How about making French fries at home? They are a rare treat here, but they are a true delight when they are just the right crisp yet tender texture.
An excellent way to save time in the kitchen is to prepare food in advance. Making your homemade French fries and freezing them for later meals is one of those great shortcuts.
Do french fries need to be refrigerated?
In a nutshell, yes. French fries are meant to be cooked frozen. When cooking potatoes, chefs used to have the option of leaving them out at room temperature. Still, nowadays, most food service health departments require that once they can be cooled down to room temperature, the potatoes will be placed immediately in the refrigerator.
How to store uncooked french fries
Making your french fries at home from fresh potatoes is not only cheaper but also tastes better than those at a fast-food joint, and you can avoid excessive salt and undesired ingredients.
The preparation and freezing of the fries also reduce the cooking time, so you can bake, or air fry them in half the time as homemade fries.
Additionally, you can cut the fries into shapes of your choice, including shoestring, wedge, crinkle, or round.
You may buy french fries from your local grocery store or make your own; you may need to store them for your next cook. We illustrate the process of blanching and freezing potatoes below.
You will need a large pot, two large bowls, a knife, cutting board, vegetable peeler, slotted spoon, parchment paper, kitchen towels, and quart-sized zipper bags to freeze your potato fries.
Step 1: Clean your potatoes under running water and pat them dry. Trim away every eye, scab, bruise, and green spot as you peel. It is best to peel potatoes that will be preserved to prevent the spread of botulism bacteria.
Step 2: Prepare the fry shapes by cutting the potatoes into even thicknesses with a knife or french fry cutter. It will prevent them from turning gray and remove excess starch and surface sugar. After cutting the potatoes, wash them thoroughly in a large bowl of cold water.
Step 3: Your fries will last longer if you precook them by boiling them for a short period and then cooling them in ice water. The blanching process slows the enzymes responsible for flavor degradation, color fading, and texture loss.
Blanching potatoes require boiling a large pot of water over high heat. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with cold water and ice.
Add the cut potatoes to the boiling water in batches and boil them for 2 to 5 minutes. Your timing will vary according to the size of the pieces. You would need a little more time for sweet potatoes.
You should cook potatoes until they are tender before freezing; otherwise, they will turn black when frozen. Try pricking a few pieces of potato with a knife.
It should be softer than a raw potato in the middle, and the knife should easily penetrate without any resistance.
Place the potatoes in ice water for a few minutes to cool them off. After the potatoes are cool, remove them from the ice water and dry them thoroughly with a kitchen towel.
Precooking your fries in an oven is also an alternative to blanching them. Spray the baking pans with non-stick spray, line them with parchment paper, and preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Immediately after soaking, drain and dry the potatoes. You can toss or spray it with oil. On a baking sheet, spread the potatoes in a single layer—Bake for 15 minutes or until they are slightly browned and soft in the middle. When the fries are cool, freeze them.
Step 4: Put the fries onto a parchment-lined sheet pan and freeze them so that they don’t stick together. In a baking tray, spread out the potatoes in a single layer and freeze them for about an hour. In order to freeze a lot of fries in a short period, layer them between parchment papers and layer them again and again.
Step 5: Bag up the frozen potatoes. In a quart-sized freezer bag, you can fit about two pounds of fries. Store the bag in the freezer for up to three months after removing air, sealing, labeling, and dating.
How to store leftover french fries
For most people, french fries are a dish they will never forget. It is easy to make too much food when you are hungry. Afterward, what exactly should you do with leftover french fries?
Maintaining proper food storage is important for keeping your food and yourself safe. When you take out french fries from the refrigerator, you should place them in the refrigerator within two hours.
If food is left out at room temperature for a long time, it can grow and spread bacteria. You might not think this is important, but bacteria multiply and can lead to illness. Over two hours, they should be thrown away.
Store french fries in a shallow, airtight container. Cooked fries will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days if they are stored correctly. If you aren’t sure, you can wrap food wrap or aluminum foil tightly around your container; it is truly airtight.
The freezing of sweet potato fries
You can also enjoy sweet potato fries as an alternative to regular fries. Fortunately, you can freeze sweet potato fries the same way you do regular fries! For best results, use sweet potatoes that have been cured for at least a week before processing.
What is the ideal temperature to store French fries?
Before cooking, keeping the potatoes at the right temperature is essential for delicious French fries. Starchy potatoes are suitable for French fries. They have a tender, soft interior because of their starch. The colder you keep potatoes, the more the starch will turn into sugar. The starch in the potato quickly turns into sugar below 40°F.
French fries are usually stored at a temperature between 7.2-10.0 °C. The sugar won’t build up on some varieties if you store them slightly cooler, but others will darken if you store them slightly warmer.
Is it okay to eat expired frozen fries?
After the expiration date on the package of frozen French fries, are they safe to eat? If you keep frozen French fries at 0°F for as long as possible and store them properly, they will last for a long time.