Keep It Fresh: How To Wrap Meat For Freezing

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Whether you process meat at home or buy meat in bulk at the grocery store and repackage it, proper packaging of meat is essential for long-term storage in the freezer. Knowing how to wrap meat for freezing preserves the quality of the meat, reduces food waste, and saves you money. While there are several good options for freezing meat, I’ll share our proven meat packaging system that we use on our farm to preserve all of our homegrown meats and wild game. 

Why Properly Wrapping Meat Matters

Foods stored in the freezer are prone to freezer burn due to the loss of moisture. Ice crystals may begin to form on the surface of the meat. Through moisture loss, oxygen causes food to become dry, discolored, and degrade in quality, which affects the flavor and tenderness of meat. While there are a few factors that can cause freezer burn, properly wrapping meat is the first step in protecting your fresh meat.

Essential Supplies for Wrapping Meat

Thankfully we have a lot of options when it comes to properly wrapping our meat for long-term storage. Here are some methods to consider to best preserve your meat. 

Vacuum Sealing

A popular option is to use vacuum seal bags.  These are also known as foodsaver bags.  While vacuum sealing meats is the most effective way to remove all the air from the packaging, it does require a specialized piece of equipment to seal the bags.  Food saver bags come in rolls that you can cut the bags to the exact size you need. Additionally, they are sold in prepared bags in select sizes. Vacuum seal bags are the most expensive option when it comes to wrapping your meat. Especially if you wrap a lot of meat, this method may become cost-prohibitive. Some larger cuts of meat are also hard to wrap in vacuum seal bags due to the limited width of the bags.

While we have a vacuum sealer and use it on occasion, we find that the bags can be damaged in the freezer more easily when you depend on a single-layer freezer method. It’s easy to damage the bags when you dig through the chest freezer looking for a specific cut and once the bag is punctured, no matter how small, freezer burn starts. By the time you can see the grey spots on the meat, the damage is done. 

Freezer Bags

Freezer bags are specifically designed for freezing foods.  They are made with thicker plastic than storage bags and hold up better.  Freezer bags come with zip lock seals and slider seals. Of the two, I prefer the ziplock seal.  The slide lock seems to leave a tiny hole at the very end of the seal that can allow air into the packaging.  Freezer bags can be sealed tightly, but since the bags don’t adhere tightly to the surface of the meat, it leaves plenty of room for air circulation and water molecules to accumulate once the meat has frozen.  The nice thing about using freezer bags is that the juices from the meat will not leak out of the bag when defrosting the meat.  

Freezer Paper VS Butcher’s Paper

Butcher paper and freezer paper are not the same. Freezer paper has a plastic coating. It is designed to be used as a single-layer wrapping method. When wrapping your meat, always place the plastic coating on the meat side of the paper. The plastic coating prevents the meat from sticking to the paper and creates a more air-tight seal.

Butcher paper does not have a layer of plastic. Meats can be wrapped short-term in a single layer of butcher’s paper, but it’s not designed for long-term freezer storage on its own. 

Our Prefered Wrapping Method

Our preferred method is a double wrap system using plastic wrap and butcher’s paper. We wrap the meat first with plastic wrap. The key to this first layer is to wrap the cut of meat tightly and push all the air out of the saran wrap. Removing as much air as possible is your best defense against freezer burn. 

The second layer of protection is a layer of freezer paper or butcher’s paper. While freezer paper is made for use in the freezer, it is a more expensive option. Butcher’s paper is cheaper to purchase and we have found it in bulk at our local warehouse club store.  When butcher’s paper is used in a dual-layer wrapping system with plastic wrap or even freezer bags it is just as effective at protecting the meat from freezer burn as freezer wrap.

We find it easier to wrap meat tightly in plastic wrap than it is with freezer paper. Freezer paper is stiffer, making it difficult to eliminate air pockets, while plastic wrap can easily be wrapped against the surface of the meat. The most important thing in this system is the dual layer. The plastic wrap eliminates air by being tightly wrapped against the surface of the meat. Then the butcher paper protects the plastic wrap from damage and provides an additional barrier of protection in the freezer. 

