Frugal tip: How to make ginger last longer and not waste it

Now that I'm a work-at-home mum, I've become more aware of our grocery bills and I do what I can to prevent food wastage. When it comes to savings, every little bit counts, so today I'd like to share with you a frugal tip that I've been utilising for quite some time now.

Ginger is an important part of Malaysian cooking, so I always keep it on hand. However, I only need to use a bit of it at a time and ginger doesn't really keep well for long periods. It either shrivels up and dries out, when I leave it on the kitchen counter, or becomes icky and moldy when it sits in the fridge for too long. To make sure that I get to use every bit of my ginger, with no wastage, here's what I do! 

See how not to waste ginger and keep it fresh for longer after the jump...

First, I scrape off the skin of the ginger with a spoon, which makes it easier to get between those gnarly bits and leaves more of the ginger intact. I usually do this with old ginger.

Here's what the ginger looks like with skin off. 

The next thing to do is to chop the ginger up into smaller pieces (just follow the natural shape of the root).

Lastly, place the ginger pieces in a resealable plastic bag and keep it in the freezer! In my experience, the ginger will stay fresh for months this way.

Frozen ginger is also much easier to grate. If you need to slice the ginger, just thaw out a knob of ginger by running it under a tap for a few seconds. I also use this method to store galangal and fresh turmeric. Hope this tip helps you to save some money :)