Can spinach be refrozen? - Security issues

You can do a lot with spinach. It is a great vegetable to add to many types of food, such as soups, stews, salads and much more. Spinach is versatile and freezing it is pretty easy.

The question is: can you refreeze your spinach?

Buy the spinach in bulk and take it out when you need it. But it is recommended to partially thaw the spinach before using it, so you partially thaw it and only use part of it.

Do you put the rest back in the freezer? You can refreeze spinach, but there are some facts you should know. There are certain risks in refreezing your food after you have allowed it to thaw or have opened the sealed freezer package. 

We have produced a guide in which we share the recommendations for refreezing spinach and the possible risks associated with it. Plus, we have some tips to share with you on alternative options to avoid the need to refreeze.

There is a lot of information to share here, but it is all pretty basic and easy to follow or understand. Don’t be intimidated by the idea that there are potential risks in refreezing food. If we’re being honest, there are risks in almost every storage and cooking method available.

The purpose of this guide is to help you understand the process, risks, and options. We’ve got your back during the process. Read on for all the important details that await you.

Frozen Spinach Guide

Spinach is quite versatile and very easy to work with. You can buy frozen spinach at the store or freeze your own fresh spinach. There are some differences when it comes to using frozen or fresh spinach. Here are some examples.

Uses for fresh spinach

• salads
• sandwiches or wraps
• pasta dishes
• Quiche
• smoothies

Also, you can cook your spinach fresh to be able to use it in any recipe. However, you cannot reverse freeze your spinach. Once frozen, they don’t work as well for some uses, like salads or dressings for sandwiches and wraps.

Frozen spinach uses

• stews
• Quiche
• tortillas
• soups
• Creamed Spinach Dips
• pesto
• stir-fried dishes
• Dips
• Any hot dish you want to add spinach on

As you can see, frozen spinach is quite versatile, it just has some restrictions that fresh spinach doesn’t. However, fresh spinach often has to be cooked before it can be used in many of these things.

In principle, it is not known if one option is better than the other. However, this is what we know. Even if you buy spinach fresh, chances are you’ll need storage options and that’s where freezing comes in.

freeze spinach

We’re here to talk about refreezing spinach, but we also want to cover the basics. We are going to spend a little time on the process of freezing the spinach. The way they are initially frozen can affect what happens when you try to refreeze them.

Freezing fresh spinach can be done in two different ways:

1. You can blanch the spinach
2. or you can freeze them fresh.

Blanching spinach keeps it fresh in the freezer almost twice as long as freezing it fresh without blanching.

These are the steps. If you want to avoid blanching the spinach, just skip that step and use the other steps to freeze the fresh spinach. 

1. 1. Chop spinach finely
   2. Blanch the spinach

1. Separate the spinach into portions and place them in freezer bags. Later we will talk about the portions, but we recommend not freezing everything together.
2. Freeze fresh spinach for about 6 months and blanched spinach for up to 12 months.

Potential risks of refreezing food

This is where we get to the good stuff. Chances are if you’re here you’re already familiar with the basic freezing process. There are many details that go into freezing, using the spinach after freezing, and of course whether you try to refreeze it.

It is very important that you understand that refreezing any food carries some risk. It is very important to be careful with meat. Spinach has some information that you need to be aware of, but it may not be as crucial as other things.

The thing to keep in mind is that if you freeze food and then thaw it completely, take some out, and then want to refreeze it, there is a process that could affect the food you are transitioning from one temperature to another.

Here are some important facts about refreezing food and the potential risks involved. 

1. Refreezing spinach could reduce nutrient quality as well as the overall quality of the food.  Thawing food reduces the moisture content inside the package and the food. However, you can refreeze the food.
2. Freezing foods can be hard on them, affecting the texture and flavor . As you can imagine, refreezing food does the same thing and can make the taste or texture even worse.
3. If you only partially thaw the food and then refreeze it, it’s a much safer option.  We strongly recommend that if you intend to refreeze, you allow the spinach to only partially thaw. In a partially thawed state, there will still be ice in the package. Overall quality may be slightly affected, but not as much as a full thaw.
4. The main problem with thawing food and refreezing it is that while thawed it can attract bacteria and any bacteria already in the food can multiply.  So when you put the food back in the freezer, it may be spoiled or already spoiled and you may not realize it until you’ve eaten the spoiled food.

Refreezing spinach: the process

Now that you are aware of the risks, we want you to know that it is an option, you simply have to be informed of the potential effects and understand the processes to prevent or avoid the risks.

These are the steps for thawing and refreezing. You should try to plan ahead and know if you may need to refreeze before starting the thawing process. 

1. You can take frozen spinach out of the freezer and simply break or chisel off a piece for current use and then immediately put the rest back in the freezer.
2. When you take the spinach out of the freezer, thaw it in the fridge. Don’t let them thaw completely or get hot. We recommend letting it partially thaw halfway, taking out what you need, and putting the rest back in the fridge immediately.
3. Your refrozen spinach should only keep for 4-6 months max, since it has been subjected to the open air outside of the freezer.

How you can avoid the need to refreeze spinach

Now that you understand the risks involved in refreezing food, we want to give you some tips or alternatives to avoid the need to refreeze spinach.

• When you initially freeze the spinach, do it in individual servings so that what you take out of the freezer is enough and you don’t have to worry about refreezing it.
• Plan ahead for store-bought frozen spinach and set it aside immediately after purchasing.
• Plan ahead when you take bulk containers out of the freezer, and remember to only allow partial defrosting. You can also take the opportunity to divide them into portions.
• Remember that the shelf life has most likely been reduced by refreezing. You must label and date the initial freeze and update the label with a new date if you freeze again.

We recommend simply being proactive and freezing in separate portions to avoid even the need to worry about the risks of refreezing your spinach.

Related questions

We hope you found the details in this article useful and informative for your needs. We invite you to consult the questions and answers section for additional information that may be useful to you.

What is the best way to determine serving sizes for separate freezing?

This can vary depending on what you normally use with your spinach. For example, if you mainly use the spinach to make smoothies, you can freeze it in ice cubes and this is the perfect serving for a smoothie.

However, if you use a lot of spinach in cooking, consider the amount your recipes typically call for. You can also make multiple servings if you use different amounts. Divide the servings into cup measurements and you can always get more than one serving if you need to.

Can canned spinach be frozen?

We normally don’t recommend freezing canned vegetables , especially if they’ve been canned from the store. They have gone through a process to be canned and it could affect their viability for freezing.

Also, it can be a risky food preservation measure, because it welcomes bacteria, as moving food from one specific storage item to another can have a disastrous effect on them.