My in-laws just bought a larger deep freeze and said we could take their old one. I am trying to figure out the best way to use it.

We have a Costco membership and usually buy our meat and fish in bulk, then bag them up for dinner servings. My wife and I have been starting to meal prep on the weekends (mainly prep work of cutting veggies up) and have been bagging and freezing those as well.

We buy a decent amount of fast snacking food to heat up in the oven or air fry, and thats where I am getting confused.

Is it best to meal prep/store meat in a deep freeze, or should we keep all of that in the upright fridge/freezer and put frozen pizza, French fries, chicken chunks, etc in there?

Also if anyone has recommendations for a cheap vac seal machine that would be cool.

  • rouxdoo@lemmy.world
    11·
    4 天前

    I can tell you from experience make sure that if the outlet you plug in to is GFCI protected have power loss alarm rigged up. Get a small generator for power outages. Nothing more frustrating than throwing away an entire chest of spoiled food.

  • IWW4@lemmy.zip
    5·
    4 天前

    If there are just two of you and if you are buying your meat from Costco, ad other retail outlets there is no point in buying huge amounts. The price doesn’t change. you are just taking on the task of storing the meat.

    If you are going to an auction and buying a whole cow, yeah you will want a huge freezer. Just get ready to deal with hundreds of pounds of meat.

    I would just get rid of of the thing.

    • Edgarallenpwn@midwest.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      3 天前

      Currently we are doing Costco runs once a month for our meat, but just moved to an area with a decently priced butcher that sells by half a cow. My in-laws are wanting to do that, and seems doable for my household since we host a lot on the weekends.

      Still trying to figure out meat prices and what is viable, but growing up in a family that would go in together and split a cow I know its cheaper in the long run. Just trying to make sure everyone else is onboard (splitting between me, my wife’s parents and her sisters)

  • MrEC@lemmy.world
    3·
    4 天前

    We get the giant pork shoulders from Costco and cut them in to meal sized chunks and vacuum seal them along with lots of other stuff. I cut cardboard boxes to fit inside the chest freezer to partition meat and frozen fruits separately. Makes it easier to pull the box out and get what you need as well otherwise sometimes things can settle as one giant frozen block. Best deal on vacuum bags I’ve found is Amazon but be sure to read reviews. We got a box of them before that were so thick that the machine had a hard time sealing it.

    • Edgarallenpwn@midwest.socialOPEnglish
      2·
      3 天前

      We went camping with some of my wife’s coworkers a few weeks ago and they told me to just cut meat ourselves and get a deep freeze. That started the cascade of getting a deep freeze and ending up with my in laws buying a new one and gifting us thr one we have. I’ll take a look at some vacuum sealers at this point. Any recommendations for bags?

  • Florencia (she/her)
    2·
    4 天前

    Is it best to meal prep/store meat in a deep freeze, or should we keep all of that in the upright fridge/freezer and put frozen pizza, French fries, chicken chunks, etc in there?

    It’s all preference but I’d do things based on door openings. If you don’t need to access something that week then it should move to deep freezer where door never opens.