Can You Freeze Italian Sausage?

Who hasn’t been in a position where you buy more Italian Sausage than you could eat at a go just because it looked amazing? It’s not an unusual practice to get more of a type of food than needed, especially a food as versatile as the Italian Sausage.

Can you freeze Italian Sausage? Yes, you most certainly can freeze an Italian sausage in the freezer; however the best way to go about it is by cooking it prior to freezing because a raw sausage is more prone to a nasty freeze burn.

It’s great to freeze these treats because they come in handy for making both simple and fancy meals.

Freezing Italian Sausages

Though Italian Sausages can be stored for longer, it is recommended to consume them within a period of one to two months to make the best use out of them, taste wise. These sausages don’t go bad if they are kept frozen at 0°F.

The point of holding on to these sausages kind of fails to make sense when you’re not getting the best of them within this time bracket. No one looks forward to eating old withered sausages!

How to Freeze Italian Sausage:

We’ve already established it is better to freeze these sausages after cooking them; another useful tip to keep these babies safe from freezer burn is to keep it as far away as possible from air. Here are the steps you should be mindful of while attempting to freeze Italian Sausages for using later on:

Step 1: Cook it before you Store it

The best way to cook Italian Sausage prior to freezing it is in its ground form. Start by browning the sausage meat in a skillet.

Once you notice the color changing, make sure to get rid of the excess fat before finally putting it away to freeze.

You can also make meatballs of the raw meat and cook those if that’s what tickles your fancy.

Step 2: Let it Cool Before You Freeze it

You may not think this to be an important thing to take note of because it will get very chilled in the freezer, no?

Well when the meat is cooked, it obviously is very hot. It is important to allow the temperature to wear off a bit before freezing the meat because that way it won’t get frozen evenly.

Its best you allow it to reach room temperature before putting it in a bag to be frozen.

Step 3: Keep it Air-Tight

When your cooked meat is ready to be stored, make sure you seal it up tight by sucking out all the excess air that may be inside the packet and also to prevent any air bubbles from entering into the package. Juegos borrados de la play store

The best strategy is to use double packing i.e. start by wrapping it in a foil tightly and then placing it in a bag. Try to seal your outer bag as well as possible to make sure it lasts until you want it to.

Step 4: Put a Date on it

We know you have a busy life. You don’t have the time to remember when you put your Italian Sausage away in the freezer!

By labeling it with a stick-on that has the date written on it, you are making life easy for yourself. Just look at the label and cook it!

How to Reheat Your Italian Sausage

When you’re ready to use the frozen meat, make sure you thaw it out by allowing it to stay in your refrigerator instead of leaving it on your kitchen counter.

The reason for not doing that is that the outer layers of meat tend to thaw faster than the inner parts, so the outer layer becomes susceptible to the on-take of bacteria and other pathogens.

You can very easily heat thawed sausage meat which was frozen by heating it in the microwave for about 3-4 minutes to allow the heat to dissipate evenly.

If you’re planning on defrosting all of it, make sure it gets consumed on the same day because refreezing thawed out meat is a big no if you don’t want to compromise on the amazing taste and texture.

It drastically increases the chances of you contracting a nasty case of food poisoning if you are unable to seal the meat as perfectly as you did the first time you froze it.

Does Freezing Italian Sausage Affect the Taste?

We already know that it is well indeed possible to store Italian Sausage meat in a freezer for a reasonable period of time.

It is possible to eat a thawed out frozen sausage without having to compromise on its delicious taste and amazing texture but only if you respect the process; freeze it properly and thaw it out properly to preserve its quality.

Even if it doesn’t rot, it might develop a freezer burn that we talked about earlier. This burn doesn’t render the meat inedible but it does make the burnt parts very dry and difficult to chew.

How to know if Leftover Italian Sausages are Safe to Eat?

The best way to make sure that what you are eating is fresh and safe is to make sure it doesn’t emit a foul odor.

A bad Italian Sausage will let off a disgusting sour smell which is very hard to miss even by the most oblivious of people. The smell is often accompanied by a weird slimy texture.

You shouldn’t have to taste such a sausage before figuring out that it is bad to eat.

As long as you’re properly storing your sausages in your freezer you have nothing to worry about. You should remain wary of a bad sausage because it’s one thing to taste something foul, it’s another to be affected by it.

E. coli, salmonella, listeria and Yersinia are a few examples of what you can expect to get by consuming a bad sausage.

Final Thoughts

Fresh Italian sausages generally don’t contain any preservatives so to increase their life be sure to follow the methods of freezing them.

We hope this article helps you out. Be sure to follow the steps properly to preserve the taste and quality of the sausages.