Refreezing food (2024)

FAQs

Refreezing food? ›

You can safely refreeze frozen food that has thawed—raw or cooked, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing. To safely refreeze, the thawed product must have been kept cold at 40 degrees or below for no more than 3-4 days.

So thawed food will have some bacteria that can multiply at room temperature, meaning that if the food is refrozen, there will be an increase in bacterial count by the time it is thawed again.

The effects of thawing and refreezing meat. Refreezing meat can be done safely, but the quality of the meat may be affected. For example, freezing and thawing meat more than one time might cause color and odor changes, moisture loss, and increased oxidation of its fat and protein ( 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ).

Thawed cakes, biscuits, breads, fruits and fruit juices are okay to refreeze once if no strong 'yeasty' smell. Thawed snap frozen meat, poultry or fish is okay to refreeze if still below 4°C or transported and handled safely and spent less than 2 hours in temperature danger zone.

It is safe to refreeze semi-thawed meat. It is safe to refreeze fully thawed meat that is cold to touch i.e. 40 °F or below. It is not safe to refreeze meat that is fully thawed and warm to the touch. Meat left uncovered for more than 2 hours is highly dangerous and should be discarded.

How long after defrosting my freezer must I wait before turning it on again and putting foods back in? Once you have defrosted your freezer and switched back on the power, you can store frozen foods straight away.

Refrigerator-thawed, raw or cooked meat is safe to refreeze, though the U.S. Department of Agriculture warns the meat may lose some quality due to moisture loss. You should not refreeze foods that have been outside of the fridge for more than two hours – or one hour in temperatures above 90 degrees.

You can safely refreeze frozen food that has thawed—raw or cooked, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing. To safely refreeze, the thawed product must have been kept cold at 40 degrees or below for no more than 3-4 days.

Aside from food safety, refreezing meat brings quality into question. "Moisture can be lost in the freezing and defrosting process which can make meat gristly, dry and more chewy," Edwards says.

Multiple thaw/freeze cycles should be avoided as they will hasten the degradation of serum nutrients and can induce the formation of insoluble precipitates.

What meats should not be refrozen? ›

If the meat is already cooked, you will lose a lot of the texture and flavor if you thaw and refreeze it again, so we do not recommend refreezing cooked meat. You should also not freeze (or refreeze) any meats that have been sitting at room temperature for longer than 2 hours or at a 90˚ or higher for more than 1 hour.

You should defrost your food in the fridge so that it doesn't get too warm, see our Danger Zone info below for why this is important. It's also important to use food within 24 hours after it's been fully defrosted – it will go bad in the same way as if it were fresh.

From www.foodsafety.gov, the recommendations are "A full freezer will hold a safe temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full and the door remains closed). Food may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40°F or below, however, its quality may suffer.

The more you freeze the food, the more the tissues break down, the flavor profile decreases and moisture escapes. For example, some vegetables, like green beans, will become mushy if it is thawed and frozen multiple times. They are still safe to eat, but the texture may not be as desirable.

Ground beef that has been thawed in the fridge is safe to refreeze as is. The raw meat should be refrozen within two days of it being thawed. To freeze ground beef, wrap the package in plastic wrap, aluminum foil or freezer paper, or place in a freezer-safe bag, before freezing to minimize the risk of freezer burn.

When frozen foods are covered in snow-like crystals, it's best to toss them. But if only small amounts of icy deposits are present, scrape them off and get cooking: Just be ready to adjust cooking times and/or add extra seasonings to make up for texture changes and loss of flavor.

At ICE, Ramsey and his colleagues have a blanket rule: "If something's been frozen once, that's it." The biggest downside of freezing and thawing and re-freezing and re-thawing is that the food becomes excessively mushy.

Once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing.