1. Wine in the freezer?
Absolutely! Don’t waste a drop of your precious nectar: freeze it in small plastic containers, 125 to 250 ml (½ to 1 cup). Perfect for improving a sauce or marinade.
2. Avoid excess
For cooking, bottles available in the 250 ml format are handy in the pantry. Besides white and red wine, you’ll also find cider.
3. Leftover champagne
Oops… there’s a bit of champagne in that bottle left open overnight. It cooks like white wine: no more bubbles, but its incomparable taste will bring back your smile.
4. Red tail
Add one cup to your spaghetti sauce recipe. Or, make a marinade for meat or game; use it to concoct a delicious sauce.
5. Change water into wine
If you cook for 1 or 2 people, the ice cube tray is the perfect place to store leftovers. After the wine has frozen, place cubes in a Ziploc®-type bag and they will keep up to one year in the freezer.
6. Add to dessert
We often forget the charm of poached pears in red wine and flavoured with spices, such a wonderful winter dessert.
7. A finger of Porto
Sauté pork tenderloin and deglaze your pan with porto (about 125 ml/½ cup) and a couple spoonfuls of maple syrup. Let it slowly glaze and enjoy.
8. Sweet wine leftovers ?
This is ideal to plump up plums, raisins or dried figs before making jam to go with your cheese or fruitcake. It is the holidays after all.
9. Corked wine?
Return it to the wine store or follow the advice of wine expert Christian Maurin, cork specialist at the Université du vin in France: make it into sauce! Within a reasonable limit, corked wine can be recovered to cook stew, beef bourguignon, coq au vin or another braised or slow cooker meal. He suggests adding mushrooms or bacon so that their flavours integrate those of the old wine. Do you dare try it?
10. White wine leftovers
Use it in your mussels marinière or to soak your grated cheese to make a good fondue.
