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Can You Freeze Vegetable Stew?

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By Ross Young

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Vegetable stew is a great meal to prepare for the family on cold winter evenings and is just perfect when served alongside some creamy mashed potatoes.

As is the case with all types of stew, lots of people tend to prepare the dish in batches, resulting in a fair amount of leftovers that you can use on another day. So, can you freeze vegetable stew? 

Vegetable stew can be frozen for up to 6 months. Once it has been slow-cooked to perfection, separate your vegetable stew into portions, place each in freezer-safe containers, and add to the freezer. 

Does Vegetable Stew Freeze Well? Yes

Can You Refreeze Vegetable Stew? Yes

How to Freeze Vegetable Stew

Vegetable stew is the perfect make-ahead recipe. It’s full of flavour and nutrients and is the perfect dish to warm the family up on a cold winter’s day.

There are several ways to cook veggie stew, but the best method is to use a slow cooker to ensure the delicious flavours have infused throughout the dish. 

And the good news is that vegetable stew can be frozen without issue, and it can be safely reheated from frozen, saving you time in the kitchen.

Below are the steps you need to follow to freeze vegetable stew without it spoiling: 

  1. Cool
    Once your stew is cooked, remove it from the pan or dish it has been prepared in and allow it to cool at room temperature. You will need to leave it for around an hour until it has cooled sufficiently. 
  2. Split Into Portions
    Ladle portions of vegetable stew into individual freezer-safe containers once it has cooled down. Be careful not to overfill the containers – you should leave at least half an inch free as it will expand in the freezer. 
  3. Seal, Label, and Freeze
    Affix the lids onto each of your containers or wrap them with foil if they don’t have lids. Then, write the date that you prepared the stew and the use-by date on the lid or wrapping and place each container in the freezer.

3 Tips for Freezing Vegetable Stew

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

Exclude Potatoes from the Stew
If you’re preparing a vegetable stew with potatoes, it’s a good idea to remove them or freeze them separately. If you freeze potatoes in a stew, they are likely to go mushy and will affect the texture of the dish. 

Portion Before Freezing
One of the great things about preparing vegetable stew is that most recipes call for a lot of ingredients, meaning you almost always have lots of stew leftover. And while you can freeze stew in one big container, it’s best to portion it up beforehand, so you can easily remove the amount of stew that you need at any given time. 

Reheat from Frozen
In most instances, you don’t need to defrost vegetable stew before reheating it. You can simply remove it from the freezer and proceed with reheating it without thawing it first. 

How Long Can You Freeze Vegetable Stew?

You can freeze vegetable stew for around six months. And while some people might freeze vegetable stews and curries for longer than this, we think six months is the maximum amount of time you should keep your stew.

But you will also find that veggie stew will be good in the fridge for a couple of weeks, meaning you don’t necessarily have to freeze it if you think you will use it within this timeframe.

This also saves you from having to portion it up, as you can easily remove however much stew you need from the container in the fridge. 

You Can Freeze Vegetable Stew for up to 6 Months

How Do You Defrost Vegetable Stew?

If you’re planning to reheat your vegetable stew in the microwave, you can do so from frozen.

However, if you’re going to reheat your stew in the oven or on the stovetop, you should defrost it first, so it reheats evenly. To thaw vegetable stew, transfer it from the freezer to the fridge.

Depending on the portion size, it might be best to thaw your stew overnight, so it’s ready to reheat the following day. 

Can You Refreeze Vegetable Stew?

There’s nothing wrong with freezing vegetable stew more than once, providing it has been defrosted in the fridge. Just be mindful of the fact that refrozen stew is unlikely to taste as good as vegetable stew that has only been frozen once.

Instead of refreezing the same portion of stew, we’d advise you to reduce your portion sizes and only remove what you need from the freezer at any given time.

Does Vegetable Stew Freeze Well?

Vegetable stew freezes really well. You just need to make sure that your individual portions of stew are tightly sealed and protected from freezer burn, and your stew should be good for up to six months in the freezer without deteriorating in taste. 

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