Inside your freezer food containers Malaysia are a bunch of different meats that you bought in the supermarket a day ago. Maybe you are craving to barbecue some today, but maybe you want to save them for special occasions or a certain someone visiting your home, so you decide to keep your meats longer in the freezer.
The question is: how long can your frozen meat last in your freezer? Can frozen meat even be spoiled after so many months of chilling like icebergs? When will they remain tasty since you first bought them fresh from the market?
First of all, your frozen meats will never spoil so long as your freezer is set to zero degree temperatures and below. Any bacteria, yeasts or molds that may be sitting on your meat are rendered inactive, thus preventing any microorganisms from growing. Though your meats will remain edible, they will decrease in quality the longer you store them in the freezer.
Texture, taste, color and so on are the qualities that can be affected from prolonged storage for more than the recommended months. If you loosely wrap or freeze them slowly, it is even more effective. You won’t get sick from eating your one year old frozen meat, but it won’t be the juiciest cuts you will enjoy for tonight’s dinner.
Poultry
Chicken and turkeys are the poultry that you will commonly have in your own home. For up to a year, their whole bodies can last in the freezer while remaining delicious to eat. Meat cuts like thighs, wings or breasts last nine months, and should be consumed less than that.
If you are keeping giblets, also known as a chicken or turkey’s offal, three to four months will be the maximum you can keep in the freezer.
Beef, veal and lamb
Regardless of which of these animals that the meat was sourced from, raw steaks can be frozen for up to six to 12 months, while chops last four to six months. Meanwhile, any roasts that you keep should last up to a year in the freezer.
Ground meat
Ground beef, turkey, lamb or veal lasts for three to four months in the freezer. The same goes to your burger patties because, well, they are also ground meat shaped into patties.
Fish and seafood
If your fish are lean, they can last six to eight months. Otherwise if they are fatty, they last less and only retain their qualities while frozen for two to three months.
If this is your first time hearing lean and fatty fish, don’t worry. Common lean fish that you may find in the market include bass, cod, tuna and tilapia while fatty fish refer to salmon, mackerel and sardines.
For seafood like shrimps, scallops, squid, crabs, and octopus, they can last three to six months when frozen, so if you don’t want to taste mediocre sushi, get cooking before three months for the best effect.
Pork
Raw pork is pretty similar to beef in terms of freezing guidelines, where the chops can last four to six months in the freezer while roasts last for a solid year. If you are freezing processed pork like bacon, sausages, hot dogs and lunch meats, you should eat them as soon as possible since they only last for a month or two.