Frozen foods have come a long way, bringing vibrant vegetables, luxury ready meals and airy pastries to our plates with maximum convenience. The freezing process locks in essential nutrients, while frozen foods are often better value, too. From juicy berries to delicious dumplings, here's our rundown of the foods that are actually better when frozen.

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover 32 foods that should always be kept in your freezer, counting down to the most essential of all.

We’ve based our ranking on expert advice, how essential each item is, and on the opinions and first-hand knowledge of our team. This list is unavoidably subjective.

From fluffy pittas to crisp baguettes, it’s always worth keeping some extra bread in the freezer for emergencies – especially as it’s one of the world’s most wasted foods. For best results, use varieties that can be cooked straight from frozen, such as ready-sliced loaves, bagels and naans, all of which can be toasted, warmed up in the oven or grilled.

With a perfectly crisp exterior and a fluffy interior, it’s hard to beat the humble roast potato. Frozen versions first appeared commercially in 1999 in the UK, sold by the brand Aunt Bessie's, and now you can buy all kinds of gourmet versions, ready to eat in about half an hour. If you're making your own, a great hack is to freeze par-boiled potatoes so they’re ready to add straight to a roasting dish with hot oil.

If you’re a fan of smoothie bowls, having açai purée stashed in your freezer drawers could be game-changing for your morning meals. Açai berries are a superfood packed with antioxidants and numerous health benefits, from improving cholesterol to possessing anti-cancer properties. They’re hard to find fresh in most countries, but you can find them in frozen purée form in some major supermarkets or health food stores. 

Unlike more delicate berries, cherries hold their shape and texture surprisingly well once thawed after freezing, meaning you can swap frozen ones for fresh in most recipes. Fresh cherries have a very short season and tend to spoil quickly, making cheaper fresh ones a savvy buy. What's more, they come ready pitted for you.

The secret of a great spring roll is a crispy outer shell that gives way to a gorgeously succulent and moist filling. Herein lies the challenge, as leaving uncooked spring rolls for days in a chiller cabinet causes that all-important wrapper to soak up moisture. Buying frozen is the perfect solution: you get the right quantity for your needs, a perfect crunch on consumption and a back-up supply on ice for when you're tempted to cook up a few more.

Ready meals have come a long way since the first TV dinner was invented in 1950s America. These days there are all kinds of tasty gourmet options, available at the click of a button. Considering the short shelf life of your average fresh ready meal, it makes perfect sense to store them in the freezer – after all, it only adds a few extra minutes onto the cooking time.

A Middle Eastern staple made with chickpeas and spices, these flavour-packed spheres are delicious stuffed into warm pittas, squashed inside toasted wraps or tossed over leafy salads. Check the frozen aisle of your supermarket and you’ll likely find these plant-based favourites – they usually come pre-cooked, so you just need to reheat them in the oven or air fryer.

Using ready-made dough cuts hours from the pizza-making process. And, since buying oven-ready yeasted dough from a chiller is only possible in a tiny slice of local artisan stores, frozen is your best friend here. Baking your base will give you a far superior result to a ready-made frozen pizza. If you'd rather make your own dough from scratch, it freezes brilliantly, too – wrap or put in an oiled bag after the first prove.

The extremely short shelf life of delicate fresh herbs makes them a commonly wasted ingredient, but luckily you can buy frozen herbs from most supermarkets. The texture is obviously different from fresh, but if they’re prepared in the correct way the flavour should be almost identical when added to pasta dishes, curries and sauces. You can dry-freeze coarse herbs such as rosemary and thyme by removing the stalks and keeping them in an airtight plastic bag, while softer herbs benefit from being chopped and frozen as ice cubes.

While fresh okra is delicious, it’s not always the easiest – or most affordable – vegetable to find in supermarkets. Instead, opt for frozen and you can still reap all of the nutritional benefits and make the same tasty recipes at home. It comes either whole or chopped, and doesn’t lose its taste, texture or shape. Frozen okra works great in stews, curries and rice dishes. 

Nothing makes a weeknight curry into a feast faster than a flaky paratha and keeping a bag in the freezer is a great life hack. The buttery dough is incredibly sticky before it's cooked, so most commercial makers sell theirs frozen and stored between cellophane discs. This happy habit means you can grab as few or as many as you need for a meal, then drop each solid disc straight into a hot pan. The steaming layers of crispy pastry that emerge are your reward.

Deli meats have a notoriously short shelf life, making the kind of chicken strips you might use in a sandwich or salad a tricky option to manage in your fridge. Did you know that cooked strips of chicken breast are cheaper per kilo and keep for months in the freezer? Maybe that's why recent data from analysts at Kantar found cooked chicken is among the fastest growing frozen categories.

Japan's filled dumplings are a creation of culinary genius: fried, steamed or boiled, they deliver a perfectly delicious capsule of tasty flavours and comforting carbs. But they are a true pain to make and expensive to buy fresh. The good news is that they freeze brilliantly and cook best straight from frozen, making them a perfect candidate to be picked up in the freezer aisle. Keep a few bags on hand – they're equally great for midweek dinners or weekend feasts.

Here's a real treat: watching buttery layers of flaky pastry puff and swell in your oven. Satisfying videos of baking pastries go viral for the transformation that takes place, but the rise in ready-to-bake products means you can get in on the act without hours spent folding dough around butter. Oven-ready croissants from the freezer aisle can be a lot lower in additives than the canned dough in the chiller cabinet, too.

What’s better than the smell of freshly baked cookies? Buying frozen cookie dough offers convenience and flexibility, allowing you to bake fresh cookies anytime without the hassle of mixing ingredients. It also reduces food waste, as you can bake only the number of cookies needed. If you’d rather make your own, just prepare a double batch, roll into individual balls and open freeze half on a baking tray before storing in freezer bags. You can bake or cook in an air fryer from frozen.

If you love edamame beans, buying them frozen is a no-brainer. These early-picked soy beans are packed with protein (they have double the amount of the nutrient compared to kidney beans) but start to deteriorate within hours of harvest. Buying frozen means you have an on-tap supply for your stir-fries, salads and side dishes, without the wastage that comes from binning tough or bitter old beans. Frozen edamame usually come ready-shelled, too, making preparation easy.

These delicious filled dumplings, which hail from Poland, are pretty difficult to make from scratch and don't store well in the fridge, as the doughy wrappers become sticky and hard to separate. Blast-freezing is the perfect solution and allows you to enjoy this laborious batch cook in any portion size. They cook from frozen in about seven minutes, making them perfect for a speedy lunch.

Even top chefs will tell you to save yourself time and energy by buying a frozen packet of filo pastry. This delicate dough is made with thin sheets and used to make delicious pastries around the world, including savoury spinach and feta spanakopita and sticky baklava. It’s easy to find in supermarkets, and even easier to use; simply thaw it in the fridge overnight and work with the dough quickly to avoid it drying out and becoming crumbly. 

If your household is big on berries, using only fresh fruit on your breakfasts, smoothies and desserts can get expensive pretty quickly. Buying frozen is a smart choice for convenience, quality and nutrition. Delicate fresh and seasonal berries deteriorate fast once picked, but frozen bags are much cheaper, less wasteful and allow you to have juicy, antioxidant-packed fruit all year around.

They're on every dietician's must-eat list, but these nutritious leaves have a problem: they quickly turn to green slime in the fridge. Buy ready-to-eat pre-washed leaves and that transition is even faster, putting bagged spinach squarely in the frame for food waste. That's why so many recommend buying frozen: easy-to-portion pellets or cubes are quickly popped into any dish you're making, giving you a boost of goodness without the guilt.

With a super-short harvesting period, and their tendency to become starchy as natural enzymes start to work within hours of picking, frozen broad beans (sometimes called fava beans) make a lot of sense. Besides making a great side dish, broad beans are gorgeous in salads, falafel, pasta dishes or dips.

