Creating a sandwich at home can be as tricky as baking a cake or as easy as making a salad. It all depends on how you choose to pick, store, and prepare the main ingredients such as the bread and the meat. Pubilx Deli boasts a wide variety of meat selections.
The condiments, cheese, and vegetables also matters as these minor ingredients can make or break the sandwich.
One of the most asked about is if it’s okay to freeze cold cuts and deli meats, especially if there are a lot of excess from your previous sandwich making escapade.
To freeze or not to freeze, that is the right question, and here is a list of the advantages and limitations of doing such.
Advantages of Freezing
While most would recommend against it because of the moisture or change in texture when thawed, it does increase the shelf life. Most frozen deli meats and cold cuts can last up to six months depending on how well they have been stored.
Labeling each plastic wrap with the start date of freezing wouldn’t hurt and it will save you from guessing whether it has gone bad or not.
Furthermore, freezing also has great effects on cured or dried deli meats such as pepperoni, bologna, and salami. For best results, separate each slices with paper towel or tissue and place them in a ziplock bag for added moisture-free storage.
In case you find the thawed meat weird, you can always look for other ways to use them such as topping in a pizza or included in an omelet.
Limitations of Freezing
Besides making the cold cuts slimy, watery and easily shredded to pieces, the texture of the soft meats like turkey or ham changes with an off-putting taste.
Cold cuts like cheese is a different story because it can degrade the product, leaving you with a pile of too soft, too unusable cheeses in your fridge.
What Food Safety Says
The government knows more about freezing food than an American adult thinks and they believe it is okay to freeze cold cuts and deli meats. In fact, they have provided a chart for everyone to follow.
- Fresh beef, lamb, pork & veal – steaks can last up to six months to a year if frozen while roasts take about four to 12 months.
- Burger patties & other ground meats – can last up to three to four months if prepared well and frozen just below zero degrees.
- Hot dogs – an opened package can last for one to two months, similar to that of an unopened package.
- Bacon – can last up to a month in the freezer.
- Sausage – for raw meat variants, it can last from a month up to two months.
- Fresh poultry – for whole chicken or turkey, it can last up to year while pieces like breast, legs and the like can last up to nine months in storage.
Leftover cooked meat or poultry – can last up to two or six months in the freezer
