Can You Freeze Cut Watermelon?

An outdoor cookout never looks complete without a bounty of bright red watermelon slices adorning the picnic table. But once the festivities are over, there always seem to be leftovers needing a home, and it's common to wonder if those juicy, sweet treats can be frozen for later use. Not only can they be frozen — they should be. Watermelon season is relatively short and comes but once a year. It would be a tragedy to waste any of that staple summertime produce.

Although you can save the life of those precious slices by freezing them, it's important to note that it will affect the texture when you pull them out to thaw. Water-logged fruits like watermelon tend to become mushy after an extended stay in the icebox. This happens because the water content of the fruit can form large ice crystals when frozen, which breaks apart its fibrous structure. This isn't a reason to avoid freezing it, but being aware of this will allow you to take steps to prevent this from occurring as best you can.

While freezing fruits with a high water content creates ice crystals that can expand, flash freezing them will prevent crystallization that denatures the cells, more or less retaining the integrity of the flesh. Keeping your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below, and giving the slices, cubes or sticks enough space on a surface in the freezing process, will help ensure the crystals don't expand too much. Ideally this should be done in batches to ensure good circulation, allowing a standard freezer to realize an good flash freeze.

Remove the seeds and cut away the edible watermelon rinds, then grab a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. There are several innovative ways to use the leftover watermelon rinds, so make sure they don't end up in the trash. Line your ruby red cubes or wedges on the pan and place them in the icebox for two hours. Once entirely frozen, transfer them to an airtight container for long-term storage – up to one year.

Flash freezing helps salvage the texture and makes it easier to pull out only the amount you want without having to chisel away at pieces with a butterknife. When thawed, the watermelon may lose a bit of its natural sweetness, but you can counter this by dusting it with sugar before flash freezing. Even with modest ice crystal formations, the fruit will lose some of its crisp composition. However, this doesn't mean you are stuck making watermelon gazpacho after freezing.

If you anticipate biting into a crisp, juicy watermelon once it's completely thawed, you're likely in for a disappointment. However, you can mimic that crunchy texture and keep more of the flavor from seeping out by only partially thawing it before consumption. Instead of leaving it in the fridge for 24 hours to fully defrost, check on it every five hours or so until it is just slightly frozen. You want something you can comfortably bite into, so give it enough time to regress from its solid watermelon-cicle state.

Watermelon is one of the two summer fruits that are great to grill, but once the texture has deteriorated from thawing, it might not stand up to the heat well. Left partially frozen, it may stand a better chance of not becoming a mushy mess if grilled with a watchful eye. Before you throw it on, sprinkle some spicy Tajín seasoning on the watermelon that will give it a zing you didn't know it was missing.

A watermelon smoothie in the middle of winter can remind you of everything summer has to offer when the days grow darker. Using partially frozen fruit helps to thicken smoothies keep them chilled. Unless you want to flex your culinary muscles and create a sorbet from a watermelon purée, leaving the fruit somewhat frigid is the way to go when you want to enjoy it.