This huge category covers a plethora of species that are best bought frozen, since 'fresh' fish from the supermarket can often mean frozen fish that's been thawed. Most commercial fishing boats spend several days (even weeks) at sea and thus fast freeze their catch straight away. It's even the law in some territories that fish destined for sushi be frozen first to kill off any parasites. As a result, fish is regarded as one of the best frozen foods on the market in terms of quality – and it's usually cheaper than fresh, too.

You can’t beat the zesty crunch of a fresh chilli, but these fiery peppers lose their bite fast when stored in the fridge. Fresh chillies freeze incredibly well, and their heat is virtually unaffected by chilly temperatures. Many stores sell them whole or chopped in the freezer aisle, ready for you to pop into curries, stews or sauces. The freezer is also a great place to stash half used chillies until they're next needed.

Fresh mango is a real treat but it’s surprisingly hard to find a perfectly ripe one, not to mention how tricky it is to remove all the juicy flesh. Tropical fruits like mango freeze really well and can often be found in the freezer aisle prepped and ready to add to breakfast smoothies, bakes and desserts. If you’re freezing at home, chop the mango, pat the pieces dry and flash freeze flat on a baking tray to prevent sticking. Once frozen, transfer to an airtight freezer bag or container.

Nuggets and breaded fillets are loved by kids and adults alike – just make sure to do them justice. Breaded chicken from the chiller is often soggy, making it harder to get that magic crunch. Cook straight from frozen and you can be assured of a perfectly crispy crumb.

An easy way to get your five-a-day, frozen mixed vegetables have been a freezer staple since the 1950s and have a slightly retro appeal. They usually contain some combination of broccoli, diced carrot, peas, sweetcorn and green beans, but these days you can get all kinds of combinations, from frozen grilled vegetables to stir-fry mixes. As is the case with the best frozen food, they save you the hassle of prepping lots of different ingredients and allow you to just grab what you need.

Puff pastry is notoriously tricky and time-consuming to prepare, which is why we’d always opt for frozen. Endlessly versatile for making sweet and savoury pies, tarts, breakfast pastries and canapés, it’s always worth having a pack squirrelled away in the freezer. Frozen puff pastry has a long shelf life, too, making it a convenient kitchen staple. When using, simply allow the frozen pastry to defrost in the fridge overnight. Once thawed, unfold gently and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes before using.

Sweetcorn is packed with tasty natural sugars that deteriorate fast once picked. That's fine if you have a healthy-sized patch of corn growing in your back garden, but for the rest of us, frozen is always best. Buying direct from the freezer aisle ensures you get kernels that have been packed within hours of picking to lock in the vitamins, sugars and flavours. Go for fresh cobs, on the other hand, and it's a real lottery how long it's taken them to get from the field into your basket.

You can buy fish fingers fresh... but why would you? Frozen are often up to a third cheaper, can wait on standby for ages and will emerge from your oven perfectly crispy. Unless you make your own from scratch, the contents of fresh fish fingers will almost certainly have been frozen and thawed anyway.

Aah, the humble French fry – a freezer staple with impressive staying power. This weeknight standby may be a retro home convenience food (it was first introduced in 1979) but improvements keep it relevant for modern shoppers. Whether you opt for triple cooked gourmet versions, skin-on sweet potato fries or something specifically made for your air fryer, the only way is frozen when it comes to pre-prepared fries.

This delectable crustacean is incredibly quick to spoil, so it's no wonder most fishing boats freeze their precious catch while still out at sea. Buying frozen means you get to choose when you want to start the clock on that short window of freshness to prepare, cook and eat your prawns. Buying 'fresh' realistically means you're choosing a thawed product with no clear idea how much of its shelf life has already ticked by.

Peas are a handy source of plant protein, fibre and vitamin C – as well as beautiful sweet flavours – but their charms fade fast, as enzymes in the legumes naturally convert sugars to starch within hours. Major producers boast of getting their harvest from field to freezer within three hours, catching that summer goodness and delivering it to your kitchen all year around.

Now discover the foods that should NEVER be stored in your freezer

Last updated by Lottie Woodrow.