Best Freezer Bags for Freezer Burn

What is freezer burn, and what does a bag have to do with it?

FDA answers both in its consumer page Are You Storing Food Safely?. “Freezer burn does not mean food is unsafe. Freezer burn is a food-quality issue, not a food safety issue. It appears as grayish-brown leathery spots on frozen food.” And the cause, which is the sentence every bag here is sold against: it “can occur when food is not securely wrapped in air-tight packaging, and causes dry spots in foods.”

So a freezer bag has two jobs, and a page can only be judged on what it says about each. The seal has to keep air out, and the plastic has to keep the cold, dry air of the freezer from pulling moisture through it. What Makes a Freezer Bag Different From a Storage Bag explains why the same brand sells both. This guide reads four freezer bag pages for those two things, and ranks on how much each page says.

How do the four pages describe their seal and their plastic?

Hefty’s slider page names its seal design and calls the plastic extra thick. Glad’s zipper page calls its seal airtight and its plastic extra-thick and durable. Glad’s Flex’N Seal page says its bags “stretch for a tight seal,” so a full bag still closes. Hefty’s press-to-close page describes a “double zipper” that “snaps closed” and says nothing about thickness at all. None of the four names the plastic, and none states a thickness in mils, the measure What Trash Bag Thickness in Mils Actually Tells You explains for the bags that do print one. On a freezer bag, “extra thick” is as specific as any of these pages gets.

Our pick: Hefty Freezer Slider Bags, Gallon

Hefty’s page opens with the claim, “Bye, freezer burn!”, and then says more about the bag than any other page here. The seal is “an extra secure slider seal” on a “MaxLock® track design with extra strong seal.” The plastic is “extra thick.” The bottom is a “stand and fill expandable bottom,” which is the part a reader filling a bag of soup cares about. It gives the dimensions of the quart and the gallon, and it says what happens to the bag afterward: “bags can be recycled when clean and dry” at a plastic film drop-off, and “bags are not compostable.”

One caveat. A slider is a different closure from a zipper, and the page does not compare the two. It is first because it describes its own closure in more detail than any other page, not because a slider is shown to seal better.

Runner-up: Glad Food Zipper Lock Freezer Bags, Gallon

Glad’s page makes the same two claims as Hefty’s, in one sentence: “Prevent freezer burn thanks to an airtight zip-lock seal and extra-thick durable plastic.” What puts it a step behind is what the page leaves out, no seal design named, no dimensions, nothing about recycling. What it has that no other page here has is the comparison grid, which gives “prevents freezer burn” and “freezing” to this bag and “locks in freshness” and “marinating & travel” to the storage bag beside it. It comes in gallon and quart.

Also consider: Glad Flex’N Seal Freezer Bags, Quart

Glad’s newer freezer bag makes its claim about the seal rather than the plastic. “Our new FLEX’N SEAL™ bags stretch for a tight seal, so you can fill them to the brim and they’ll still keep freezer burn at bay,” with a footnote reading “by helping prevent freezer burn.” It is third because the page lists one size, quart, and says nothing about thickness or recycling. For a household that freezes in quart portions and overfills its bags, the stretch claim is the one that matters, and this is the only page here that makes it.

Know before you buy: Hefty Press to Close Freezer Bags, Gallon

Hefty’s press-to-close bag is sold as “perfect for portioning bulk foods for freezer storage,” with a “double zipper” that “provides a secure seal that snaps closed” and the same stand-and-fill bottom as the slider. It comes in three sizes, quart, half gallon and gallon, and carries the same recycling statements as Hefty’s other page. It is last because its page never claims to prevent freezer burn and never describes the plastic. It may do both; the page just doesn’t say.

What we left out

Glad’s Zipper Lock Storage Bag has a record, and its page’s own comparison grid is the reason it is not a pick: the grid gives freezing to the freezer bag. Ziploc’s site could not be reached with the tools available, so no record exists for the brand most readers would expect to see here. That absence says nothing about the product.

How we researched this

Every product fact in this guide comes from each brand’s own website, read on the date each record shows. Nothing was retrieved from a retailer listing. Seal descriptions, thickness claims, freezer burn claims, sizes and recycling statements are quoted from each manufacturer and are the manufacturer’s own; no page names the plastic, states a thickness, gives a pack count or claims a certification, and each record says so. FDA’s consumer page is the source for what freezer burn is and what causes it. Runlow has not tested any of these bags and makes no claim about how long any of them keeps food. No prices are shown. Every retailer link goes to a search results page for the exact product, not a specific listing, so it stays accurate regardless of what’s currently in stock.