Can You Freeze Potato Soup for a Quick Lunch? Yep, and it’s Soup-er Simple!

You can seldom go wrong with a cup of potato soup as the quintessential comfort food. Whether you want your soup creamy, baked, or loaded, with bacon or cheese, sour cream or heavy cream, the possibilities for potato soup are nearly limitless.

If you have made too much soup or simply want to make a batch for the freezer, the answer is yes, you can freeze potato soup and it should keep for up to six months in the freezer, but you should be aware that the type of potato soup you make and how you cook the potatoes will affect the texture more or less once thawed and heated.

In this article, I discuss how simple it is to freeze potato soup and how you should consider storing it so that it is at its best when thawed.

What Should You Know Before Freezing Potato Soup?

If you like your potato soup with heavy cream, sour cream, cheese, or other dairy, keep in mind that the lipids in cream or cheese separate from the water when frozen. While this has no effect on the soup’s quality, it does impact its consistency. This implies that when you defrost a frozen potato soup containing dairy, it will seem curdled.

If you wish to freeze some soup, avoid adding cream or other dairy towards the end of cooking; instead, remove the amount of soup you want to freeze from the pan and set it aside to cool. Then, when you’re ready to serve, add the dairy to what’s left in the pan.

If you have frozen soup with cream, give it a good mix after thawing to cause the fats and water to recombine and give you a better consistency.

If you have frozen the soup without the dairy, you may simply add the dairy before serving after heating (and blending if necessary).

It is also worth noting that non-dairy alternatives such as coconut milk or almond milk may not separate as much as dairy, so using them in soup may be a possibility, depending on the sort of potato soup you create.

Another thing to keep in mind when freezing potato soup is that the potatoes themselves may produce an unappealing and mushy soup, particularly if cooked to perfection. This is due to the high water content of potatoes, which naturally expands and creates ice crystals when frozen. While we prefer little ice crystals to develop in frozen meals to help maintain texture, huge ice crystals occur in potatoes due to their high water content. These bigger ice crystals subsequently shatter the cells of the potato, resulting in a mushy and squishy feel.

Making smooth potato soup rather than choppy potato soup is the simplest way to avoid the danger of mushy potato soup.

If you like chunky soup, cook it for 75% of the normal time, or until the potatoes and other vegetables are al dente. Cutting the vegetables to a uniform size might also help.

Al dente, which literally means “to the teeth,” is a far cry from the virtually raw dishes dished up in restaurants in the past; instead, to cook al dente or tender-crisp, the potatoes and other vegetables in the soup should retain some color while being boiled and cooked completely. You should be able to easily cut them with your teeth or a knife, but they will still have a tiny crunch since they have retained part of their structure.

After the potatoes have reached this stage, remove the pan from the heat, take off the amount you want to use for your dinner, and put in a separate pan to continue cooking until done. The remaining should be left in the pan to cool before freezing.

Half cooking the soup allows you to defrost and heat it without the potatoes turning mushy as they would if completely cooked.

But, if you have included any raw meats to your potato soup, it must be thoroughly cooked to a safe internal temperature before chilling and freezing. If you’ve added cured or smoked meats like bacon or ham, it’s OK.

Some people like to boil potatoes with their skins on, which may help them keep in form in a chunky soup. Just be sure to clean them well before chopping them and cooking. If you want a smooth soup, peel the potatoes first. Otherwise, the skins may leave tougher chunks in the soup and may affect the color of the completed soup.

During freezing, the kind of potato in the soup might also alter the texture. The thickness of the skins and the starch content of different potato types vary. Starchier potatoes, in general, do not hold their form when cooked and are best reserved for baking and frying, when fluffiness is vital. Reduced starch potatoes will maintain their form better in soup, and if they are waxy-skinned, keeping the skins on will help keep them firm.

Round white or waxy potatoes have little starch and keep their form better after cooking, making them great for soup, particularly if the skins are left on. Russet or Idaho potatoes are mealier and starchier, and although they are delicious in baked potato soup, they are best reserved for mashed potatoes, French fries, and, of course, baked potatoes.

New red potatoes are lower starch potatoes that may be used in the same manner as white potatoes, and the waxier skins can be left on for added color. Fingerling potatoes have a reduced starch content as well. In broth-based potato soups, they are best left whole or divided if bigger.

Yukon Gold or yellow potatoes are medium starch potatoes that do not turn to mush as quickly and are thus suitable for use in potato soup, but do not overcook them as they will come apart. Some chefs believe that sweet potatoes freeze better in soups than white potatoes.

How Long Will Potato Soup Store in The Refrigerator?

