Investment Cooking - Meat For The Freezer

 

When you are living a healthy low carb lifestyle and you are not a vegetarian meats becomes a really important part of your meals.  I try to only purchase meat on sale for a really good price or on a good markdown and then I’ll stock up.  I then like to go home and repackage my purchases into meal size portions and get it into my freezer right away.

 

The process I use most often is quite simple and inexpensive.  I typically use sandwich or quart sized bags selecting the size that most closely matches the portion size.  Then I label each bag I’ll be using with what it is and the date.

 

Then I open all of the bags so they are ready to use.  I try to keep one hand for touching the meat and the other “clean” one for handling the bag.  Once I’ve tucked all the meat into the bags I wash my hands and then push all the air out that I can while I press the seal closed.

 

I lay all the packages of meat inside a one gallon size Ziploc bag keeping them as flat as possible and packing as many as I can before once again pushing out as much air as possible while I seal the larger bag closed.

 

Once all of my smaller bags are stored inside the larger bag I get it right into the freezer.  I find that by doing it this way I’m able to keep these packages of meat fresher and stave off any freezer burn in the process.  Even though I do have a vacuum sealer I find it an easier process and less expensive to do most of my freezing this way.  I also make sure to rotate and use up the older packages first so dating each package is a very important step in the process to avoid freezer burn.

 

I also find that maintaining an adequate inventory without over buying is also an important step to reduce food waste, however if I do find I’m a bit overstocked I will can up some of the meat or cook it and make freezer meals.  Do you do something like this when you put meat in the freezer?