How to use leftover ginger to flavor cooking wine.

Preserve ginger by grating and freezing, just snap off what you need.

The next time you have leftover ginger, don’t throw it away! Here are two ideas that will help you make best use of ginger.

What to do with leftover ginger

Leftover Ginger Flavors Cooking Wine

Peel the ginger, then thinly slice. Add the leftover ginger to a bottle of Chinese cooking wine. The ginger will flavor the wine beautifully, and give all your stir fries a hint of fresh ginger. The wine will preserve the ginger and will keep indefinitely.

Freeze leftover ginger

The best way to preserve fresh ginger is to freeze it. But if you just throw the entire ginger nub into the freezer, it will be very difficult to use later. Defrosted ginger turns brown and mushy.

A better way to freeze ginger is to peel the ginger first. A small spoon is the best tool for the job.

After peeling, grate the ginger with a microplane grater.

The microplane grater is so much better than chopping by hand – the ginger is very finely grated, which “melts” into your other seasonings (I don’t like biting into a hunk of poorly chopped ginger) and, more importantly….

…the tough fibers of the ginger is left behind. Ginger is very fibrous and it’s annoying getting this stuck in your teeth.

Lay a piece of plastic wrap down and spoon on your grated ginger.

Roll up the ginger into a 3/4″ (2 cm) wide roll.

   

Freeze this little ginger roll.

When you want to use, just break off what you need! The ginger stays bright and yellow, and is ready to use.

The grater that I am using is a Kuhn Rikon Fine/Medium Grater – I love that it has 2 sides, so that I can choose how fine I want my ingredients. I also love the Microplane brand grater – it’s lasted me a long, long time (and is still sharp!).