How do you cook frozen roast potatoes?

Roast potatoes are the ultimate side dish. When prepared properly, roast potatoes are a crunchy, yummy delicious goodness. But they can be both time-consuming to make during the week and can also stink your house out with the smell of fat.

Yes, you can freeze roast potatoes for up to 1 year. To freeze them, flash freeze on a baking tray and then store them in bags or airtight containers. You can then cook them straight from frozen for 20 minutes or so.

Can You Refreeze Roast Potatoes? No

Do Roast Potatoes Freeze Well? Yes

How to Freeze Roast Potatoes

Once your potatoes are roasted, prepped, and ready for freezing – follow these instructions: 

1. Spread on a Baking Tray: Spread your roast potatoes out on a baking tray and freeze once until frozen solid on the outside. They don’t need to be frozen through to the centre – just solid outside so they don’t break apart when handled.
2. Store: Remove your potatoes from the tray. Take an air-tight shallow rigid plastic container and place the potatoes inside, but don’t overfill it – you want to leave enough room so that the potatoes don’t stick one to another.
3. Final Freeze: Label clearly and return to the freezer.

You should also consider when making roast potatoes that you risk the potatoes becoming mushy, soggy and flavourless by freezing the roast potatoes multiple times.

This is why it’s recommended that you freeze roast potatoes in smaller batches. Perhaps even with resealable plastic bags – make sure to release as much air as you possibly can before sealing.

Can You Freeze Cooked Roast Potatoes?

Yes! In fact, it is better to freeze them cooked. You can then grab them from the freezer, toss them into a tray and quickly roast them for 15 minutes or so until thawed and warmed through.

Can You Freeze Potatoes for Roasting?

You can freeze parboiled potatoes so that they are ready for freezing but they will not have as crispy an outside as they would if you froze thoroughly roasted potatoes as they will not fluff up as well.

3 Tips for Freezing Roast Potatoes

Now you know how to freeze roast potatoes, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing them to have the best results:

Flash Freeze
By flashing freezing roast potatoes, you make it far easier to grab a handful at a time. Refreezing roast potatoes is not recommended, which is why being able to defrost a portion at a time is vital. 

Avoid Seasoning
If you’re prepping roast potatoes specifically for freezing, we suggest you hold back on seasoning. Seasonings and spices tend to change in flavour when being frozen and then defrosted. Your potatoes may, therefore, have an off-taste, not because they’ve gone bad, but because of how they were seasoned.

Cook from Frozen
You don’t need to thaw roast potatoes. You can cook them straight from frozen. They’ll take a few extra minutes. You just need to make sure they’re hot in the centre.

How Long Can You Freeze Roast Potatoes?

Prepped bare roast potatoes can safely sit in your freezer for up to a year. Leftovers are considered safe up to around the one-month mark. As always, make sure you label your potatoes with the date they need to be consumed.

We actually recommend having a note on your notice board with a list of what you have in your freezer. Make sure you include when they need to be used to avoid any unwanted waste. 

How Long Do Roast Potatoes Last in the Fridge?

Cooked roast potatoes will last for between 3 and 4 days in the fridge in a covered bowl. You can then reheat them or enjoy them cold.

How Do You Defrost Roast Potatoes?

There is no need to defrost roasted potatoes unless you’re reheating already seasoned leftovers. If you’ve prepped potatoes with no seasoning, you can cook it from frozen.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees celsius and season your pre-roasted frozen potatoes as you like, and put it in the oven for just another 15 to 20 minutes or so.

When it comes to leftovers, you can thaw them by first transferring your roast potatoes from your freezer to your fridge to thaw them. You can later reheat your leftover roast potatoes in the microwave as you normally would.

Can You Refreeze Roast Potatoes?

As with all frozen foods, we’d always recommend trying only to defrost what you need to avoid the need to refreeze. Having said that, roast potatoes can be refrozen if you do accidentally defrost a few too many.

You will ruin the texture a little further if you do freeze them again, so do your best only to thaw out what you need.

Do Roast Potatoes Freeze Well?

Freeze-ahead roast potatoes don’t lose any texture or nutritional value. They make the cooking handier as the initial roasting and prepping process is already completed.

All you need to do now is to season your potatoes and bake them for another fifteen minutes or roast them alongside your main dish so it can absorb the juices.

As you will bake them and dry them out again, there is no significant risk of any loss of texture or quality of the roast potatoes unless you had to defrost them and re-freeze them.

Leftover roast potatoes are not as good as fresh roast potatoes, but they’re “doable”. Defrosted leftovers taste much like five-day fridge leftovers, so you aren’t losing a lot. But you can’t fully preserve the taste and texture, especially when it comes to seasoning.

If you’re counting on freezing your roast potatoes in advance for future cooking, then it’s best to just roast bare potatoes and then add flavour later on.

Are Frozen Roast Potatoes Any Good?

Although frozen roast potatoes won’t be as good as freshly roasted ones, they’re certainly a good option to have in the freezer when you don’t want to spend time roasting them – especially midweek!

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing roast potatoes or roast potatoes in general, then these may help:

Can You Freeze Boiled Potatoes for Roasting?

Yes, you can freeze boiled potatoes which you can then roast at a later date. You won’t get the same crunch as they will release some moisture when thawing but they will still roast nicely.

Can You Freeze Goose Fat Roast Potatoes?

Yes, you can freeze roast potatoes that were cooked in any form of fat whether that’s beef dripping, goose fat, olive oil or lard!

Should you defrost roast potatoes before cooking?

How long do frozen Roasties take in the oven?

How do I cook Aunt Bessie's frozen roast potatoes?

How do you reheat frozen roast potatoes?