The Game-Changing Cookie Dough Storage Hack You'll Wish You Tried Sooner

What's better than a warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven? Nothing. The problem is, who wants to make cookie dough from scratch when the craving hits? You want a cookie now. Enter the ice cube tray cookie dough storage trick, a vintage cooking hack most of us forgot about, and one that makes fresh-baked cookies a whenever-you-want-them situation.

Look, I'm a terrific baker and can whip up a batch of cookie dough in 10 minutes — if my butter and eggs are room temperature. Then the dough has to chill in the fridge for at least two hours, preferably overnight (if you're not chilling your cookie dough, you're doing it wrong). Add in the cleanup (something I flat-out despise), and you basically have to know three hours ahead of time if you're going to want cookies. That's not how cravings work. Don't sacrifice them — get ahead of them.

The next time you make cookies, double your batch and freeze half for later. Once the dough has chilled in the refrigerator, scoop it into silicone ice cube trays. Label a piece of masking tape with the type of cookie, oven temperature, bake time, and date. Put the tape on the tray's lid, cover it, and freeze for up to three months. Each pocket in the tray becomes an individual ready-to-bake treat.

When it comes to freezing cookie dough ahead of time, labeling your tray is key. This way, you don't need to worry about remembering what's in the dough or waste time looking up the recipe you used. Just preheat the oven, prep your sheet tray with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, plop down however many cookies you want, and set the timer.

Use silicone trays with lids for freezing because trying to remove frozen cookie dough from a plastic tray will be impossible. With silicone, you can push the dough out from the bottom — and it will already be molded. Lids give ice cube trays a sturdy shape that lets you stack them nicely in the freezer. I used to put balls of cookie dough between wax paper and stick them in a freezer-safe zip-lock bag. As handy as this was, it made it difficult to keep my freezer as neat as I wanted it to be.

This storage trick is great for portion control, too, if that's something you're concerned about. My favorite cookie dough to freeze is chocolate chip, since I get gooey cookies and delicious pools of melted chocolate. Freezing already-baked cookies won't give you that. There are also plenty of add-in ideas to make your homemade chocolate chip cookies even better. If you don't want to splurge on new kitchen gadgets just for cookie dough, this is only one of the creative ways to use ice cube trays. But for cookie lovers? This is the way to go.