uh-oh! need frozen food advice

emg

I just took some chicken kebabs out of the freezer for us to have tonight and noticed that the pack says 'not suitable for home freezing'. Basically they are skewers with chicken pieces, chorizo pieces and cherry tomatoes. There is also a 'tomato and herb drizzle'. Do you think they don't recommend freezing because the tomatoes go funny (I dont mind discarding the tomatoes - don't like them anyway!) or do you think there are other reasons to do with the meat? (It's all raw).

Advice please - is it safe to cook and eat these???? (I might cry if I have to throw them away...)

Zed42

I'd say it was just because the tomatoes will go soggy, personally - I'd just ditch those and carry on

Bossyboots

I am always freezing things they say you shouldn't. In this case I agree that it is because of the tomatoes but they will be fine cooked anyway.

My OH once put cherry tomatoes in my sandwiches for a whole week and froze them and much to my surprised, they were actually edible when they defrosted.

thriftlady_2

Yes, I think it's because tomatoes don't hold up to freezing well.

I think there ought to be a labelling policy which could state 'not suitable for freezing because there will be loss of texture/taste whatever' and 'not suitable for freezing because food will be unsafe if defrosted'.It seems to confuse a lot of people.:)

Swan_2

I'm sure you're right ... tomatoes don't freeze well, they go squishy on account of their high water content

the only other thing that might be relevant is that the flavour of some foods high in fat &/or garlic, like Chorizo, can change after long freezing, but they won't be dangerous

I'd certainly cook & eat them


EDIT ... I think 'they're' just safeguarding themselves against complaints about loss of quality in this instance

emg

thanks for your replies, I hoped it was the tomatoes as I know that normally you can freeze chicken and chorizo. I've got some red peppers on the way out so I will swap those with the tomatoes.

I agree that the labelling is confusing. Sometimes you get things that say 'do not freeze' and sometimes 'not suitable for home freezing' but I dont know if they are subtly different or just variations in wording by different companies. It'd be great if they labelled things as 'do not freeze' or 'better results if not frozen' - you know like with microwave instructions they sometimes give them but say 'for best results use conventional oven'.