Cream cheese freezes for about two months, and it comes back grainy.
Whether that matters depends entirely on what happens to it next: in a baked cheesecake
or a sauce nobody will know, and spread on a bagel everybody will.
The reason is that cream cheese is a fat-and-water emulsion held together by protein,
and ice crystals split it. Unlike
hard cheese,
which simply crumbles and stays dry, cream cheese ends up both grainy and wet —
there is liquid to pour off afterwards.
Most of that is recoverable. Thaw it in the fridge overnight, pour off the liquid, let it
come to room temperature, and then beat it hard — a mixer or a stick blender,
not a fork. Beating re-emulsifies a surprising amount, and softening it first makes the
beating far more effective. For anything cooked, the texture ends up good enough that the
question stops being interesting.
Freezing it is undemanding. Unopened, leave it in its foil or tub and put the whole thing
in a bag. Opened, portion it at 100–200 g and press it flat, which speeds up both freezing
and thawing. Label it, because thawed cream cheese looks like several other things.
Where it works: baked cheesecake, cream cheese sauces, dips that get blended, stuffed pasta
and crepes, casseroles. Where it does not: on a bagel, in a no-bake cheesecake, as piped
frosting, or anywhere it is served cold and plain.
Frosting is worth a note of its own, because it is the exception that runs the other way.
Cream cheese frosting does not survive freezing as an ingredient, but it freezes
perfectly well already made and on the cake — frost it, chill until firm,
then freeze the whole thing. The sugar and butter stabilise what the freezer would otherwise
break.
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