Rules On Re-Freezing Food?

Question

If you de-frost food can you re-freeze it again? I de-frosted some speghetti sauce. I used some of it, but there's still a lot left and if I leave it in the fridge it could get old, so can I re-put it in the freezer? Is it safe to do this?

Answer 1

Since it's already cooked once, it should be fine.

Answer 2

There are no hard and fast rules on this. Thaw once is a good rule of thumb, but there's nothing inherently dangerous about another freeze-thaw cycle.

Your main concern is how long food stays in the fridge. If you thaw it, keep it for a day or two, and freeze it again, the next time you thaw it, you probably will have forgotten how long it was thawed the first time. So, you may not have a good idea of the total time in the fridge.

Also, freeze-thaw cycles tend to degrade the quality of food. meat gets tougher, lots of things will grow ice crystals if you don't do it right, and so on.

So, avoid it, but don't necessarily fear it.

Answer 3

As a rule of thumb, once a cooked food has been thawed, it should not be refrozen.

I suggest you purchase some serving sized freezer containers and rather than freezing a large batch in one container, you freeze it in several serving size containers.

I suggest that tomorrow you use your spaghetti sauce to make lasagna, or more pasta dishes.

Try to eat it up in the next few days, and discard any leftovers after seven days from thawing.

Doc

Answer 4

I could be wrong but I don't think you're supposed to re-freeze food once it's been thawed because of a risk of food poisoning.
To this day, I cannot eat frozen pizza because I got violently ill from it because it had been thawed in shipment and re-frozen.

Answer 5

Typically no it is not safe to refreeze. What I usually do for example with hamburger meat (after it has thawed) is cook all of it to the proper temperature and then freeze what I cooked.

Answer 6

If there isn't any meat or dairy in your sauce you can re-freeze it.

Answer 7

It should be fine.....really!!