Freezing Potatoes

[brownrexx]

My stored potatoes were sprouting so today DH and I cut a lot of them into cubes, blanched them for 2 minutes and froze 17 bags of them. We did this last year and it worked out wonderfully and it was a great way to preserve my potatoes.

I like single meal serving bags because they tend to clump together in the bag. I just thaw a single bag and then brown the potatoes in olive oil. Sometimes I also add chopped onions. They could also be cooked in a small amount of oil in the oven.


Potatoes 2023 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

Blanched Potatoes 2023 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

[bower]

I've never tried blanching and freezing spuds. Good to know that it works!
I've noticed that leftover roasted potatoes don't freeze well at all. They get a very grainy texture in the freezer. Fully cooked cubed potatoes in curry or stew seem to be fine.

[worth1]

Growing up we canned potatoes froze potatoes and had potatoes we used first out in the shed.
I've noticed the grainy texture as well sometimes but it doesn't put me off if I'm hungry.

[brownrexx]

I use these as fried potatoes and they don't taste a bit grainy. Possibly because of the blanching before freezing.

[Sue_CT]

They might still make good mashed potatoes too, and they cook much faster when cut small like that. I would dump a bag into water and boil and mash them.

[GoDawgs]

Nice batch of taties! We usually can up the last of spuds (grown or bought on sale) as there's usually not enough room in the upright freezer.

[bower]

I'm getting to the end of my spuds here too, but it looks like I'll have em all et before there's any sprouting. They were in the cold porch all fall. But there weren't enough to be worth putting in the cellar, so I brought the rest into the kitchen about a month ago.

[brownrexx]

These frozen cubes also make an easy and good addition to soup.

[JRinPA]

Nice to see they freeze well for you. One thing I like about potatoes is they can store in the cellar without freezing, so I never thought about how they well they freeze. We never have any freezer space this time of year. But those look like they would be pretty good just fried up.

I'll have to check to see if any of ours are sprouting. There are still three bags of lehighs hanging from the basement rafters. I wrapped each potato in newspaper this year, to help isolate each one, then in the black fabric grow bags, clamped to the rafters. I haven't checked them much, but haven't smelled anything bad, and no worries about mice up there.

The ones in a paper bag upstairs, the "first use" that never made it downstairs, some of them did have a few small sprouts, a week or two ago. It is warmer upstairs of course and they see more light. They went into canning some venison stew. Potatoes carrots parsnips garlic turnips and 3/4" ground deer.

My problem with using potatoes, in general, is that I grew up eating mashed potatoes. That is, potato flakes. I still love them. I just started growing potatoes the last few years. So if I finish up the meat and then make deer gravy or pheasant gravy or rabbit gravy, I find myself putting water and milk and salt and butter in a dish and into the microwave long before I think about using that same microwave to bake actual potatoes to actually mash.

[brownrexx]

@JRinPA we actually like the instant potatoes too and although I grow potatoes, I need to remind myself to use them and I almost never mash them.

I cut back on the amount of potatoes that I plant because we never use all of them and I end up giving them away. We mostly use them in soup or cut in chunks and roasted in the oven. We occasionally bake some but not too often. We just do not eat a lot of potatoes but these little cubes are really good fried with onions.

I store my fresh potatoes in the cellar too but since they were harvested in August, they are starting to sprout. I usually wait until they start sprouting and then prepare them for the freezer to keep them from going to waste. I have a small chest freezer that I basically use for veggies and fruits. We don't keep a lot of meat in our freezer. We mostly eat chicken and seafood and don't really buy in bulk. Chicken is pretty much always the same price so I don't keep more than a month's supply on hand.

[Tormato]

The last of the inexpensive potatoes at WalMart are gone. But, the potatoes are still there. A couple of pallets of 5 pound bags went from 85 cents a bag to $4.37, overnight.

[JRinPA]

5 lb bags of potatoes for 85 cents? I haven't seen potatoes at even 40 cents a pound in a decade or more. They are usually $3-4 for 5 lb around here when I happen to look.

[Sue_CT]

3.99-5.99/5 lb bags here. 3.99 is a pretty good buy.

