How to Tell If Your Frozen Food Has Gone Bad (Without Trying It)

It’s hard to imagine modern life without access to a refrigerator. Not only does this make it easier to plan grocery shopping, it also allows us to freeze groceries and leftovers, allowing us to receive bulk discounts and reduce food waste. Plus, having a freezer means you can literally enjoy burritos whenever you want, a triumph of human ingenuity if you ask me.

But as great as frozen foods are, they have their limits. Certain foods that don’t store well in the freezer – you can freeze them, but the results won’t be good. And while it’s true that frozen foods that have been permanently frozen (i.e. eaten more or less forever. But “safe” simply means that the food won’t kill you, not that you actually want to eat it. I mean that you’re actually appetizing, every bite of food in your freezer has an expiration date, even if it’s not printed on the package.If stored properly, most of it will be perfectly delicious for one month to a year , but after that, you should be careful before biting into a big old piece, unless you’re craving that freezer-burnt taste (you don’t.) Here are the signs that it’s too late to go back to your leftovers or go back to those ancient chicken nuggets.

Check out the look

The first signs that the foods you just removed from a frozen freezer will be disappointing (and possibly disgusting) are their appearance and color . Follow your intuition here: if it’s never been thawed, it’s okay to eat, but if it doesn’t look the way you remember it or the way you’d expect it, it probably won’t taste very good. Here’s what to look for:

• Meat. Red meat, such as steaks, gradually loses its rich red color and turns gray or brown .
• Vegetables. Vegetables that have been in the freezer too long will turn pale, their bright green and red colors will fade and become almost milky.
• Chicken. Chicken meat usually does not change color when frozen for a long time, but in some cases it can turn white. A surer sign that you won’t like defrosted chicken is the bones, which can darken when chilled.
• Fruits. Many fruits darken or turn brown after being left in the freezer for too long. It may also look shriveled and wrinkled due to the dehydration caused by freezing.
• Fish. If the edges of your fish turn white or grey, it has been sitting there too long.

Finally, if your frozen food is covered in a layer of ice crystals, it’s likely that the freezer has burned out , which means that the water in it has leaked to the surface. Freezer-burnt foods are safe to eat, but they will be tough and tasteless (except for freezer burn, which is an unpleasant aftertaste).

Does the smell test pass?

Even if your frozen foods look okay or you’re willing to ignore their ugly appearance, the next test will be their smell. This should be pretty instinctive: if it smells bad, you probably don’t want to eat it. But refrozen foods that are still safe to eat don’t usually smell like rot—they just smell .

Often, food will have a “plastic” smell, indicating that it has been burned in the freezer, or food will simply smell stale when you defrost it. If your freezer has an odor caused by previous issues, such as a temporary power outage, your frozen food can absorb that odor over time, making it unappetizing even if it’s safe to eat. And if your frozen food smells the same as other foods in the freezer, then something has gone wrong.

Are there texture issues?

Finally, even if your frozen foods look and smell okay, their texture gives the final clue to whether you’ll enjoy eating them:

• Vegetables. Vegetables found frosted in the back of the freezer may have a slimy coating, even if they look normal.
• Meat and chicken. Meat with a leathery texture will not taste very good.
• Lactic. Freezing dairy almost never works, but if you’ve tried it, there’s a good chance it will have a dry and grainy texture and not the creamy texture you’d expect. For things like ice cream meant for the freezer, a sure sign that it will taste weird is a layer of ice crystals on top.
• Fish. The fish may have a slimy texture that indicates you won’t like it (it could also indicate bacterial growth during the defrosting process, so don’t risk it). Fish that have been frozen too long can also feel light because too much water has been drawn out of the fish, causing the fish to become tough and dry.
• Fruits. Fruit that has been frozen for too long can become soft after thawing and turn into an unappetizing mass.
• Bread. If defrosted bread breaks into crumbs very easily , it has been sitting there too long and probably won’t taste good even if you can hold it together.