Can You Freeze Baked Potatoes?

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Potatoes are not just one of the most versatile vegetables there are, but undoubtedly the most popular one.

But let’s talk about baked potatoes in particular.

We’ve made more than we can handle and we’re wondering whether we should –or can– store them.

Can you freeze baked potatoes? You can freeze baked potatoes! By individually wrapping the potatoes in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and storing them in a freezer-safe container, they can be kept in the freezer for 1-3 months and in the fridge for 5-7 days.

There are more than a few things to take into account. The main one, for example, would be how they’re going to be stored— this affects the taste as well as how long they’ll last. The way they’re prepared also plays a role there.

Let’s talk about all this and more below as we explore how to freeze baked potatoes!

How to Store Baked Potatoes in the Freezer

There are three simple, effective methods to do this: aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and plastic/glass containers.

Plastic or Glass Containers

This is probably our safest and most effective bet. Most kinds of freezer-safe containers are good at keeping moisture outside and are easier to handle without compromising the integrity of the potatoes.

We highly recommend using clear containers which will let you easily check the state of your potatoes; you don’t want to save them for later and then open them to find out that they’re all mushy!

Plastic Wrap

Plastic wrap is also a convenient option, although maybe not as effective at keeping moisture outside.

Plastic wrap has a tendency to lose its tightness in the freezer especially, which can lead to your potatoes slowly unfurling.

One way to remedy this is to thoroughly wrap your potatoes and have them stored snugly next to other baked potatoes in order to ensure that no plastic wrap comes loose.

Aluminum Foil

Aluminum foil is another great option for storing your spuds. It’s a perfect blend of the convenience of plastic wrap while also keeping your food a bit more protected from the freezer like a plastic or glass container.

Depending on which of these you use, we’re going to be looking at different ways to store them.

If you use a freezer-safe container, you’re practically all set. You can set these in the fridge or freezer and there’s hardly a problem. Make sure to use a sealable container and that they are completely dry when using them.

When using containers, your potatoes should last anywhere from 1-3 months in the freezer and around 6-7 days in the fridge.

Plastic wrap is a little less forgiving. Unless each potato is individually wrapped in a tight layer of plastic wrap, humidity can sneak its way in.

This shortens the amount of time to about 1 month or less in the freezer. In the fridge, potatoes wrapped in plastic wrap should last 2-4 days.

Aluminum foil, if used correctly, gives you around the same amount of time as containers do. That’s 1-3 months in the freezer and 5-7 days in the fridge.

Tips for Freezing Baked Potatoes

In this section, we’re going to go over some of the basics when freezing baked potatoes. We’ll try to cover everything so that you can avoid even the smallest mistakes when freezing your potatoes.

1.) Don’t Use Leftovers

The first tip is maybe the most difficult one to follow because it requires some planning ahead— hence why we put it here first.

There are a lot more contributing factors when it comes to leftover potatoes from a meal. These factors often lead to them going bad sooner than if you had just cooked the food and froze it right away.

So, avoid freezing leftovers if at all possible. Instead, try to calculate how much you’re going to eat and put it away immediately. This also helps control portions, which is always good for us.

2.) Don’t Add Toppings Before Freezing

The best-case scenario would be if we could store baked potatoes just as they are. Maybe salt, a little oil; that’s fine.

But if the potatoes have been mixed with other foods— such as cheese, ketchup, heavy cream, and so on, storing them becomes a lot more tricky.

These are foods that have much a much shorter lifespan in the fridge than potatoes do, which means that they’ll take the potato down with them.

If you add any such foods (primarily meat or dairy-based products) to your potatoes, you can assume your potatoes will last about half what they would have otherwise.

3.) Dry Them Out as Much as Possible

Humidity is our enemy. The more we can avoid it going into the freezer along with our potatoes, the better.

Patting them dry with paper towels or giving them some more time in the oven to dry them out are both good ideas. Cutting them in half or into quarters after baking to let steam out from the inside of the potatoes also helps.

This is also good in terms of their texture: once we defrost baked potatoes, all the water makes them mushy and not as appetizing as they would’ve been.

The less water goes in with them, the less water they absorb— that means tastier potatoes in the long run.

4.) Wrap Them Individually

The trick to conserving that texture and consistency that we love so much in potatoes is actually quite simple: wrap them individually.

That means that even if you’re using a container, it’s a good idea to wrap them in either plastic wrap or aluminum foil and then place them in a freezer-safe container.