[Tormato]

5 lb bags of potatoes for 85 cents? I haven't seen potatoes at even 40 cents a pound in a decade or more. They are usually $3-4 for 5 lb around here when I happen to look.

I have no idea what's going on with the potatoes at the local WalMart. Typically there would be the one row of bins, for various types of potatoes and sizes of bags. Then there would be one larger end row bin for whatever type they had the most of. And, occasionally ONE pallet, about the size of a half cord of wood, would be placed anywhere in the fresh produce section that had room.

But, so far this winter, there have been up to five pallets on the floor at the same time. And, with sale prices, 1 to 2 pallets a day were being sold. In the summer time, they're lucky to sell one or two 5 pound bags a day.

As for frozen potatoes, If cubed fairly small, simmered until just soft enough before freezing, there is just a bit of graininess to them, but I don't mind. I use them in soups and stews. Some day I'll have to try mashing them, which would likely take away any graininess.

[Sue_CT]

I cut them that small when I make mashed potatoes anyway, they cook much faster and I can make just a couple servings in 15-20 min. It makes mashed potatoes more doable even when making a quick dinner.

[bower]

We sometimes get 10 lb bags of potatoes on special here for $3.99 a bag. Regular price would 6 or $7, in a normal year.
This is because we're close to PEI, probably.
In 2020, our local govt announced a project to supply local needs for potatoes. It was written up in the news, in the spring, and showed the farmers who were allocated farmland to grow the spuds. I expected to see them on our supermarket shelves, but not one local spud did I see. And I haven't heard another word about what happened to the effort to grow potatoes.
One thing that happened the same year, there was a scab scare at a farm in PEI and they were frozen out of their usual US markets. So I guess there was a huge surplus of potatoes to sell in the region, and maybe our farmers couldn't get a price point to pay for the efforts.
There isn't much motivation for me to grow potatoes where prices are generally low, but I actually prefer potatoes roasted or oven fried with their skins attached. Love me some red potatoes for that, and it's nice to know I'm not getting any extra chemical residues by eating the skins.

[brownrexx]

I don't grow potatoes to save money because, as others noted, potatoes are generally cheap BUT lots of chemicals are used in the process of growing potatoes.

I am sure that some farmers do not do all of these steps but here is what some of them do:

They spray the soil before planting to reduce or kill scab. They treat the seed potatoes with anti fungals and then when they are growing they use pesticides to kill potato beetles and as if that were not enough, they spray an herbicide to kill the foliage before harvest to make it easier. After harvest many of them spray the potatoes with an anti sprouting chemical.

We do not eat a lot of potatoes but I prefer knowing that mine are grown organically.

@Sue_CT I am going to try making mashed potatoes with mine one of these days. I had never thought of that. I do like keeping the peels on my potatoes for roasting or frying but the ones I cubes were the ones with green spots or other ugly looking areas on the skin. We ate the perfect looking ones already!

[worth1]

A person might consider making Papa Seca.
It's a Peruvian dried potato.
First the potato is cut cooked then air dried.
I buy bags of this stuff every time I get a chance.
Do NOT mistake it's flavor with a regular cooked potato.
Or a factory dehydrated potato.
They have a distinct nutty flavor at least to me.
Use in soups and such or the traditional Carapulcra dish served in South America.
I think most of y'all would really like this way of preserving potatoes.

[JRinPA]

Potatoes at Redner's tonight,
$5/5lb for white
$6/5lb for red or russet.

$3-4 /lb is the price from the last ten years, not the last couple.

Should have bought that whole pallet at $.85/lb , tormato!

[Tormato]

Well, the .85/ 5 lbs potatoes, that went to $4.37 overnight, are now at .82/ 5 pounds. There's only one pallet, as that's all they have room for in a crowded produce section. I'll store a few bags in the basement. They are more medium russeted now, not the lightly russeted ones prior. They should have better storage qualities.

I figure that pallet will sell out that day. I'll go back in a few days to see if any more pallets are out on the floor. The pallets have been easier on the women workers, who previously were stocking the high bins daily with 5 and 10 pound bags.