How to Use Butcher’s Paper

Several folding options work well when using freezer paper or butcher’s paper.  We typically use a method referred to as the butchers wrap or the burrito wrap. It’s useful for odd-shaped cuts. Cut a length of butcher’s paper and place the piece of paper in front of you so that it looks like a diamond. Place meat close to you near the corner of the diamond so that you have enough paper to wrap it over the top of the meat and tuck the corner just under the meat. Next, wrap the sides over the meat at a slight angle like wrapping a gift. Finally roll the meat tightly in the remaining paper, so that the meat will be wrapped in multiple layers.  Secure the paper with freezer tape or we use masking tape. 

One Final Step

The final step is twofold, I use paper grocery bags to organize my freezer and provide a final layer of protection against freezer burn. Chest freezers are notoriously hard to organize and it’s easy to lose food in the bottom.  Even with the best wrapping methods, foods left too long in the deep freezer will eventually get freezer-burned due to time. 

A great way to prevent food from getting lost is to package our meat into grocery bags as a way to organize the meat. It’s a good idea to freeze the meat first before you try to organize it.  Never pack a grocery bag full of raw meat in the freezer. It will take too long for the meat in the center to freeze solid and you risk spoilage. This is one of those processes that gets worse before it gets better! I spread the packaged raw meat throughout my freezers in single layers to freeze more quickly. 

Once everything is good and frozen, I pack the meat into the grocery bags. Typically I separate the ground meat into a separate bag and the rest of the cuts into another.  Pack about 1/2 to 2/3 full, fold the top down and tape closed. Label the outside of the bag with the contents and date.  

When we process the harvest, I take time to organize the freezer. I pull the oldest meats out and place the newest meats at the bottom. The labeled bags help me find what I am looking for and bring some order to a deep chest freezer.  

​Wrapping Poultry for the Freezer

We wrap our homegrown chickens as whole birds, with one exception. One of the main reasons I package our chickens whole is because it forces us to eat the entire chicken each time.  When chicken is pieced, it’s easy to eat your favorite cuts first. Since we raise chicken annually and sometimes bi-annually, that means that we would be left with our least favorite cuts for at least half the year! The wings are the one exception, on a whole bird, I find them almost a waste.  It’s rarely chosen as a favorite piece oftentimes being left to last. We love eating wings as a meal, so by separating them at processing, we can enjoy crispy wings as a meal. 

Perfectly Shaped Bags

My favorite method of packing whole birds is using poultry shrink-wrap bags. These heavy-duty plastic bags come in at 7 MIL. They are available in multiple sizes, perfect for whole broilers and even a whole turkey.

Using poultry shrink-wrap bags is a two-person job.  The first person packs the chicken in the bag. A straw is inserted into the body cavity and used to keep an opening in the twist of the bag.  The second person twists the opening of the bag and submerges it into a pot of hot water. Be careful not to submerge the straw, this allows all of the air through the straw. It’s easiest to wear heat-resistant gloves to submerge the chicken and squeeze out the air. When you’re satisfied you got out all the air, the second person, not wearing the heat-resistant gloves can manage the zip tie that is pulled tight to seal the bag. When you are ready to tighten the zip tie down, remove the straw from the opening, making the final seal.

Double Layer Frost Protection

Just like the rest of our meat, we pack poultry in a double-wrap system.  While it’s not easy to wrap in butcher paper, paper bags work well to provide a second layer of protection. Since these bags are harder to find, we purchase 25# short paper bags at our local warehouse club. The bags protect the chickens from being dinged in the freezer and provide a second layer of protection against freezer burn. I label the outside of the paper bag with the weight of the chicken.  It’s helpful if I need a certain size bird when feeding a crowd. 

A Dual Layer System Yields the Best Results

Regardless of what packaging you choose to process your homegrown meat or store-bought meat, a dual-layer method is the best way to protect your meat for longer-term storage in the freezer.