money to go out. So I would keep the Marie Callender's chicken pot pie and Stouffer's lasagna in my freezer. And that's Stouffer's lasagna. Every time I have one, I'm like, I forgot how delicious this, like find me a superior lasagna to the Stouffer's frozen lasagna. I, I dare somebody.

• 31:26Joe Flamm?

  I could find you a superior lasagna, but for what it is, it's, it's like, because it's like, you can't really describe the flavor of a Stouffer's lasagna.

• 31:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Awesome. That's how you describe, that's how you describe the flavor.

• 31:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Phenomenal.

• 31:43Joe Flamm?

  It's like nondescript cheese, nondescript meat, nondescript sauce, but it hits. Hey, listen, listen, listen. This is coming from a place of love. I'm not here, I'm not here trying to yuck your yum.

• 31:57Joe Flamm?

  I've just say it's like a particular thing and I've like, I've, trust me, I've, I've smacked a half a tray of a Stouffer's lasagna like nobody, you know what I mean? If I was at somebody's house and they were like, oh yeah, we're having lasagna for dinner tonight. You know, I knew that meant Stouffer's.

• 32:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, a hundred percent. I never even saw a homemade lasagna until I was like a teenager. When my mom would be like, okay, we're actually gonna make it this time.

• 32:22Joe Flamm?

  Like we made lasagna, you know what I mean? Like my grandma would make it. But like, I knew if I went over to, you know what I mean? Anyone's house who their last name started with an O or an MC. If we were having lasagna, you knew, you knew it was the Stouffers.

• 32:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 32:37Joe Flamm?

  It's like, like they brought it over from the old country like they fucking, they stood on that shit.

• 32:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm so, and I don't, I don't care who knows, I don't care who sees. I am standing proudly behind the Stouffers lasagna. I think that is, oh my God, that is one, it's not even a guilty, I can't even call it a guilty pleasure because I feel no guilt about loving the Stouffers.

• 33:00Joe Flamm?

  Like listen, I, I make lasagna, I love a homemade lasagna. I don't remember the last time I had a Stouffers. But if I was at someone's house and they were like, oh, we're having dinner, they busted out a Stouffers lasagna, I'd be like.

• 33:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm gonna order some and send them to your house, Joe.

• 33:14Joe Flamm?

  Let's go.

• 33:22Joe Flamm?

  Alright, so we talked about what we liked. So I think, but like there is stuff frozen, I think that's just, you know what I mean? I don't buy or I don't, you know what I mean? I don't really get.

• 33:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  All frozen foods are not created equal.

• 33:33Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, what would be like your number one where you're like, yeah, I don't really?

• 33:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  There's just some things that, seriously, once you freeze them, the quality just nose dives, right? Like they're just not good once they've been frozen, even if it's IQF, even if it goes through a super fast freezing process that doesn't burst the cell walls. I do not think frozen scallops should exist. I'm sorry, like I've used them a couple of times. I've gotten some of the small ones and if I'm making something moist, like a stew or a curry or a soup or something, they, they kind of work in that. If you drop them in at the last second, just enough to thaw them and warm them through. But you're never, there, you can't sear them.

• 34:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  If you put them in a hot pan, they're gonna shrink up to like an eighth of their size.

• 34:22Joe Flamm?

  You'd have to like dehydrate them first to see them, to try to get all the water out of them, it'd be impossible. Yeah, frozen scallops are tough, you know what I mean? Like for a stew, chipino, something, you know what I mean? If you're doing bouillabaisse, something like that, like sure, maybe, but like otherwise, it's like, that's one for me, I'm like, eh, you know.

• 34:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  I just, and I hate the texture. It's like, it's like eating like a sponge.

• 34:43Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, they just like get rubbery. Like we used to, we used to eat them all the time, growing up. My grandma used to buy them for every Christmas Eve. It was just like the frozen scallops from the same place she used to go to on the east side, where God only knows where they were getting these scallops from, because they certainly weren't, you know, it's like, not like scallops from the east side of Chicago, out of the fucking river or the lake. Uh, but it's like, you know, it just, they have a texture to them that's very, very distinct and not overly great.

• 35:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm not a fan. I don't think, I'm not, you know, I'm not here to judge, but I, I can't get with the frozen scallops. I give me vegetables, give me peas, give me fruit. Hell, I'll take Totino's pizza rolls, but no, frozen scallops.

• 35:24Joe Flamm?

  Pizza rolls rule, man.

• 35:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  What's yours? Because I think we all have strong opinions about things that should not be frozen. What's yours?

• 35:32Joe Flamm?

  And this isn't like something that should not be frozen. I just don't buy frozen, like I really don't like the, you know, you go to like Whole Foods or something, they have like the individual like filets of fish, like salmon.

• 35:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 35:45Joe Flamm?

  Like the individually frozen salmons. Like those to me just always like, are like super dry, they're really mealy, like they're never good, like, and I, you know, I've frozen fish and like, you know, I like, I went to Alaska in July and I brought back a bunch of fish that we froze, like with me. So I don't think it's like, I'm not saying like you can't freeze fish, but it's just like something, those little ones are always really thin and they just never cook up right and they're just never good.

• 36:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  I a hundred percent agree with you, like even at La Bernarden, like we would freeze fish that's, you know, left over from the end of service to use for staff meal. Once it's been frozen, it was never gonna be thawed to serve to guests, because the texture does change. Even if you put it in a super fast blast chiller, there's something about fish, the protein is just so soft that once you freeze it, it really changes. I mean, tuna's on the meatier side and lean, so tuna actually freezes okay, because it is a denser thing, but like large cuts of beef or pork or veal or lamb, great. But there's something about seafood, about fish specifically, like I love frozen shrimp,

• 36:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  but I don't love the texture of frozen fish.

• 36:59Joe Flamm?

  The frozen fish works, I feel like if it's in big enough chunks. But when you have those little thin ones that are like meant to be cooked quick, it's like, I don't know, they're always dry, they're always weird, I, I don't like it. I'm not, not here for it, I'm not here for it, H. Alright, so last one, bonus one before we go.

• 37:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Uh huh.

• 37:15Joe Flamm?

  Because the ultimate freezer thing, obviously, it's like half the reason to own a freezer is ice cream, obviously.

• 37:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  Obviously.

• 37:21Joe Flamm?

  So give me either your, your go-to brand or go-to flavor of ice cream from the grocery store.

• 37:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so I consider myself to be an ice cream aficionado, right? I grew up across the street from a Baskin Robbins. I love ice cream. I love all kinds of ice cream. But there is one that if I start eating it out of the pint, I might eat the whole damn thing in one sitting and that is Haagen-Dazs Alfonso Mango.

• 37:57Joe Flamm?

  Alfonso?

• 37:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's like this specific mango, so it's almost like a single origin sorbet. So it's a sorbet, not an ice cream, because you know, me and dairy these days.

• 38:07Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Just, we don't get along like we used to. But I was eating this one, my sister bought it one time in college and I, literally, I came home from the club one night and the freezer door was open and I took a bite of her sorbet and I stood there and ate the whole thing. She got back a few minutes after me and she was like, did you eat my sorbet? I was like, I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop, I could not stop. It was that delicious and I've been buying it. They don't do it all the time, because they have to wait till the mangoes are in season, pick them at their peak, they're delicious, they're ripe, they make the sorbet and so they only have a certain number every year. It's not something you can buy year round.

• 38:46Joe Flamm?

  I had no idea of the seasonal Haagen-Dazs game out there.

• 38:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  It will change your life.

• 38:52Joe Flamm?

  Put it on my list.

• 38:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  It will change your life. What's your, what's your ice cream, Joe?

• 38:56Joe Flamm?

  So there's this one I, I came across like in the last year, it's called McConnell's, they're out of California.

• 39:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 39:05Joe Flamm?

  And I will, I will ship this shit to my house. They have a million really good flavors, their sorbets are great and I will, I will ship it in, but they do this like salted caramel chip.

• 39:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 39:19Joe Flamm?

  I mean, the texture of the ice cream, like for store bought ice cream, texturally, it is perfect.

• 39:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh my God.

• 39:26Joe Flamm?

  I, I mean, it's unbelievable, like it's, I will order like a case of this stuff at a time and put it in the freezer and I'll have like eight pints of it and like till we run out. It's like I'll probably put another order in today, it's, it's awesome, but it's like.

• 39:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do they ship everywhere?

• 39:40Joe Flamm?

  Uh, not to Alaska, I tried to send it to Alaska, I couldn't send it there. Uh, but everywhere else they seem to ship, maybe not Hawaii, I don't know.

• 39:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Maybe not. Oh my God, okay, so I, once we, once we finish recording, Joe, I am ordering Totino's pizza rolls and McConnell's ice cream.

• 39:54Joe Flamm?

  You're, you have an electric.

• 39:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  And maybe even an air fryer.

• 39:58Joe Flamm?

  You have an electric weekend coming up then.

• 40:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of the Chef's Cut. Head to the comments to share your favorite frozen food items and don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and follow us on IG. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham and this has been the Chef's Cut, life beyond the past.