Assembly Line

How frozen french fries are made

Factory fries are fried twice, first in the plant and then in your kitchen, with a deep freeze between.

stations
7
things upstream
10
raw sources
7
steps from the ground
4

The short version

Russet potatoes are steam-peeled, cut into strips by water-driven knives, blanched and air-dried. A short fry in oil sets the surface before the strips are frozen. At home or in a restaurant, the second fry finishes the job. Since the 1960s, most American fries have been made from frozen potatoes.

  1. Steam-peel the potatoes

    Potatoes are blasted with steam in a pressure vessel, which loosens the skin so it can be scrubbed off with brushes. Russets are the usual variety for fries.

    Goes in
    PotatoesWater

  2. Fire them through a knife

    Water carries potatoes through a bank of blades at high speed, and they come out as even strips. Cameras then spot and remove strips that have dark defects.

  3. Blanch in hot water

    Strips pass through a hot bath that partly cooks them and leaches out sugars. Removing sugar prevents dark, bitter spots when they are fried.

  4. Dry with warm air

    Blanched strips travel through a dryer to take surface water away. Drier strips fry crisper and take up less oil.

  5. Par-fry in oil

    Strips are fried briefly in vegetable oil. This first fry cooks the starch and sets a thin crust, ready for the second fry. Restaurants do this step at about 160 °C, while the second hot fry at about 190 °C turns the outside golden.

    Goes in
    Vegetable oil

  6. Freeze them solid

    Strips move through a freezing tunnel. Freezing quickly keeps ice crystals small so the cells do not burst and turn mushy later.

  7. Bag and ship frozen

    Fries are weighed into bags or cartons and stored at deep-freeze temperature until they are shipped in refrigerated trucks.

End of the lineFrozen french fries

Worth repeating

  • Thomas Jefferson had potatoes served in the French manner at a White House dinner in 1802.
  • Belgium and France have an ongoing dispute about where fries were invented.

Back to the ground

Follow every input upstream and frozen french fries starts as these 7 raw sources.

PotatoesWaterSoybeansRapeseedClayCrude oilNatural gas

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Sources

Cite this page: "How frozen french fries are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/french-fries

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