1y ago

How long will food be safe to eat if frozen immediately after cooking it?

I made some awesome arroz con gris (beans and rice) that I froze after cooking it. The only animal product it contains would be lard. Otherwise, it's just rice, beans, garlic, onions, green bell peppers, olives, and herbs. I don't remember how long ago I made it, but it could be anywhere from 6-12 months ago. It stayed frozen the whole time. If I thaw it in a pool of room temp water and warm it up on the stove, is it safe to eat?

It's been a hard day and my brain ran out of thinking fuel. I can't even google this rn. I appreciate any helpful responses.

Edit: Based on responses and the American federal government, it should be safe. My freezer is set to 0*F, so we're having dinner tonight! If you see me posting a lot in the next few days, it's cause I got hospitalized, and you're all gonna pay for it with my shitposts from the hospital bed! 😋

31 comments

The guidelines for freezer storage are for quality only—frozen foods stored continuously at 0°F (-18°C) or below can be kept indefinitely.
https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/cold-food-storage-charts
- They will be safe to eat indefinitely, but may not be palatable, depending on how it's stored.
  
  At worst it'll just taste like Applebees
  
  Recently thawed and ate a whole chicken that had been in the freezer for 18+ months in original packaging. No issues with taste/texture.

Unless it defrosted and refroze multiple times it should be fine to eat.
It might have freezer burn, which means the water content went to the outside of the food, so the inside could be dry and the outside could be wet. I would say for beans and rice, just mix it up.

assuming the food was cooled properly it should be safe to eat for years but taste/texture might deteriorate, especially if not in airless containers some fats react with oxygen that affects the taste.
Also often the preferable way to defrost would be to just throw it in oven/pan/microwave.

After that long, taste and texture might start deteriorating, but as long as you're sure it has remained completely frozen (the recommended tempretures are 0F and -18C) it should be safe effectively forever.

If I thaw it in a pool of room temp water and warm it up on the stove, is it safe to eat?
Don't thaw with warm water. Gives bacteria a nice environment to grow. Use cold water. It's just as effective and safer.
- Thanks for looking out! 🙂

When my grandmother moved, she sent over two dozen tupperwares of beans and rice she'd made ten years ago and forgotten in the bottom of her chest freezer. The rice didn't reheat well, it ended up getting soggy, so we turned it into fried rice, and it was just fine, nobody ever got food poisoning.

Frozen stuff should last essentially indefinitely, but you should be careful that the food you put is safe at the time that it freezes. Freezing large batches of food at a time, for instance, might not be a good idea, since the interior of the food takes longer to cool down. But unless you're preparing restaurant-level quantities of food, I don't think that'll be an issue.
It should also go without saying, but if your food is already bad, then freezing it won't make it any better
- i'd say from experience on making restaurant quantities of food generally the cooling starts to become a issue one should think about when the thickness of the mass you are cooling is higher than about 7 cm(~3in), when under that everything should be fine if you put the food in fridge/freezer in 1.5-2hours from reaching a temp under 75°C, ideally dont stack the containers. The goal is to have the food cool down to <6°C in under 4h if you want to have restaurant quality but even for restaurants it's ok to go a couple hours above that limit.

I've eaten year old frozen meat.
Rice however doesn't seem to freeze well. Not sure why.
- Rice doesn't freeze/re-cook well because when you cook it it fills with water. When you freeze it you trap that moisture in it and there's really no way to reheat it without all that moisture escaping. It's the same reason rice gets hard if you leave it out too long - the water evaporates.
  
  Well I ate it cold and it still wasn't good. Only frozen one night.
- It's because of retrogradation, basically the two forms of starch arrange themselves in a new way when it cools.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrogradation_(starch)
  
  That's supposed to happen if you refrigerate rice (ie leftovers)which I do all the time and eat no problem. It's the freezing that doesn't work.

Freezer burn would eventually start to make it awful, but as long as it's really kept frozen it should be safe to eat. you can stave off freezer burn by freezing on a tray or icecube mold, and then moving it to a vacuumbag, but no matter what happens, it'll set in.
fun fact. meat turns into a gelatinous goo eventually. you wouldn't want to eat arctic woolly mammoth meat. (but the stuff being cloned? oh, absolutely. Them and cloned dodo.)

