What Foods Can't Be Frozen?
Potatoes, Rice, Pasta, Cream Sauces, Cheese Do Not Freeze Well
Sep 18, 2008
Freezing meals is a great way to save time in the kitchen, but not everything is a good candidate for the freezer. It might be tempting to toss an entire batch of spaghetti, pasta and all, into your freezer, but what you'll save in time will cost you in goodwill once your family realizes they're expected to eat that unpleasant looking pile of mushy noodles. Not everything freezes well, and knowing what you can and can't put into a freezer ahead of time will save you money and time in the long run.
When Freezing Foods, Quality is the Goal
According to the Food and Drug Administration, any food kept at 0 degrees Fahrenheit will be safe indefinitely. So, the following list doesn't take into account freezing for safety (in theory, you can keep something in your freezer for 25 years and it will still be safe to eat). Freezing for quality is the goal. Here's a short list of foods that require special freezing techniques or should be kept out of the freezer altogether:
Potatoes - Especially when they are cubed, cooked thoroughly and used as a part of a stew or soup, potatoes aren't good candidates for a freezer. They become mushy and grainy and most people find them unpleasant. If you insist on freezing potatoes, use spuds that have been cut into a small dice (less surface area in the mouth makes the mushiness less noticeable) and have been parboiled but not cooked through. It's tricky to walk this line, though--the potatoes have to be cooked just to the point where reheating will finish the job, otherwise you'll have a meal full of almost-raw potatoes, which might be just as bad as mushy ones.
Rice - Like potatoes, this ingredient can be par-boiled prior to freezing, but if it's underdone it will be chewy, and if it's overdone it will be mushy. Unless you're fond of experimentation, it's best to avoid freezing rice. Instead, you can cook fresh rice and add it on serving day.
Pasta - Freezing pasta is usually a bad idea, but there are some exceptions. Casserole-style pasta dishes like lasagna usually freeze nicely, provided the noodles are (again) only partially cooked before placing them in the freezer. Some recipes of this type even call for uncooked noodles--as long as there is plenty of sauce in the recipe, the moisture will permeate the noodles as the food defrosts and reheats.
Cream Sauces - Any recipe containing large quantities of cream, milk, half-and-half etc. are best prepared sans-dairy. Cream can easily be added to the recipe once it has been defrosted, and doing it this way will avoid the curdling and separation you're likely to experience if you try to freeze a sauce made with cream.
Cheese - Grated cheese freezes pretty well, and small cubes of cheese also do fine. Trying to freeze a cheese sauce is tricky, though, and is best avoided. Frozen cheese sauces separate and become lumpy and unpleasant.
Raw vegetables that contain water - This list includes most kinds of lettuces, celery, and any other vegetable with a high water content. These foods are vulnerable to damage from ice crystals and are best kept out of the freezer.
Keeping this list in mind, remember that there really aren’t any hard and fast rules about what can and absolutely cannot be frozen with success. In the freezer cooking community you will find a lot of people who claim to have frozen cream sauces, pasta or potatoes without problems. What this really means is that people have varying ideas about what quality means, and/or different ideas about what kinds of quality changes they will accept in the name of convenience. If you’re a stickler for al-dente or you seek perfection in your recipes, it’s a good idea to keep the above ingredients out of your freezer. Otherwise, experimentation will give you a good idea about where your own quality standards lie.
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