Lunchmeat, otherwise called cold cut or deli meat, has a famously short timeframe of realistic usability from exquisite to vile in a few days. To preserve the goodness and freshness of lunch meat for later use, most home chefs prefer easy ways to freeze it.
Once opened, the deli meat cannot stay good for long. However, packaged lunch meat is the easiest to freeze and can be left frozen for two months as long as it’s wrapped appropriately to retain the moisture content.
You can freeze any sort of deli meat – however, not all of them freeze similarly. If you are purchasing with the intent to freeze the lunch meat, it is better to stick with cold cuts like bologna, pepperoni, or hotdog. They hold up better in the freezer.
Learn the right ways to freeze lunch meat with us, so you have the meaty goodness ready for use at all times!
Freeze Lunch Meat in Hassle Free Ways
The biggest concern with frozen meat is that it remains safe to consume. Mostly, package meats have instructions on them for the time they can stay good in the freezer.
Meats with greater water content, such as ham, chicken, and turkey, are frequently more vulnerable to more unrestrained consumption than meats with lower water content.
Ideally, you can freeze lunch meat for 48 to 72 hours in the cooler or freezer.
Freezing deli meat is easy; however, it requires a smidgen of prep work. Here, we will give you bit-by-bit guidelines on the most proficient method to freeze deli meat, from entire slices to counter cuts.
Unopened Deli Meat (In A Vacuum-Sealed Pack)
If you recently bought lunch meat from any supermarket and it’s already in airtight packaging (vacuum-sealed pack), you don’t need to wrap it again.
- Label it with the details (name , date)
- After labeling it, place the lunch meat in the zip lock or any other freezer-safe bag and put in the freezer
- You can stack up multiple packages of lunch meat on top of each other.
Opened Deli meat (Without Vacuum Sealed)
Once you open or unseal the frozen one, you need to repack the deli meat into a freezer-safe, ziplock, or waterproof bag.
- Place a material such as; baking paper or wax paper in the middle of each meat cut to save it for long-term use.
- When it is packed firmly, try to name the deli meat and mention the date also.
- Place into the freezer for later use.
Unpacked Deli Freezing process
You may not consume the entire pack of your lunch meat in one go. To preserve the leftover slices of your favorite cut, here is what you can do:
- Wrap the individual slices of lunch meat in wax paper before placing them in a bag in the freezer.
- To avoid freezer consumption, make sure to push out all of the air.
- Ensure that you label the date on the freezer bag.
Defrosting your lunch meat
The deli meat sits frozen in the freezer, as good as new. However, to revive its freshness when about to use, it is essential to defrost your lunch meat the right way.
The best method of defrosting the deli meat is to place it in the fridge and leave it overnight. Keep the lunch meat in a freezer-safe pack until it gets fully defrosted.
After defrosting the lunch meat, it is also recommended to heat the lunch meat before serving. Heat the lunch meat as per the reheating requirement on the package because heating it more than once can allow the growth of bacteria- and you would not want that.
You can keep the defrosted meat in the cooler and always wrap it up again when not used. The defrosted meat can be kept going for two days.
Final Thoughts
Given that it has a short shelf life, if you are unaware of the importance of freezing deli meat, there are higher chances that it will ruin the refrigerator. The delish meat slices turn sour only a couple of days after buying; this is why it is essential to freeze lunch meat the right way.
With perfectly frozen lunch meat sitting fresh in the freezer ready to satisfy the unpredictable hunger pangs- you would be saving trips to the grocery stores and unnecessary food order-ins!
