Long time lurker, first time poster. So basically I found a crazy good deal on precut russet potatoes from a waste prevention store- I needed to get them put up bc I was about to leave town and just put them in freezer bags. Now I’m realizing I may have wasted them?? Will they be ruined? I wanted to can them, but everything I’m finding online says I messed up by not cooking them 1st. What say you, Reddit?
Did I ruin 20lbs of potatoes by putting them in the freezer?
byu/Babycharlie_xx inFrugal
Posted by Babycharlie_xx
18 Comments
They’ll work in puréed soups
They will be fine. Deep fry, shallow fry, air fry.
They might have a slight sweetness to them, and the texture can be a bit peculiar. Nothing dangerous, just play with textures and seasonings, and you are good to go.
It’s not ideal bc the texture of the starch will be affected. They aren’t inedible but they will be mealy
Everyone else had good answers, so I just want to add that although these wouldn’t be great for canning, r/Canning is a good community if you have future canning questions. They have good resources in the sidebar as well.
As someone who regularly chops up taters and freezes them with no other steps, I’ve air fried them, grilled them in a skillet, and took a few bags and made mashed potatoes.
Boil them, mash them, use in shepherd’s pie. Make gnocchi. Anything that doesn’t rely on them having their original texture.
Personally I’ve found there’s almost no dishes/processes that can sufficiently camouflage the change in texture they undergo when they’ve been frozen while raw.
I recommend turning them into mashed potatoes. It hides weirdness in texture and freezes well.
I use a machine meant to make potato croquettes to turn them into little cilinders. Freeze them up laid out, and then toss them in a bag.
Boil. Mash. Add onion, milk, and butter. Potato soup. You’ll never tell the difference if you had bought them fresh that day.
Potato does not freeze well. Has mealy texture after freezing.
Try using them in one of your usual recipes. If the texture is off enough you don’t like it, downgrade them to only be used for mashed potatoes.
You could not convince anyone from my country of birth to eat perviously frozen potatoes. To us once they’re sweet and weirdly textured, they are simply spoiled. If you don’t come from a culture who deeply care about potato taste and texture, I suppose you can try some of the suggestions here. When I was a kid we would purchase a sack (50kg) of potatoes for the winter and keep them in the cellar. If they ever froze, like during a cold snap, they were only fit for pigs or to be thrown out. And we were the opposite of a throw-away society. Sorry for the bad news about your potatoes.
Can i ask how much you paid for them?
For the future, I’ve had good luck cutting potatoes into large wedges, cooking them part of the way, then freezing. You can then bake or air fry the wedges, and they crisp up nicely.
Yeah
My mom used to grate frozen potatoes and fry them as potato pancakes. The changes in the starches helped the shreds stick together.
How does Ore-Ida do it?
Not commenting on the freezing, but more because you seem new to this, you need a pressure canner to can potatoes safely. You cannot safely just do a waterbath canning.