Can You Freeze Pot Roast?

3 minutes

It might be one of the easier meals to throw together – it all goes into one pot, after all – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be prepared in advance and batch cooked.

How to Freeze Pot Roast

Freezing pot roast can be a great way to store a filling dinner for a little while, making sure that there is plenty of food to one side for your family.

1. Separate: Separate the meat within the pot from the veggies, as the vegetables shouldn’t be frozen – they will become extremely mushy over time. In this case, it’s best to only freeze the meat.
2. Bag Up: Add the meat to a large, heavy-duty freezer bag, making sure to add a little of the juice, too. The juice will prevent the meat from drying out in the freezer, which should help to create a tasty meal when reheated.
3. Seal: Remove excess air from the bag, then seal the bag. Removing excess air should ensure that the meat loses as little flavour as possible, and the seal will work to ensure that no air gets into the bag over time.
4. Freeze: Freeze the pot roast in the centre of the freezer, where it will be far from the frost front that forms at the edge of the freezer. This will keep the meat away from freezer burn, preserving the texture well.

3 Tips for Freezing Pot Roast

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

Use Other Wrappings
If the pot roast you’ve made is a little on the dry side, you might consider wrapping it in a layer of loose baking paper, followed by a layer of tighter cling film. This is the method we recommend for raw meat, and it can maintain texture better if the meat isn’t very moist. 

Vacuum Seal
Using a vacuum pack can be a great way to ensure you totally remove air from the bag that you’re using. This means that freezer burn will be less likely to spread to the pot roast, leading to the texture being maintained better over time. 

Freeze In Portions
Since meat cannot be refrozen once it has been thawed, it’s wise to freeze pot roast in portions. This will allow you to make sure that you don’t waste any of the meat that you’re using.

How Long Can You Freeze Pot Roast?

You can freeze pot roast for around 3 months before you’ll notice the quality of the food degrades.

Generally, this will be because freezer burn has started to set in at the edges of the meat, leading to a change in texture that makes the food much less enjoyable.

How Do You Defrost Pot Roast?

The best way to defrost the pot roast is to allow it to sit in the fridge overnight until it’s totally thawed out, and then to place it into the oven until it’s steaming hot throughout.

Alternatively, you could place the pot roast into the microwave, and zap it in thirty-second increments at full power until it’s steaming hot throughout.

Can You Refreeze Pot Roast?

No, you cannot refreeze pot roast.

The reason for this is that the pot roast is mostly comprised of meat, and meat cannot be thawed and refrozen.

This is because meat poses something of a food safety risk – when it’s thawed and sitting at room temperature, bacteria can grow across the surface, leading to a dangerous and unsafe piece of food.

Does Pot Roast Freeze Well?

Yes, it does.

Generally speaking, meat does freeze well, since it’s very dense and protein-heavy, leading to it taking a while to become freezer burned.

Related FAQs

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