This helps each potato retain their own humidity— potatoes are exceptionally good at absorbing water, so if they’re stored all together, it’s possible that some of them will be too humid, leaving the rest too dry.

However, if we wrap each potato individually, we avoid this problem.

5.) Chill Them Before Freezing

Immediately storing hot or even warm food is never a good idea. First of all, there’s a lot of condensation created when cold and warm air meet and that means more humidity, which we know is our enemy.

Secondly, introducing hot things into our freezer or fridge can damage them— sometimes permanently.

If steaming foods are placed in a container and then immediately placed in the freezer, those containers can fracture and break from the abrupt temperature changes.

This means that you’ll have to wait a bit longer amount of time after baking your potatoes before they can be stored.

6.) Handle the Potatoes With Care

Particularly true when you’re using either plastic wrap or aluminum foil: it’s really easy to use just a little bit too much force and turn baked potatoes into mashed potatoes.

This is a problem for two reasons: first, it will ruin the texture of the potatoes.

The second and most important reason is that if the potato breaks there’s going to be a lot of empty pockets in the potatoes.

These are just ideal places for humidity to build up, creating little tiny rooms for bacteria and mold to grow. Make sure to either store them whole or completely mashed: anything in between is a risk.

Before we even start cooking potatoes, though, we should check first that they are in prime condition.

Choosing the freshest, healthiest potatoes, can prolong the amount of time they’ll last fresh in the freezer or fridge. The real battle starts in the supermarket!

3 Signs That Potatoes Have Gone Bad

Potatoes are one of the most popular vegetables there are. We eat them fried, boiled, baked, mashed, stuffed; as our good friend Samwise Gamgee would say “Taters. Po-ta-toes! Boil ‘em, Mash ‘em, Stick ‘em in a stew!”

This is why we have to be extra careful when buying potatoes. They are produced in huge quantities, so there’s bound to be quite a few bad ones circulating around without anyone noticing.

And it’s always a waste buying bad potatoes! So here’s three signs that potatoes have gone bad and how to spot them:

They have blacks spots or bruises
This might not be always easy to tell at first glance, so don’t be afraid to get in close and take a good look. Sometimes, we don’t notice these spots because the potatoes are still partially covered in dirt; you can gently scrub some of it off to check.
It’s sprouting
Potatoes sprout right out of their skin— and all over, too. If potatoes are sprouting, it might not necessarily mean that they’ve gone bad, but it does mean they’re not fresh at all. And half the time, that means they’re just about to go bad.
They smell funky Self-explanatory. If they smell bad, don’t buy them.

When these vegetables go bad, they start emanating a strange odor that might not be obvious at first, but it’s definitely the stench of food gone bad.

It’s also slightly reminiscent of vodka. If you catch any bitter/acidic odor, that potato is already lost.

Can you Freeze Twice-Baked Potatoes?

Yes, you can. However, for reasons that might be obvious from reading the previous sections, there are different rules at play here.

Twice-baked potatoes are always going to have several different ingredients, and there’s sure to be more than one dairy-based ingredient, which we want to avoid spoiling.

When it comes to twice-baked potatoes, we really shouldn’t expect them to last as long as baked potatoes in the freezer.

In fact, we should only expect about ¼ the amount of time— if baked potatoes last 7 days in the fridge, for example, only 1-2 days is what twice-baked potatoes would last. Any longer than that is just risking it.

Freezing them works in a similar way, and twice-baked potatoes should never be expected to last longer than 1 month. Consume them within the first 2 weeks, and make sure you properly defrost and check for mold or funky smells.

Can you Freeze Baked Sweet Potatoes?

Sweet potatoes are the sweeter, healthier cousin of potatoes. They are less carb-heavy (but still quite high in carbs) and have a very different texture. There are also different-colored sweet potatoes: green, orange, and even purple.

Can you freeze them, though? Yes. All the same rules that apply for baked potatoes also apply for baked sweet potatoes.

In fact, baked sweet potatoes can be easier to store and freeze than regular potatoes— mostly because they do a much better job at retaining humidity inside, avoiding bacterial growth.

Additionally, you can also cut the sweet potato into slices after baking them for easier storage, and they’ll last just as long as if you’d stored them whole.

Baked sweet potatoes can last up to 1 week properly stored in the fridge and up to 12 months in the freezer. They also do a better job at staying fresh and with the same consistency even after being defrosted, which is a big plus.