Let potato soup to cool on the counter before storing it in the refrigerator, but never leave it on the counter for more than two hours to ensure food safety.

Potato soup may be stored in the refrigerator for up to five days, but its quality and safety are always dependent on the shelf life of the components with the shortest shelf life (such as heavy cream).

Like with most things, freezing potato soup in parts is always preferable than freezing it altogether in one huge container. Otherwise, you will have to utilize it all after thawing since potato soup cannot be refrozen once thawed.

How to Freeze Potato Soup

Soup freezes well in glass containers with lids or Ziplock bags. If you prefer to use bags, set the bag up in a bowl to make filling easier, then slide the zipper most all the way along the seal before placing it flat on the tabletop. The residual air may then be pushed out before entirely closing it.

After writing the contents and date on the bag, place it flat on a cookie sheet at the top of the freezer to enable the soup to solidify before transferring it to the main area of the freezer.

If freezing the soup in glass containers, allow an inch of space between the soup and the lid, or, as I sometimes do, lay the containers on a cookie sheet positioned level at the top of the freezer and just sit the lids on top until the soup is frozen. The lids may then be firmly screwed on once frozen.

There is a danger of the soup breaking the glass if there is not enough room for it to expand as it freezes, and the contents are more likely to suffer freezer burn if there is too much airspace in the container.

Freezer burn is widespread in meals that have not been properly sealed in the freezer because exposure to air promotes dehydration on the food’s surface. The traditional indicators of freezer burn include ice crystals on the top of food, as well as discolouration or dry areas on meats and fish. Freezer burn does not impact food safety, but it may damage its flavor and texture, and probably more crucially, its nutritional value.

Items that have been kept in the freezer for an extended period of time, even if carefully wrapped, can acquire freezer burn. This is why, when freezing potato soup, always put the date on the bag or container, since consuming it sooner rather than later decreases the danger of freezer burn.

When thawing frozen potato soup in a glass container, the lid should be removed to enable air flow since the soup will shrink as the ice melts. If not, the lid might be dragged in, making removal difficult.

Potato soup may be stored in the freezer for up to six months. In many circumstances, it will keep for longer, but expect it to lose some of its quality with time.

How Do I Thaw Potato Soup?

Put the frozen potato soup in the refrigerator the night before you want to consume it. It will just take a few minutes to heat up. If you froze it in a Ziplock bag, always thaw it in a dish in case the bag was destroyed in the freezer.

In the event of a supper emergency, just place a Ziplock bag in a bowl of tepid water and keep filling it up as it cools, or you may defrost it and cook it on low heat on the stovetop. Just keep stirring it to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan while it defrosts. This method of thawing and heating is also perfect if you need to add cream, herbs, or other finishing ingredients before serving.

A smooth soup fresh from the freezer can withstand microwave heating, but you’ll need to keep opening the door and stirring it to keep it warm.

If you have frozen chunky potato soup, it is better to prepare (or thaw and heat) it in a pan, since heating chunky soup from frozen in the microwave typically results in mushy soup. If you froze potato soup prepared with part-cooked potatoes, you may need to let it cooking a bit longer until the veg has a better consistency.

If you’re unhappy with the consistency or texture of a chunky soup after heating it, puree it or use a stick blender to smooth it out. It’s simple to add a few fresh cooked veggies for added texture before serving. It will also benefit from some handmade crispy garlic croutons or roasted seeds for added crunch and texture.

When adding cream to the soup, do it near the conclusion of the cooking time. Turn reduce the heat and gently pour the cream into the soup while stirring until the cream is totally absorbed and the soup achieves the appropriate consistency and color if heated on the burner. You should taste it as you add the cream since a little extra spice may be required.

If the soup is a little liquid and needs to thicken, leave it on low heat for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly to prevent it from sticking. Allowing the soup to boil will cause the cream to curdle.

It is more difficult to thicken a soup with cream when microwaved; add the cream and mix thoroughly, then microwave in small bursts of 15 or 20 seconds, stirring in between each burst, until you get the desired consistency.

Instead, after your potato soup is ready to serve, swirl in any additional heavy cream or sour cream, then top with cheese, bacon, chives, croutons, or anything else you choose!

Freezing Potato Soup – In Summary

In this article, I’ll teach you how to properly freeze potato soup. It may be easier to modify your soup recipe, such as leaving out the dairy and only partially cooking the potatoes for more successful freezing, but you can still freeze some of that leftover potato soup; just have the blender on hand to reduce some of the consistency issues when thawing and heating it.

I hope you liked reading about freezing potato soup, and that if you have had limited luck freezing it in the past, the knowledge and advice provided in this article will bring you better success the next time you attempt it.