Freezer Burnt Food

If it were actually freezer burned, it certainly wouldn't taste very good. It does seem that you'd had it quite a long time, so you probably did the right thing. If it just has a few ice crystals and hasn't been in there too long, I try rinsing it off and see. If it doesn't smell right when cooking, I toss it.

It helps to try to "rotate the stock" in your freezer, like they do in stores, so the oldest stuff is always on top. That way, nothing gets pushed to the back/bottom of the freezer and forgotten.

 

There is a time limit you can keep freezer food that was a topic on Dr. Oz one day long ago and it was 3 months for most everything.

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here for foods in the freezer. I throw out my old food from the freezer too. I got into the habit of labeling and dating frozen foods too.Instead of looking at it and wondering, like before I just look at my label, so much easier.

 

I read on Chowhound that if you have freezer burned meat, you can still marinate the heck out of it ,and brown it very well and it'll be edible. The ice crystals that cause freezer burn won't kill you, they just make the meat lose taste and texture. I once had some freezer burned buffalo wings that I refried and doused with fresh hot sauce and they tasted fine.

 

I usually give away food that is freezer burnt. Our local homeless shelter will take frozen foods even food with freezer burn so at least I know the food isn't wasted. I try to regularly turn my freezer but when I do a clean out every 8 months or so I find some items that I'm not going to eat but I don't want to throw out. I just read on one website that food that has freezer burn is safe to eat it but you may find texture and taste are not to your liking.

 

I'd say better save than sorry. I can't imagine that freezer burnt food would still be nutritious. But, obviously, if money or food is tight, I would probably eat it. Even though, I wouldn't feel good about it. I would be nervous for a few hours after eating the fish, wondering whether I gave myself a dose of food poisoning.

 

There was a time when we go to the market once a week so our freezer was full of raw meat andf fish. One time we thawed a pack of beef but later on changed our mind so we put it back to the freezer. After some days, we thawed it again for cooking. We noticed the different taste. It is stale, meaning not fresh anymore. Now we make it a point to go to the market when we need meat or fish to be a assured of freshness. We never store meat in the freezer anymore, much more fish because it is easier to spoil even when frozen.

 

In most cases, when I cooked up some freezer burned meats, they were generally OK. This would happen to me once in a while if I bought a big pack of ground beef - which I would portion into patties in individual bags as soon as I got home. Once in a while there would be a few of them that would get some freezer burn, but in most cases when I cooked them up, they tasted just fine. This would also happen occasionally with chicken tenders and chicken breasts that I had in the back of the freezer, or even some pork chops. As long as you cook them well, and dress them up with some sauces/marinades, or perhaps even stew them slowly, they should be just fine.

Look at it this way, if you can squeeze a few more days of meals out of that stuff by using it up, think of all the money you just saved vs. tossing them out and heading back out to the store to buy more.

 

@Corzhens I've heard that once it's thawed, it can't be refrozen. If I do what you did and change my mind, I will cook it anyway, then re-freeze, since the constitution has been changed by cooking, so refreezing then is o.k.

I'm using up the older food in my freezer now. For some reason, I had a lot in there that I wasn't using, because I was cooking more fresh and canned food, but now I'm buying more frozen veggies, and am cycling them from front to back of the freezer. I am trying to cook at least one package per week, to keep the supply fairly 'fresh'.