Freezing bean soup?

[pammy]

I am making a Tuscan white bean soup (the recipe in the current Cook's Illustrated) with dried beans. Does anyone have experience with freezing bean soup? Will the beans get mushy? I'd really like to freeze individual portions (like I just read about in someone's post re: lunch ideas) to take to the office for lunch.

[Anne]

Hi pammy. I haven't tried to freeze soup but I frequently cook up large batches of dried beans and freeze 'meal size' quantities for later use in burritoes, chile, etc. The beans don't seem to get mushy unless they are overcooked to start with. Hope this helps - since I freeze mine dry, soup might be a different story.

[laden]

hi Pammy, I've frozen bean soup before with no problem. Just defrost in the fridge at least 24 hours. (If I defrost in the microwave the beans sometimes explode!)

Anyway you can reheat in the microwave or on top of the stove. You may want to add a little broth or water, cause it tends to get really thick.

The only soups that I don't freeze contain chucks of potatoes. They tend to get mushy and grainy.

[Curleytop]

Yes, I too have frozen bean soup and split pea soup. It takes a long time to defrost.
I usually freeze the soup in plastic containers. Then I let the soup thaw a little a room temp. When it will slide out easily to a cook pot, you can reheat it easily on a low temperature on the stove. It usually needs thinning with water. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/cool.gif

[This message has been edited by Curleytop (edited 02-10-2001).]

[pammy]

Thanks for the responses. I froze the soup in individual servings so that I can just throw them in my lunchbag. Based on your advice, laden, I will take the container out of the freezer the night before so that it can start to thaw. My co-workers would not appreciate beans all over the office microwave!