The Best Container for Freezing Gelato?

Getting storage right for my gelato took me a few tries.

First, I stored my gelato in a plastic container, and it was terrible. Uneven freezing around the sides, and genuinely icy throughout.

Next, I tried a stainless steel container from Amazon, thinking the material alone would fix it. It didn't, the container was so cheap that the lid never actually closed shut properly.

Then I turned to Tovolo. I tried their Insulated Ice Cream Storage Tub, Oval, first, and even though it's called "insulated," it's actually made of plastic, not stainless steel. The results were genuinely disappointing, uneven freezing and real, noticeable ice crystals, even though everything else about the recipe was right.

Finally, I tried that same exact recipe in the Tovolo Stainless Steel Insulated Ice Cream Storage Tub, real stainless steel, with a lid that seals super tightly. I got mine through Williams Sonoma, and that was it. That solved everything.

Real gelato shops store their gelato in stainless steel, and once I understood why, it made complete sense. Plastic insulates, it resists temperature change, which means the gelato freezes unevenly. The edges harden while the center stays soft longer, and that inconsistency is exactly what encourages ice crystal growth throughout. Stainless steel does the opposite, it conducts cold quickly and evenly, locking the gelato into its frozen structure fast, and the faster something freezes, the smaller and more imperceptible the ice crystals stay.

The container itself is genuinely well designed too. It's double-wall insulated, which keeps contents cold for up to 4 hours even outside the freezer, and it has a small silicone tab that releases pressure buildup, so opening it later is easy rather than fighting against a stuck lid.

But even with the right container, a couple more steps still matter. I always make sure the container itself is fully chilled before the gelato ever goes in, not just fresh out of the machine into a room-temperature tub. A cold container from the start means less of a temperature shock, and even faster, more even freezing. I also always press parchment paper directly onto the surface of the gelato before sealing the lid. Skip that, and you're still leaving air exposed right where it matters most.

Every recipe in my upcoming gelato cookbook was developed to fit in either the 1 quart or 2 quart size, so whichever one you have will work perfectly.