Can You Freeze Hearts of Palm?

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Hearts of palm aren’t the easiest thing to pick up from your local supermarket. If you’ve managed to buy a batch of them, what’s the best way to store them for the longer term?

How to Freeze Hearts of Palm

Freezing hearts of palm is quite a simple process, but we’d still recommend following our instructions to ensure you nail it:

1. Wrap: Each heart of palm should be wrapped individually. This is because we need to avoid having any moisture come into contact with the hearts while they’re in the freezer. If they get frosty or coated in ice in the freezer, then their texture can decrease in quality very quickly.
2. Portion Out and Wrap: Hearts of palm don’t stand up well to being refrozen several times over. Therefore, we recommend that you don’t do this. To avoid refreezing, portion the hearts out so that you only thaw what you need to use.
3. Freeze: Finally, pop the now double-wrapped hearts of palm into the centre of your freezer where they will keep for around 3 months.

3 Tips for Freezing Hearts of Palm

Now you know how to freeze them, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing hearts of palm to have the best results:

Use Cling Film
Wrapping each portion in an extra layer of cling film will allow you to make sure that they don’t get any level of water dripping onto them in your freezer. While this is unlikely, it would ruin the hearts of palm in your freezer.

Consider Rigid Containers
Rigid plastic containers will provide another barrier between the frost and the hearts in your freezer, but another good reason to use a rigid container is that it can protect the hearts of palm from things being dropped onto them.

Thaw in a Marinade
Hearts of palm are sometimes used as a meat substitute. If this is the case in your kitchen, let the hearts of palm marinade as they thaw. This can save time while you’re cooking, and make sure that the marinade flavour is extra punchy. 

How Long Can You Freeze Hearts of Palm?

You can freeze hearts of palm for around 3 months before they start to become freezer burned.

Thankfully, this is quite a long time – to ensure you get all of it, ensure that the cling film wraps around the hearts of palm nicely, protecting them from both the air in the freezer and any moisture.

How Do You Defrost Hearts of Palm?

The easiest way to defrost hearts of palm is to use your fridge. You can place the hearts themselves onto a plate in your fridge, and then allow them to thaw overnight.

The benefit of using your fridge is that when they’re thawed, the hearts of palm will continue to be stored at a safe temperature.

Can You Refreeze Hearts of Palm?

Yes, you can refreeze hearts of palm.

However, we really wouldn’t recommend doing it. They have quite a high water content, which means that when they are thawed and refrozen, their texture can become very mushy.

Do Hearts of Palm Freeze Well?

No, hearts of palm don’t freeze very well. The reason for this is that there’s a lot of water in them. When that water freezes, it expands, which damages all the individual cells within the heart itself.

This will happen again and again when hearts of palm are refrozen. Therefore, try to avoid refreezing them wherever you can too.

Fortunately, if you consider what you’re using them for, you can freeze them well. If they’re going to be cooked down in a stew or curry then that’s fine. You certainly won’t want to use them in a salad, for example.

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing hearts of palm or hearts of palm in general, then these may help: