Ice Formation and Recrystallization in Frozen Foods: Recent Trends and Potential Application of Gas Hydrates

Ice recrystallization significantly impacts the long-term quality of frozen foods by causing structural damage, texture loss, and degradation of sensory and nutritional properties. To address this, various inhibition strategies have emerged, broadly grouped into thermomechanical methods (e.g. high-pressure freezing, pulsed electric fields, electromagnetic-assisted freezing) and physicochemical approaches involving antifreeze proteins and polysaccharide stabilizers. This review critically examines these techniques, focusing on their mechanisms, experimental evidence, and application limits across food matrices. Special attention is given to gas hydrates, introduced as a promising yet underexplored alternative. Thanks to their crystalline structure, phase behavior, and ability to encapsulate guest molecules under mild conditions, gas hydrates offer new possibilities for controlling ice dynamics. Their capacity to form ice-like solids with distinct recrystallization behavior presents a novel path toward improving frozen food stability. This review consolidates existing knowledge while highlighting gas hydrates as a frontier strategy in frozen food preservation.