Freezing potatoes and other things

[ducks4you]

Greetings, Greetings, little Gardeners/Food Preservers!!
Eldest DD (aka, "the Chef,"), thinks we could freeze potatoes, so we are looking into it.
Meijer has 5 pounds of russets/99 cents, through November 26th, and we wouild like to stock up.
Youngest DD had a funny~I suggested storing them on wood on the floor of my unheated basement. SHE said it would attract mice...with my 6 cats, 5 are female.

My good kitties would spend more time in the basement, methinks!
Has anybody here frozen potatoes, raw or cooked?
Any success?
Failures?
I trust YOUR opinions more than the Internet, or...Pinterest.

 

[baymule]

Cooked would probably work better. Raw would turn black. Par boil for freezing, but I never tried freezing potatoes.

 

[ducks4you]

Interesting...

 

[baymule]

I’ve dehydrated potatoes. I cut hash browns, using a mandolin slicer, dropped in water to keep them from turning, then drained and blanched. Drained, dumped on cookie sheet with paper towels to absorb moisture, then loaded dehydrator trays. I stored them in quart jars. Used in soup, stew, and soaked in hot water for hash browns.

 

[flowerbug]

the only ways we freeze potatoes here are either in soups where they're already cooked (and then they come out of the freezer with this strange texture that goes away when we heat them up again) or as mashed potatoes portioned out with other things and frozen as meals ready to thaw/reheat. ages ago we canned them but i don't trust that without pressure cooking.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I dehydrate them and can them.

Tomorrow after my Dr appt in the am., I'll be doing some quarts of yellow potatoes in the pressure canner.

 

[ducks4you]

Any other advice re freezing vegetables?

 

[Ridgerunner]

One of the times I can recall freezing potatoes is when they were mashed and pre-cooked, like in a shepherd's pie. They are slow to heat up in a microwave but I had no problems with their quality.

I sometimes freeze cooked French Fries when I am saving leftovers for a later lunch. Their texture isn't the same as when fresh but I'm OK with that.

Obviously French Fries, hash browns, and tator tots are frozen when you get them from the store but I don't know what prep they do before they freeze them.

I've never frozen raw potatoes for use. My gut feel is that texture might be compromised for some things but would be OK for use in soups and things like that or as mashed. Maybe not great for fried potatoes where they are expected to hold shape. I don't know how much of a risk you have of them turning black, probably depends on how long it takes, Bay has a point on that. I'm talking about raw here not cooked.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I would like to think that due to their cellular structure with the starches, the cells would burst more than cells filled with water. Meaning that they would be very mushy.