Can you freeze bagels successfully?

If you can have someone almost slice through each one , with a small hinge, then simply freeze one or two per bag (sealed tightly). Then remove and toast; the hinge makes it easy to open flat while they are still frozen.

If they go stale, they are stale, no matter what and suited only for bread crumbs (which are only good for mac and cheese anyway).

Serving is easy; toast, smear a little cream cheese on each side , or peanut butter. I use lo-fat cottage cheese and some walnut pieces, and butter is always delicious.

The classic bagel is served, toasted, with a smear of cream cheese and a very thin slice of smoked salmon (which I no longer eat).

Yes, absolutely. In fact, you can even buy them frozen from the grocery store, if you want.

Great to have a little info, many thanks, especially good to know that they are meant to be served toasted, I didn’t even know that. I shall probably freeze them as soon as I get them.

Absolutely. Make sure you cut them before freezing so you can eat just half, or even just pop them in the toaster without having to defrost them first. It is ok to defrost them first though if you want to. Make sure they are down to room temp before bagging and freezing them if you buy them fresh. Freeze them in plastic, removing as much air as possible.

I do it all the time, because who wants to run to the bagel store constantly.

You don’t have to toast a fresh bagel, it isn’t like an English Muffin which is basically par baked, it is a matter of preference with a fresh bagel. A lot of inexpensive or refrigerator bagels are not good untoasted, because they tend to be too soft on the outside. Also, if you live in a place that doesn’t have a lot of Jews, it is likely, but not necessarily so, that your bagels need to be toasted to taste decent. After freezing I always toast mine.

We freeze them all the time. We just defrost one in the microwave when we want to toast one.

I love them with cream cheese, either plain or salmon flavored, and also to use for cheese sandwiches with mayo.

@Adagio I agree with @JLeslie – a good fresh bagel does not needing toasting unless you prefer. Frozen bagels are best served toasted. I love onion bagels toasted with butter on them although cream cheese is the standard topping. Make sure you wrap them well for the freezer so they don’t dry out. By the way, cinnamon raisin bagels or any sweet bagel is not a bagel in my books!

I have a great bagel store near my house. Come to the States and I will serve you bagels anyway you want!

You can, I do. They will get freezer burn eventually, (and then I throw them out) but you can for a few months keep them in freezer.

I have a favorite bagel store, and when I buy a big, beautiful batch of bagels and bialys, I love eating one (or more) before freezing the rest because I think they taste best fresh. But freezing works fine. They come out hard as bricks, but 20 seconds or so in the microwave and they’re ready to be toasted and devoured with just butter or cream cheese, or topped with lox, onion and capers. Yum…

Yup! I live in the land of bagels… but I’m also single. I buy them in dozens, then freeze them on the day they were baked, in bags of 3s and 4s. I defrost them before toasting – they turn out just like fresh bagels.

Personally, I wouldn’t microwave them to defrost, because it messes with the texture. I just leave them on the counter.

I still vote for the partial pre-freezing slicing with the hinge; microwaving a frozen bagel produces a bendy, rubbery thing, as @glacial mentions.

@gailcalled I’m really picky about the way I cut my bagels – I always use a butter knife, because I want it to be a rough cut, to hold more cream cheese. I find cutting with a very sharp knife spoils the experience for me. I wonder – do you have such a preference?

Anyway – more surface area is great for the cream cheese, but less good for freeze/thawing. My feeling is that the bagel will stay slightly fresher if it’s not cut.

This is beginning to sound like some of our circumcision arguments!

@janbb Ha!

@glacial; You apparently are fine-tuning the bagel prep. more than I and have a much more refined palette.

On the rare occasions when I buy them (usually when I have guests for a few days), I have the woman at The Bagel Café do the slicing and don’t pay much attention. She made the hinge suggestion.

And the problem with having cream cheese on hand is that it, like nut butters, is delicious eaten with a spoon all by itself.

Certainly.

@glacial A rough cut? Funny, I complained to Target because their Einstein bagels in my area (I know I know, not the best bagel in the world, but I was in Memphis and it was slim pickings) were too puffy and had too many holes. I told them it isn’t an English muffin, it’s supposed to be dense and smooth when you cut it. The girl I was talking to had no idea what I was talking about. It’s not exactly the same as what you describe of course, but I never even thought someone might want a rough cut. I would think it is kind of difficult to get through a bagel with a butter knife. Although, probably safer. Cutting a bagel can be dangerous.

I agree microwaving is bad to defrost a bagel, but if it is a crappy bagel anyway it doesn’t matter much. It’s why I slice mine before freezing, no need to defrost before toasting, but your right, with a rough cut it wouldn’t freeze well.

@gailcalled Why not just cut all the way through?

@gailcalled “delicious eaten with a spoon all by itself”
And here I thought I was the only person who did that. :D

@JLeslie I would also have taken issue with your puffy bagels – the texture of the bagels is of supreme importance! But cutting the bagel doesn’t change the texture of the bread, it just determines how much surface area you have to work your cream cheese over. Using a butter knife will not not produce a smooth cut even in a dense bagel. I’m not sure I’d agree it’s safer, but my technique is well-practiced.

No crappy bagels in my house, so that’s not a concern. Like I said, I live in a town with incredible bagels. :)

^^A frozen bagel sliced with a small hinge can be opened and toasted without having to defrost it and yet is less prone to freezer burn.

@glacial; Have you noticed the elephantiasis of the bagel today, reflecting the obesity issue in society as a whole? I grew up in the Bronx when the old fashioned plain water bagel was a shadow of the Michelin tire-sized things sold now. (And didn’t contain blueberries, choc. chips, garlic, oat bran and other impurities.)

@gailcalled At the mention of a Michelin tire, I know exactly what you mean. I don’t even consider these bagels – they are just roundly shaped bread.

This is what a bagel looks like, which I recommend buying here. :)

@gailcalled the bagel enlargement is truly emblematic of the problems of American avoirdupois. And see comment above re: cinnamon raisin et al.

I agree about the bagel size. It’s ridiculous. I cut mine in thirds a lot of the time.

Well, we used to half joke that cutting a bagel the wrong way you can slit your wrists. At least with a butter knife you probably won’t make it down to an artery.

If you’re planning to buy packaged bagels at a grocery store, your venture into bagel-dom might be very disappointing. Those starchy things aren’t real bagels; neither are the poseurs sold by Dunkin Donuts.

A good bagel is kettled — pre-cooked in boiling water — and then baked in an oven. It has a light, yeasty interior and a thin, golden crust. Yum!

After a good nights sleep I find you have all been busy responding, I enjoyed your comments and suggestions, thank you to all. I will bear everything in mind when eating my bagel, my only regret is that I cannot bake bread anymore, a skill I was rather proud of if I am truthful, I’d like to experiment with making them myself, oh well, such is life.

^^ Even the most dedicated bakers usually do not make their own bagels.

@gailcalled I would have liked to try anyway

^^^ I do understand that.

For a diversion, read about how to make a French baguette, from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two. It is a 12-hour procedure (and if I remember correctly, forty pages in the cookbook.)

I cut my bagels with a serrated knife – a general purpose serrated knife, which, to me, is what a bread knife is, just that a bread knife is way longer. IMHO a butter knife would not be effective for cutting a bagel, as the bagel consistency is too dense.