Batch Cooking Pasta

Did you know that you can freeze cooked pasta? Yes you can. I have successfully used pasta that I cooked, froze, and thawed back out.


I try to do all I can to cut back on the time it takes to get a home cooked meal on the table for my family. When you’ve had a busy day, or you’ve had “one of those days”, dinner may be the last thing you want to think about doing. I personally don’t like being in the kitchen over 45 minutes from start to finish when I cook. There are times I can’t help it, but I try to not let that the norm. For over a year I have experimented with cooking and freezing pasta for future meals. I have not tried this with every type of pasta noodles so I can’t vouch for them all.


This is a box of small white fiber shells. I grabbed the last few boxes they had at the grocery store when I saw they were a closeout sale. They were priced under a $1 so I could not resist. One night I needed to use some shells to make a pasta salad. I normally would store the remaining unused shells in a Mason Jar until I was ready to use them. This time around I went ahead and cooked all of my pasta in batches to freeze for using in later meals. You see, I was chatting with another lady on her blog about freezing pasta to use later. She didn’t know it was possible because she thought it would come out mushy when thawed. That got me to thinking it would be good to share this information here on my blog.

Now back to that box of pasta. After cooking the 2 cups of shells I needed, I measured out 1 cup portions at a time and let cook until Al dente. You don’t want to overcook your pasta because it is going to be frozen. To me cooking it this way has helped my pasta keep it’s shape after thawing. Once it has finished cooking I immediately remove from the pot and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Next I toss the pasta in a little olive oil before placing into my labeled quart sized Ziploc bags. I lay flat on a cookie sheet to freeze.


When I need some pasta for a casserole, skillet meal, or salad I just take out a bag early that morning and sit in the fridge to thaw until I need to prepare dinner. You can take it out the night before, but I have found my pasta was thawed and ready to use by 5 or 6 o’clock PM if I took it out first thing in the morning. If the recipe I use called for boiling 1 cup of pasta, I only need to use 1 bag of my cooked pasta. If the recipe calls for boiling 2 cups of pasta, I take out 2 bags to thaw. Doing this has helped cut down on me having to wait for water to boil then waiting for the pasta to cook. Now all I have to do is just mix my already cooked pasta in to finish cooking the meal.

I have only tried this method successfully with shells, elbows, Penne, and Ziti. I don’t know how spaghetti or egg noodles would hold up. I also have only used the noodles to add to a sauce, pasta salad, in a casserole, or other skillet meals. It’s the same concept like when I cook and freeze rice. Many frozen meals have pasta in them so this is not much different. Have you ever tried cooking and freezing pasta? Give it a try and see if it helps you save time in the kitchen.


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