Freezing food

[patevans]

Can you freeze freshly cooked rice and spaghetti?

[aly]

I'm not sure...never done it myself always cook fresh pasta/spag as its done in minutes....the spag sauce gets frozen though.

[patevans]

I'm not sure...never done it myself always cook fresh pasta/spag as its done in minutes....the spag sauce gets frozen though.

I freeze the sauces, was just wondering earlier when I was cooking rice and thought i'd ask

[Princess Sara]

You can but it's not recommended. Basically the pasta or rice gets overcooked by the time it's re-heated and goes rather soggy... Also rice has bacteria in it that can be quite harmful if not reheated correctly.

Poor df gets leftovers like pasta and curry+rice frozen all the time though. He hasn't complained or died yet!

[patevans]

Just been reading up on the food standards agency and it says this -

I've heard that reheating rice can cause food poisoning. Is this true?It's true that you could get food poisoning from eating reheated rice. But it's not actually the reheating that's the problem – it's the way the rice has been stored before reheating.

Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, bacteria that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive. Then, if the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores will germinate into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea. Reheating the rice won't get rid of these toxins.

So, the longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that bacteria, or the toxins they produce, could stop the rice being safe to eat.

It's best to serve rice when it has just been cooked. If that isn't possible, cool the rice as quickly as possible (ideally within one hour) and keep it in the fridge for no more than one day until reheating.

Remember that when you reheat any food, you should always check that it's steaming hot all the way through, and avoid reheating more than once.