Can You Refreeze Ground Beef?

We’ve all been there. We’ve pulled a package of ground beef out of the freezer with the best of intentions to cook with it (French onion meatballs! Cheesy pastelón! Hawaiian burger sliders!), and then life happens. Perhaps you, like me, have held that neglected package in your hands and have asked, “Can I just stick this back in the freezer?” Here’s everything you need to know about when it is and isn’t safe to refreeze ground beef.

Yes! You can safely refreeze previously frozen ground beef, depending on some key time, temperature, and storage factors. To understand those food safety parameters better, I reached out to Dr. Benjamin Chapman, professor and department head in the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University, and food safety specialist at the NC State Extension. “Refreezing ground beef is totally safe,” he told me. “As long as the temperature of the beef was maintained in a safe way during the thawing process.”

Below, I’ve outlined a few guidelines to determine whether you’ve met the criteria to safely refreeze.

The USDA recommends three safe methods for defrosting frozen meat or poultry: thawing in the refrigerator, thawing in cold water, or thawing in the microwave. It’s worth a reminder here that you should never let frozen ground beef thaw on the counter at room temperature, no matter what you’re doing with it next, as the meat can enter the “danger zone” between 40–140°F, creating an environment where bacteria and spoilage microbes can grow. 

If you “quick-thawed” your ground beef using the cold water or microwave methods, which can briefly bring the meat into the danger zone, then you’ll need to cook it right away to ensure any pathogens are killed off. That means you shouldn’t refreeze raw beef thawed with these methods (sorry!). But, as consolation, you can freeze it again after it’s been cooked. “That cooking step starts a new clock,” Dr. Chapman explained. “Any of the spoilage microbes or pathogens that were there, you’ve killed them.” So, cook off any of that quick-thawed beef before it goes bad, then go ahead and store the leftovers in the freezer.

If, however, you thawed the ground beef in the refrigerator, you can refreeze it! Storing it in the fridge ensures that the beef will be kept safely below 40°F throughout its thawing time. Bonus: This is our favorite method to thaw ground beef, as it’s easy, consistent, and hands-off.

It will take different quantities of ground beef differing amounts of time to fully thaw in the fridge, depending on how it’s packaged, where in the refrigerator you place it, and how cold your refrigerator runs. In our testing, it took 24 hours for a pound of ground beef to fully thaw in a gallon-size freezer bag. But if you’re defrosting more than a pound, or if it’s packaged in a thicker block, it may take longer.

Once the ground beef is fully thawed, the USDA recommends refreezing it within two days. So do some calculating here to figure out how long the thawed meat has been sitting in the fridge. If it’s been more than three to four days since you pulled it from the freezer, it’s best to cook or discard it instead of refreezing.

Along with temperature, exposure to oxygen is another safety factor to consider. With all of its many channels, nooks, and crannies, ground beef has a much greater surface area than a whole cut of beef like a steak. That translates to more places for microbes to grow in the air pockets throughout the mass of ground beef, versus just on the exterior of a single cut. If your ground beef was stored in airtight packaging, like a vacuum-sealed bag or its original tightly-wrapped plastic tray from the grocery store, that allows no or very little air to circulate around the meat. That makes it more difficult for microbes or pathogens to grow, and will give your ground beef a better chance of staying fresh in order to use or refreeze it after thawing.

If, however, your ground beef has been removed from its original packaging and is only loosely wrapped or stored in a zip-top bag with a lot of air around it, it will deteriorate more quickly. The beef will begin to oxidize as it’s exposed to the air, turning from red to brown or sometimes even gray and creating off flavors and off textures. This isn’t strictly “unsafe,” in that spoilage microbes are to blame for this process, and not pathogens like E. coli or Salmonella, but it is unpleasant and will make the meat unpalatable for most. “Oxidation is not an indicator of safety,” Dr. Chapman explained. “Pathogens, the things that make us sick, often don’t smell bad, they don’t taste bad, they don’t lead to off flavors or off colors. But there are a bunch of spoilage microbes that can be a problem during thawing and when that ground beef is held at ambient or room temperature.”

So, if your ground beef has been exposed to air and has an off color or smells bad when you open its package, don’t bother refreezing it. The beef has begun to spoil and freezing it again won’t change that.

If you follow these guidelines — thaw in the fridge while wrapped tightly, then refreeze after only a few days — you could freeze, thaw, and refreeze ground beef multiple times without risking safety. What you will risk, however, is the quality of the beef’s texture. Each time you freeze and thaw the ground beef, it will lose some of its moisture as the water inside turns to ice, then melts back into water. Beef that’s gone through this cycle is best used in dishes like classic beef chili or a slow-cooked soup where its texture isn’t a key feature. For the juiciest burgers and most tender meatballs, go with fresh ground beef if you can, or ground beef that’s only been frozen and thawed once.