Potato salad is quite a popular dish; most people have it as an appetizer while others use it as a side dish which goes perfectly with the main course meal. If you made a lot of potato salad and a lot of it is left over after the last family gathering, you could be planning to preserve it longer and have it at a later date. The question you must be having is: ‘Can you freeze potato salad?’
Yes, you can freeze potato salad. However short the shelf life of potato salad is, once frozen it can last for a little longer, say some weeks. When refrigerated, potato salad can only last for a week.Although most culinary experts and chefs do not recommend having potato salad frozen.
However, you can still go ahead and freeze your potato salad on condition that you follow every single bit of the procedure and pack the potato salad in the right way
As per now, you do not have a definite answer to this question but that will be a thing of the past in just a few minutes. Read on and get to learn the facts.
Will It Still Be The Same?
Just like other frozen foods, the flavor and texture of your potato salad will be lost upon freezing it. Unless the potatoes are mashed or sliced into smaller bits, they will not freeze well. After thawing, they will get soggy.
You will also have to compromise on most of the ingredients that make the potato salad to be tasty and enjoyable such as mayonnaise and eggs. These ingredients barely freeze well on their own, and so you cannot trust them to freeze well when they are part of the larger potato salad meal. Freezing mayo causes it to get watery.
This will make it separate from the potatoes leaving room for them to be off-color.
For How Long Can You Freeze Your Potato Salad?
The shelf life of potato salad is notoriously short. For this reason, you should not allow your potato salad to stay for long in your freezer. The longest time that your potato salad can stay in the freeze and still be in a good state is a month.
Be very cautious when adding dairy products to your potato salad. They put it at a risk of going bad after freezing.
How To Freeze Potato Salad
Method 1: Using A Freezer-safe Bag
- Scoop up the leftover potato salad and place it in your freezer-safe bag.
- Squeeze out all the excess air from the freezer bag and seal it tightly. Presence of air makes your potato salad vulnerable to the growth of bacteria.
- Use a permanent marker pen to label the freezer bag with the freezing date.
- Set the freezer bag(s) with the potato salad in the freezer for freezing to commence.
Method 2: Using An Airtight Container
- Scoop out your potato salad and pour it out into an airtight container which is also freezer safe. Do not fill it to the brim; rather, leave a space which is about an inch and a half to the top of the container. The space leaves enough room for the expansion of the potato salad throughout the freezing process.
- Seal the container and label it with the date when you froze it first. This way you can always know how long your salad has so far been in the refrigerator and whether it is safe for consumption.
- Place the airtight container with the potato salad in the freezer for freezing to commence.
How To Thaw Potato Salad
- Remove the freezer bag or the airtight container which contains your potato salad from the freezer.
- Set your refrigerator at a temperature of 40 degrees F.
- Place the potato salad bag or container in the fridge and leave it to thaw for a few hours.
After it is fully thawed, you can now add some ingredients such as vinegar, mayonnaise or oil to improve the texture and taste of the potato salad.
Important Tips
- Cook​ your potatoes right before freezing
If you want your potato salad to be ready for freezing, you will have to cook the potatoes to be used for making the potato salad well. Putting the potatoes right into the boiling water is the wrong way to do it.The right way to cook your potatoes for the potato salad is by putting them in cold water in the pot.
Bring the water to boil as the potatoes are in there. The ultimate boiling time for potatoes to be used in making potato salad is roughly 15 minutes. After the boil, turn down the heat and allow the potatoes to simmer.
- Season your potatoes right
The right way to season your potatoes for the potato salad is by seasoning them first before boiling them. Simply add some salt to the water you intend to boil your potatoes in and with time they will have absorbed the salt, thus giving the potatoes more flavor.
- Avoid using locally made mayonnaise
If you intend to add mayonnaise to your potato salad before you freeze it, keep off from using homemade mayonnaise. Homemade mayonnaise doesn’t last long.
- Use freezer safe containers or bags
Using a freezer safe bag or container to freeze your potato salad is ideal. These bags ensure that moisture does not come into contact with your salad. Moisture will make your potato salad get ruined very fast.
Conclusion
Can you freeze potato salad? Freezing potato salad is not a good idea, and the professional chefs and culinary masters attest to that too. The reason behind this is that just like any other food, the quality of your potato salad will deteriorate. If you can, just make enough potato salad for a single serving.
In case there is some of it that are leftover, you need not despair. You can still freeze your potato salad. Following the procedures that I have listed for freezing and thawing will leave you with a fairly good potato salad in terms of flavor and texture.
Now you have the answer to this question, kindly share it with other potato salad lovers and save them from having to throw away the delicacy.