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You Shouldn’t Freeze These 7 Foods

Have you bought too much or is there still something left over from the meal? Then it is usually not a problem to freeze the leftovers. But that’s not always a good idea. We show which foods you should not freeze.

You can easily freeze excess food yourself at home and thus avoid food waste.
However, some are inedible after thawing. So that you don’t have to throw away food, you should consider a few points.
Special care should be taken with yoghurt, wine, and potatoes.

If you have leftovers from dinner, made too much soup, or just bought a little too much, freezing is always a good idea. As a result, the food has a longer shelf life and you can defrost it quickly and easily. But you should be careful with the following seven foods, because they are not suitable for the freezer.

Do not freeze foods containing gelatin

Cakes with berry icing, creams, puddings and other desserts with gelatine should not be frozen. Due to the low temperatures, the cohesiveness of the gelatine is lost and the mass becomes liquid.

Not all dairy products can be frozen

If you freeze yogurt, it will be flaky and inedible after thawing. You can of course eat it frozen as yoghurt ice cream. Hard cheeses like Parmesan lose flavor when frozen and crumble when thawed. But you can still use it for cooking.

You can freeze cream, milk, butter, and cheese. However, you should not put the liquids in a glass container in the freezer. That can burst as liquids spread when they freeze. You can also read our guide to freezing cheese and freezing milk.

Water-rich fruits and vegetables

You should not freeze certain types of fruit and vegetables. These include bananas, plums, berries and apples. These turn brown in the freezer over time and lose their aroma. Frozen raspberries can be an alternative, but not all products were convincing in our raspberry test at the end of 2020.

You can freeze cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, and lettuce, but they will get mushy when thawed. Leaf spinach is also inedible after defrosting, but frozen spinach can be boiled and then eaten.

Of course you can freeze fruit and vegetables and then process them into smoothies, fruit yoghurts or desserts, because it usually doesn’t matter if the fruit gets mushy.

Tip: If you want to freeze broccoli, cauliflower, or carrots, you can blanch them beforehand, i.e. boil them briefly. As a result, the vegetables have a longer shelf life and retain their shape and colour.

Better not to put wine in the freezer

Good wine, where the taste is important to you, should not be frozen. Wine already loses its taste from + 8°C. When it freezes, the mineral balance gets mixed up, cream of tartar can settle and the acidity in the wine decreases. In addition, the wine’s own proteins cause cloudiness and the wine loses its natural carbon dioxide when it freezes.

However, if you don’t mind the taste changing slightly and you have leftover wine, you can freeze it. For example in ice cube molds and then use for cooking or make a wine spritzer from the ice cubes and mineral water – with carbonic acid, this then ensures freshness again.

Don’t (easily) freeze eggs

You should never put raw eggs in the freezer with their shells on. The liquid in the egg expands when it freezes. This can cause the shell to burst. You should never freeze boiled eggs just like that. The egg whites become gummy, chewy, and taste watery.

However, you can freeze raw eggs in a container suitable for freezing. The whole egg can then be kept for about eight to ten months. If you separate the egg beforehand, the egg white can be kept for ten to twelve months.

You can also freeze the cooked egg yolks. Boil the yolks in water beforehand.

Potatoes: don’t belong in the freezer

You should never freeze raw potatoes. After defrosting, the potatoes are mushy and change their taste: They then taste sweet because the vegetables lose strength through freezing.

This does not apply to processed potatoes such as fries and croquettes. You can easily freeze them.

Freeze garlic? Not a good idea

You can freeze garlic. However, it loses its typical taste. If that doesn’t bother you, you can try this on a small batch before freezing a large batch of the tuber. By the way, the garlic loses its taste in the same way if you put it in the fridge for storage.

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Written by John Myers

Professional Chef with 25 years of industry experience at the highest levels. Restaurant owner. Beverage Director with experience creating world-class nationally recognized cocktail programs. Food writer with a distinctive Chef-driven voice and point of view.

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