Can I freeze raw potatoes, to be cooked at a later date?
Potatoes should not be frozen from a raw state. They will turn black and the texture will be soft upon thawing. Potato dehydrators (who earlier had invented the instant mashed potato) struggled with any attempts to create a frozen French fry by cutting up the potatoes and attempting to freeze them. Frequently they would just turn to water and mush, similar to trying to freeze a fresh onion whole. The scientist that solved all this was Ray Dunlap, who worked for the J.R. Simplot company in Idaho. He discovered that by precooking or blanching the potatoes this stabilized them and made it possible to freeze them to be thawed later without breaking down the cellular structure. This happened in the late forties to early fifties. One of Simplots biggest customers later on was Mc Donald’s which made their fries fresh. As they grew, the labor time and the convenience of using a frozen fry outweighed this signature fry and they initially switched over to Simplot product exclusively. Now froze
