Can You Freeze Cioppino?

3 minutes

Cioppino is Italy’s answer to France’s bouillabaisse. Like both fish stews, they take a while to put together so if you’ve got leftovers, don’t throw them out. Instead, why not store them?

How to Freeze Cioppino

Cioppino is a decadent and beautiful dish. To ensure you don’t damage the quality of your food, follow our steps when freezing it:

1. Portion Out: The cioppino can be easily portioned out into small rigid containers. Personally, we recommend plastic since that can be thrown directly into the microwave when you come to thaw the stew for a fast meal.
2. Cool: Allow the stew to cool to room temperature before sealing the containers. The reason this is important is that when warm food is left in sealed containers, a level of condensation and humidity can form.
3. Seal: This is very important, as the containers will contain a fairly thin broth. To ensure the broth doesn’t spill everywhere, make sure the containers are sealed. You can also wrap the containers in a layer of cling film to form a tight seal.
4. Freeze: Finally, just place it into the centre of your freezer. Once there, it will freeze well since it will be far away from the frost front at the edge of your freezer.

3 Tips for Freezing Cioppino

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

Be Wary of Freezer Burn
Freezer burn is more relevant for this dish than nearly any other we’ve featured. Fish can be intensely damaged by freezer burn. Make sure to place the food right at the centre of your freezer to steer as far away from freezer burn as possible. 

Wrap the Containers
The broth that cioppino is typically served in is quite thin, meaning that it’s precisely the kind of liquid that could easily spill out into your freezer. To ensure this doesn’t happen, consider wrapping each container in a layer of cling film.

Freeze with a Side
To ensure that you’ve got a whole meal frozen away, you could freeze each tub of cioppino alongside a portion of bread, or another side dish. You could combine this with tip two, and wrap the tubs and the side in the same piece of clingfilm to ensure it’s all packed together easily. 

How Long Can You Freeze Cioppino?

You can freeze cioppino for around 2 months before the seafood stew starts to sustain noticeable damage from freezer burn.

The food will still be safe to eat after that time window has come and gone, but the seafood will have lost quite a lot of texture, becoming fairly mushy.

How Do You Defrost Cioppino?

The simplest way to defrost cioppino is to place it into the microwave.

Remove the lid from the tub that you’ve used to freeze the stew, and then microwave it on high in increments of 30 seconds until the stew is steaming hot all the way through.

You could also thaw the stew in the fridge and then reheat it on the stove, though that will take a little longer.

Can You Refreeze Cioppino?

No, you cannot refreeze cioppino.

The main reason for this is the presence of seafood in the stew – seafood cannot be refrozen. This is because it’s likely to be contaminated while out of the freezer, which would mean that it’s no longer safe to eat.

Does Cioppino Freeze Well?

Yes, it does freeze quite well! Fish is very well known to freeze well, and the fish in cioppino is no exception.

If the food gets freezer burn, then it can become a little ruined, but this doesn’t have to be the case when you store it properly using the method on this page.

Related FAQs

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