Can You Freeze Cooked Potatoes?

The humble potato is a staple in kitchens all around the world. Whether you enjoy them boiled, baked, fried, mashed, or any other way, they’re a much-loved carb on dinner tables from Birmingham to Berlin!

But what happens when you’ve cooked more spuds than your family can eat in one go? Can you freeze cooked potatoes and enjoy them on another day? 

How to Freeze Cooked Potatoes

Cooked potatoes freeze much better than raw potatoes. This is because raw potatoes contain lots of water, which causes them to go mushy once thawed.

As such, even if you don’t cook your potatoes before freezing them, you should at least blanch or parboil them to prevent them from going mushy. 

Another thing to note is that you can freeze various types of cooked potatoes, including boiled, baked, mashed, or fried.

Below, we explain the steps you need to follow to freeze boiled cooked potatoes without them spoiling or going mushy. 

1. Cool
   As soon as you have cooked your potatoes, remove those that you plan to freeze from the water and place them to one side. 
2. Dry
   Pat your cooked potatoes dry and remove any excess water from the surface. 
3. Flash Freeze
   Line a tray with baking parchment and space your potatoes evenly on top, ensuring they don’t touch one another. Then, place the tray of potatoes in the freezer for 1-2 hours, or until they have frozen solid. 
4. Bag Up
   Once your potatoes are frozen, remove the tray from the freezer and drop the potatoes in a suitably sized freezer-safe bag. 
5. Label and Freeze
   Write today’s date and the use-by date on the front of the freezer-safe bag and place your potatoes in the freezer. Remember, you can freeze cooked potatoes for around 3-4 months.

3 Tips for Freezing Cooked Potatoes

Now you know how to freeze them, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing cooked potatoes to have the best results:

Always Cook or Parboil Potatoes Before Freezing
If you freeze raw potatoes, they are likely to go mushy due to their high water content. But if you blanch or cook your potatoes before freezing them, you shouldn’t encounter any issues with them during the freezing process. 

All Types of Cooked Potatoes Freeze Well
Whether you’re freezing French fries, baked potatoes, or boiled new potatoes, you will find that they freeze really well. That being said, we’d avoid freezing potatoes in sauces, stews, or curries, as the additional moisture will cause them to go soggy. 

Sweet Potatoes also Freeze Well
If you prefer the taste and texture of sweet potatoes, you can rest assured that they also freeze really well after being cooked. You can follow the same steps as introduced above to freeze sweet potatoes, which makes things nice and easy when it comes to the freezing process. 

How Long Can You Freeze Cooked Potatoes?

You can freeze cooked potatoes for 3-4 months. While you might get away with freezing them for longer than this, we would recommend using them within this time frame.

This is because the ice crystals that form during the freezing process can cause your potatoes to spoil if you leave them for too long. You might also find that potatoes that have been frozen for any longer than four months will begin to lose their taste. 

You Can Freeze Cooked Potatoes for up to 4 Months

How Do You Defrost Cooked Potatoes?

When it’s time to thaw your cooked potatoes, your best option is to place them in the fridge the night before you plan to eat them. This allows your potatoes sufficient time to thaw and means you don’t need to use the microwave.

While you technically can thaw cooked potatoes in the microwave, we wouldn’t recommend doing so.

Can You Refreeze Cooked Potatoes?

No, you should only freeze cooked potatoes once. While there’s nothing dangerous about freezing cooked potatoes more than once, doing so will almost certainly cause the potatoes to spoil and go mushy.

If you don’t think you will use all of your cooked potatoes in one go, we recommend freezing them in smaller batches to make your life easier when it comes to defrosting the number of potatoes that you need at any given time.

Do Cooked Potatoes Freeze Well?

Compared to raw potatoes, cooked potatoes freeze really well. And providing you don’t freeze cooked potatoes in sauce, stew, or curry, you will find that they maintain much of their texture and taste during the freezing process.

So, if you have some cooked spuds leftover from last night’s evening meal, don’t hesitate to bag them up and pop them in the freezer. 

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing cooked potatoes or spuds in general, then these may help: