Question: How do you freeze filet mignon, and keep it from getting dry and tough? We recently purchased filet mignon from Costco, ate two of them (they were delicious) and froze the others. When we defrosted and cooked them, they were awful. Is there is a better way to store them to preserve the flavor and texture?

 


Answer: We don’t buy filet mignon. But we do successfully freeze meat and enjoy it weeks and months later by using the following principles.


1.    Get the air out. When we repackage bulk meat, we triple-wrap it in plastic wrap, careful to get all of the air out. Some friends swear by those vacuum sealers for their meat. Careful packaging keeps air out and reduces that freeze- burned taste.


2.    Don’t store it too long. Vacuum-sealed turkeys and other meats in thick plastic wrap can last more than a year without loss of flavor. But storing meat in the Styrofoam trays with a single layer of plastic wrap for more than a month is asking for trouble.


3.    After taking the meat out of the freezer, tenderize and marinate it. We use some favorite marinades that taste yummy and enhance tenderness. One is Italian salad dressing — we’ve used it on chicken and steak — tastes great. Another is teriyaki and wine — 1/2 cup of teriyaki, 1/2 cup of the cheapest red wine you can find and 1/2 tablespoon of ginger powder per pound of meat. We let the meat marinate in a deep roasting pan all day and it’s always tender and delicious after being cooked.

We have several of our favorite recipes in our ScriberDownload Section. 

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