Preserving whole potatoes
What is the best way to preserve potatoes for a long time with minimal loss of nutritional values?
I tried freezing, but the potatoes lost their taste and were unsuitable for cooking.
I tried cutting and drying, but the result was again tasteless.
When I just put the potatoes on the shelf, sometimes they remain good for a long time, but sometimes they rot. How can I lengthen their shelf time, and what is the maximum shelf lifetime I can hope for?
Best Answer
The ideal storage for potatoes is approximately 42 to 50 F / 5.6 - 10.0 C in a dark space, with good humidity. This is historically what root cellars were for. With proper storage you should be able to get them from one harvest to the next—but ideal storage is rare at home. Nonetheless, at least a few weeks is more than reasonable.
Burying them in clean sand can be effective.
For more information than you ever wanted to know, see this article from Options for Storing Potatoes at home (PDF) from the University of Idaho extension.
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Quick Answer about "Preserving whole potatoes"
Potatoes are low acid foods and need to be canned with a pressure canner. A pressure canner provides a high amount of heat necessary to kill bacteria that can cause botulism. You cannot can potatoes safely using a water bath canner.Can you raw pack potatoes?
Although canning some vegetable raw (otherwise known as raw pack) is fine, you cannot can potatoes raw pack. They are always canned hot pack. In other words, they need to be par cooked first.Do you have to blanch potatoes before canning?
Bring the pot of cut potatoes to a boil and let it boil for about two minutes. Blanching will release some of the starch in the potatoes, reducing clouding and water loss in the canned produce (Image 3).How do you preserve potatoes in Mason jars?
For whole potatoes, boil 10 minutes and drain. Add 1 teaspoon of salt per quart to the jar, if desired. Fill jars with hot prepared potatoes, leaving no more than 1-inch headspace. Cover hot potatoes with FRESH boiling water, leaving 1-inch headspace and covering all pieces of potato.Storing Potatoes Long Term - Save Your Potato Harvest
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Answer 2
You could try cooking the potatoes before freezing them. In particular twice-baked potatoes and mashed potatoes take well to freezing.
How to Preserve Potatoes Without a Root Cellar on the Westphoria blog that discusses how to build a container so emulate a root cellar.
You could also experiment with lacto-fermentation, using either raw or cooked potatoes. Fermenting foods not only preserves them, but also generally improves their nutrition by making micronutrients more bioavailable.
- Here is an interesting technical article about potato fermentation
- Here are some comments from PaleoHacks on fermenting potatoes.
- In The Art of Fermentation (p. 230) Sandor Katz briefly discusses potato fermentation. He describes fermenting cooked potatoes with other fermenting vegetables (though there's no reason you couldn't ferment them without the other vegetables).
- He also references Jenny McGruther (of Nourished Kitchen), she has a recipe for fermented potato chips that demonstrates a basic fermentation technique. The technique is basically to slice the potatoes thin, then mix with water and a starter culture such as whey or a starter culture packet.
- In The Mind of a Chef, season 1, episode 6 (or maybe 5), chef Rene Redzepi (of Noma) briefly discusses the process of aging potatoes to intensify their flavors, it might be interesting to you.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Monstera, Tim Douglas, Tim Douglas, Nataliya Vaitkevich