If you're concerned then thaw in the fridge, and heat to over 65C for 5 minutes before eating.

This is going to depend a bit on your freezer. A frost free freezer is going to have thaw cycles that will increase the risk of freezer burn. If you have a chest freezer without a frost free setting then it could easily last 6 months without an issue.

Thanks!
- you're welcome!

It's safe. I'd heat it up on a pan though, with some lard; it might help with the freezer burn.
- This is the best idea but not bothering with the slow defrost. Just low heat with lard in a pan, stirring until it defrosts then heat until it is at the desired temperature.

I have no advise but would love your recipe if you're willing to share!
- Yes, of course! Let’s share to make the world happier 🙂
  Ingredients
  2 cups of basmati rice
  ½ cup dried black beans
  1 cup dry white cooking wine
  1.5 garlic heads peeled (I’m a garlic head).
  ½ green bell pepper plus two strips
  ½ Spanish/sweet onion
  5-10 pitted manzanilla green olive (I use the ones with pimiento in them)
  However much lard you feel comfortable with. I use about two heaping spoons full.
  ½ cup of olive oil
  1 bay leaf
  oregano to taste
  parsley to taste
  a slight pinch of paprika
  salt and black pepper to taste
  cilantro to taste (if you like cilantro, ofc)
  Steps
  Get half a cup of olive oil, and press half a full garlic into it. Set it aside for later.
  Soften the beans using your preferred method. I use a pressure cooker. Add the two strips of green bell pepper to this process.
  Dice the onion and leftover bell pepper. Chop the olives in half.
  Use a garlic press and sautee a garlic in the lard at a temperature just enough to make it sautee. The lower, the better. This gets the lard tasting like garlic oil. We want to make sure we don’t overcook the garlic and so that it turns brown. I like to do this in a cast iron pot so I can make the rice in it later.
  Once the lard looks like it tastes like garlic, add the diced onion and rest of bell pepper. This mix is called “sofrito”.
  Once the onion is translucent, strain half of the beans using a spatula against the pot and sautee them with the sofrito. You can also add half of the rice to this mix. Get the delicious oil into the beans and rice!
  Once you feel that the beans and rice have enough juice in them (probably around 5-10 mins), we’re going to make the arroz con gris. Place all of the rice, beans, and sofrito in a pot.
  Add 2 cups of black water leftover from the bean softening process and 1 cup of cooking wine. Sometimes, people will use half a cup of cooking wine and half a cup of vinegar.
  Add the herbs: oregano, parsley, and an optional small amount of paprika. It's hard to put too much oregano, but be more careful with the parsley. Don’t put too much paprika it can be overpowering. We want just a slight barely noticeable hint of paprika. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you’re unsure of the amount, use less than you feel comfortable with because you can always add it later when you’re eating it. Also, add bay leaf.
  Set the stove to high and get the mix to boil, and as soon as it does, lower the temp to a low simmer (like 1-2 on my stove), and close the pot with a lid. Set a timer for 20 mins. Once the timer goes off, check it. If it looks wet, it still needs to cook more. If it looks dry but hard, you might need to add ¼ more black water and this means the temp is too high. If it looks almost done, then turn the stove off. After ~5 mins, take the top off, and mix it with a spatula. It’s almost done! Note: The more often you lift the lid to check the rice, the more you will need to add water because the steam escapes.
  Once it’s fluffy, it’s time to serve. Yay! Serve the con gris onto plates. Use a spoon to drizzle as much of that garlic/olive oil mix we made at the beginning as you want. I like using a lot because I’m a garlic head. I've never said, "This is too much garlic." Also, raw garlic is good for your heart, medically speaking. You can add cilantro now too, but not earlier because it will get cooked and change the flavor.
  Eat it! If there are leftovers, place them in containers and freeze it in case you’re hungry in 6-12 months 😜
  Tell me how it came out.
  Let me know if you have any questions! If you’re cooking and have questions in the moment, hit me up on Matrix. I love this stuff and would be excited to guide you through the process. @backonmybs:matrix.org

31 comments