Meat: make it all at once, or freeze?

[ski]

Cooking for one question 2869.

I bought ground turkey, enough for 2 meals (the smallest I could get), so here's the question. Should I use half of it, and put the other half in a ziploc bag in the freezer... OR should I make all of it and try to microwave the remains later this week?

Need a balance between getting food poisoning and the food still having taste

[Thesifer]

I freeze my food all of the time and it comes out just fine.. Ive left chicken in the marinade for well over a month.. and had it come out great.. Id say freeze it unless you are planning on eating it the next day or so

[avlena]

I freeze taco meat (chicken & beef) after it's been made, because it makes future meals easier. Never had a problem with food quality because of it.

[surfer]

If the meat is fresh I tend to cook it then freeze it then reheat it. If the meat is frozen I'll leave it frozen till I'm ready to cook it.

For example I'll buy 4 racks of beef ribs frozen when they are on sale and they go right in the freezer till I'm ready to bbq them on the grill. Whatever is left over goes in the freezer unless I'm gonna eat it the next day.

I had to go through this food safety class once and they showed this video on bacteria growth. Basically you want to keep meat as far away from room temperature as possible.

[ooBaKeep]

Cooking for one question 2869.

I bought ground turkey, enough for 2 meals (the smallest I could get), so here's the question. Should I use half of it, and put the other half in a ziploc bag in the freezer... OR should I make all of it and try to microwave the remains later this week?

Need a balance between getting food poisoning and the food still having taste

Either way is find, I like to mark a ziplock bag with the date. 6 months max I think for food freashness and meat tends to get freezer burn easily. So, cook it and make a new meal later in the week, it's easier on you. Here is a link for information on freezing and storing food. Food Freezing and Storage Guidelines

Happy Cooking!

[FoxTrot]

I guess it depends upon how you want to use the meat later. Ground turkey is pretty standard. If you usually cook it plain, w/out seasonings, then cook it all at once and divide it into single recipe servings and freeze. Otherwise I'd probably divide it raw and use what I want now and freeze the rest. You can even season/marinate raw meat (chicken, beef, fish) and grill/cook later.

Something to consider... it is pretty common that meat, from the butcher to market, is fresh...frozen...thawed, then sold on the shelf. If that is the case, I'd cook it up and then freeze it.

If you know for a fact that the meat is fresh (for instance Henry's Marketplace and Costco have a meat dept where they cut the unfrozen meat [some meats] right there, you know it has never been frozen before you get it thawed.) Then I'd go ahead and freeze raw meat. If you're not sure, the butcher at the market where you buy the meat will tell you their protocol. It is always good to get to know your butcher. (Alice had a good thing...if you know what I mean.)

Once you freeze the meat, use whatever you thaw right away. Don't take portions and refreeze what you don't want.

[ski]

I freeze taco meat (chicken & beef) after it's been made, because it makes future meals easier. Never had a problem with food quality because of it.

That's what I'm making -- taco meat. The problem is, I can't season it with the water+spice and then freeze it, because it's got the liquid in it, hard to get into a plastic bag. So should I just cook it all, and put half in a freezer bag before I season it?

[DarkFury]

The "bad food bandit" STRIKES again!!!!

[nickel]

The "bad food bandit" STRIKES again!!!!

gotta love him. . . i remember calling my Mom with all these questions when i was in college.

[ski]

I can't ask my parents because they lived on campus through college and got married right after.

I can't ask my sister because all she eats is yogurt (it seems).

I'm the only one in my family that tries to cook real food for one!

But thank you for your help, I really do appreciate having multiple voices in these dangerous situations

[molecularfire]

How long are you planning to keep the left-over taco meat. If it's only going to be a couple of days (heck, up to a week) then just cook the whole thing and pop the rest in the refrigerator. If you're going to make the same thing from that ground beef then for convenience you might as well cook and season it with the first batch and freeze it (if you don't want to put it in a zip loc bag then buy some small tupperware containers and freeze it in that). If you want the option of cooking something different with that meat than freeze the meat uncooked.

[Airencracken]

The "bad food bandit" STRIKES again!!!!