What You Need To Know Before Freezing Leftover Fried Food

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You can fry a lot of things out there, from your standard breaded chicken to vintage fried foods hardly anyone eats anymore. It's often heavy food, though. If you've ever tried sticking fried food in the fridge afterward, you might've noticed it's decidedly less pleasant after all that moisture has dampened it. Does freezing it work any better, or are your breaded, fried leftovers one of the many foods you should never freeze? We spoke to Mariam Daud, author of the cookbook "I Sleep In My Kitchen," to ask whether it's worth freezing fried food.

According to Daud, "You can, but should you?" Daud avoids freezing fried leftovers and advises everyone else do the same. With the exception of french fries, which can handle being frozen up to six months so long as they don't stick together, most fried foods don't handle freezing well. It's safe, but your crunchy, crispy food will likely turn limp and soggy in your freezer. "Fried food has already lost moisture, and freezing pulls out even more, which is why the crust goes soft," Daud said. Leftovers are better off in the fridge, but Daud tries to avoid keeping fried foods for longer than a day to avoid that dip in quality.

Freezing something that's been fried at home is different from the frozen fried foods you see at the supermarket which are designed to be frozen for long periods (the process usually involves vacuum sealing and flash freezing). The oil used during the standard frying process is a risk because it's still inside the food you fried. According to Daud, "Oils, especially unsaturated ones, can still go rancid over time. Fried foods trap oil in the coating, which means off flavors can show up if they're frozen for too long." If you absolutely must freeze leftovers, the expert-approved way to freeze fried chicken involves placing it inside an extremely airtight container. This is the right way to avoid freezer burning chicken in general, but the fried texture will still never reach that original level of quality.

Instead, you're better off freezing the ingredients and then frying everything after you thaw them out when you're ready to eat, rather than the other way around. Daud said that some fried foods like breaded chicken cutlets are especially worth freezing before you fry them up. "Freezing firms them up, helps the coating stick, and makes frying a bit cleaner in my opinion." Frozen chicken cutlets should stay fresh for at least nine months in the freezer, and they'll be ready to hit the oil as soon as they're unfrozen.