How to get frozen soup to not be chunky?

Question

I usually do this simple soup. Not sure if the ingredients are relevant here, so I might as well enumerate them: potato, onion, courgette, leek, squash and carrot.

Once those have cooked, I then blend the soup (I may add some green beans afterwards, for instance, so it has something to chew, but I don't think that's really relevant). I usually put most of it in the refrigerator, since I'm gonna be consuming it throughout the next week. However, I sometimes wanna get some of it frozen too. When I do, upon unfreezing it, it is invariably chunky — looks like that smoothness I wanted to achieve is gone, and instead I have a clearer soup, with little bits of the vegetables that have kinda formed chunks. I've tried freezing the soup when it's still hot, or waiting for it to cool to room temperature, always with the same results. Trying to blend it again after unfreezing also does not seem to return it to the state it was in before freezing.

Am I freezing it wrong? Unfreezing it wrong? Both?

Answer 1

Freezing from hot isn't a good idea for the neighbouring items in your freezer but shouldn't make much difference to the soup (it will start cooling down faster, but then more slowly as the freezer will be warmer than it should be).

Freezing the soup before blending it should help, then reheat before blending. If you are making it specifically to freeze, you could add a bit less liquid in the first place and slightly undercook it. Then you'd adjust the consistency when you reheat it for serving.

You might also try omitting the courgette. Even cooked, courgette doesn't freeze as well as your other ingredients. It tends to go watery. It might even be better overall (though that's pure opinion).