Can You Freeze Raisins?

4 minutes

Raisins are an essential element in various baked goods and snacks so how do you ensure you always have a supply of raisins on hand?

How to Freeze Raisins

Freezing raisins is an easy process since raisins themselves don’t have much water content. However, to ensure you do it right, we recommend following these steps:

1. Remove Packaging: Remove any pre-existing cartons or bags from the raisins before you do anything else with them. The reason for this is that those types of storage are designed for storing the raisins in dry, cool environments, not the freezer.
2. Bag Up: Place the raisins into a heavy-duty freezer bag to ensure that they’re well protected from knocks and bumps. You could also use a rigid container, but it will be harder to remove excess air from that.
3. Seal: Press the bag down evenly to remove as much excess air as possible as rapidly as possible. Once you’ve removed most of the air, seal the bag, and make sure that the seal is secured correctly.
4. Freeze: Freeze the raisins in the bag at the centre of the freezer so that they’re as far as possible from the frost front at the edge of the freezer.
5. Shake: After 20 to 30 minutes, remove the bag from the freezer and give it a good shake to prevent them all from clumping together.
6. Return to the Freezer: Return the bag to the freezer where it will keep for over a year!

3 Tips for Freezing Raisins

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

Freeze It as Trail Mix
Depending on what you put into your trail mix, it will freeze well. This means that you could make up a batch of trail mix with the raisins included and freeze it all together. Most tried fruit, such as sultanas, will freeze well, as will most varieties of nuts.

Consider If It’s Even Worth it
Raisins are dried fruit, and fruit was traditionally dried to ensure that it didn’t spoil during the winter months. Consider whether or not you need to freeze them when they can store at room temperature for up to 6 months.

Vacuum Seal
Vacuum sealing the raisins before freezing them is a great way to ensure that you don’t lose any level of flavour or texture while the raisins are in the freezer.

How Long Can You Freeze Raisins?

You can freeze raisins for as long as 18 months without losing too much quality of either flavour or texture.

To ensure you get the full 18 months, make sure you follow the steps that we laid out above. The critical thing to bear in mind is that the raisins should be kept away from the air as much as possible – that will cause them to lose flavour and texture over time.

How Do You Defrost Raisins?

It’s very easy to defrost raisins – they can simply be kept at room temperature for a little while before they are perfectly thawed.

Since raisins are very small, they can be eaten directly from the freezer. They will thaw in your mouth rapidly, allowing them to be munched with ease.

Can You Refreeze Raisins?

Yes, you can refreeze raisins.

The main reason that raisins can be refrozen so well is that they don’t contain much water at all. Therefore, they cannot get freezer burn, meaning that they freeze and refreeze well.

Furthermore, their dryness makes it unlikely that they will get contaminated while out of the freezer, meaning they don’t present much of a food safety risk, if any.

Do Raisins Freeze Well?

Yes, raisins do freeze well.

The combination of the fact that they’re very dry and that they’re very dense means that they do not lose much texture or flavour in the freezer.

Related FAQs

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