fresh or frozen meat

cat_79

Hi all i was wondering what your opinion on this is my o/h refuses to buy frozen meat but it is often a lot cheaper than fresh.He says frozen meat in supermarket is not as good quality as fresh but i disagree.

hamish222

I tried frozen lamb mince and I thought was really poor quality. I also bought Asda smartprice frozen chicken breasts for my Cat and binned them as they were grey in colour and wouldnt have gave them to him (He is a very pampered puss) but in saying that I was maybe just unlucky with things I bought. I have bought frozen legs of lamb though from Tesco and they were lovely.

jaytin

I wouldn't buy frozen mince as it always seems to be fatty or watery. Whole joints of meat I have often bought frozen, I have never had a problem with a whole joint and often chicken is pretty good too. I imagine the rules for freezing would mean that it is at least as fresh as 'fresh' meat. As with anything you only get what you pay for, so I agree with the previous poster, don't buy the cheapest available, you are saving money on fresh prices anyway.

Clowance

frozen lean beef mince (1kg, £4.79) from sainsburys is lovely although not cheap. No fat comes out when browning, in fact if you look at the nutrition it has only 7.8g fat per 100g which is far less than most, and less than the more expensive sainsburys scotch lean beef mince.

The advantage of frozen mince is that you can use only what you need, making smaller more healthy and thus cheaper portions possible. For the rest I usually buy joints of beef /legs of lamb etc when on offer, cut them to a size I want and freeze them myself.

nearlyrich

I prefer to buy fresh and if necessary freeze it myself, I save myself hassle by using a butcher where the quality is consistent my supermarket meat buying has not been sucessful in the past.

Debt_Free_Chick

It's difficult to work out why it would be the same quality but cheaper. If you look at a piece of rump steak, for example, at £15 per kg ..... why would the same piece of meat, frozen, be cheaper

Sometimes, I think that "cheap for a reason" has some truth to it ....

afroscot

The big debate!

Frozen meat can be fresher than fresh meat!
With the days of blast freezers - chickens are killed and bagged frozen within 6 hours. How long are they on the supermarket shelf fresh?

Just an observation!

geordie_joe

afroscot wrote: »

Frozen meat can be fresher than fresh meat!

I thought meat had to be hung for a while, so "fresh" meat is not as good.

I have some rules about buying frozen meat.

Never buy frozen mince, it just turns to mush
If any other meat is packaged so you can see it clearly before you buy then it is generally ok, not the best but good enough to eat.
If it is packaged so you can't see it, just a picture of what it should look like then you will be disappointed.
If it says on the packaging "Best cooked from frozen" this usually translates into "If you see this stuff defrosted you'll put it in the bin not the oven"

katie1270

I love donald russell online butcher. a bit pricier although i only order when they have good deals. this comes shock frozen - its lovely and worth every penny.

Fire_Fox

Frozen chicken usually has a lot of water added. I had a frozen leg of lamb once, and frozen salmon once and both were pretty ropey. Having said that we have had frozen turkeys at Christmas and they have been really nice! In general I'd say risk it if you are going to put the meat in something - e.g. slow cooked lamb in red wine as once it's marinaded and cooked down this will disguise any reduction in quality.

stokegal

hamish222 wrote: »

I also bought Asda smartprice frozen chicken breasts for my Cat and binned them as they were grey in colour and wouldnt have gave them to him (He is a very pampered puss) but in saying that I was maybe just unlucky with things I bought.

I buy those and have never had any problems with them, I can't taste the difference between those chicken breasts and fresh but that may be down to my cooking - Everything tastes the same when it's burnt:rotfl: