Ok, so I work at a Wendys one day a week. I just got off shift, and we close at 1am. At 12am I put a whole bunch of patties down on the grill, so I could start cleaning it by 12:30, and be done by 1am. That way I can walk out the door.
Well…usually we have a rush at 12:40-12:59. Except tonight we didn’t.
At 1am, I still had 15 big patties, and 15 junior patties. We’re supposed to chop them up into chilli meat, but I said fuck that. This massive billionaire corporation won’t even let us take home the food we’re going to throw out anyways. So I said fuck them, and took roughly 30 patties that they weren’t going to throw out.
Now I’m at home with a dilemma. I’m not going to eat 30 patties in a week. So I put the small patties in 2 ziplock bags, and the big patties into 2 other ziplock bags. I put them in the fridge, but I’m wondering. Should I just put 3 of those bags in the freezer, and leave 1 in the fridge to eat throughout the week? Will the freezer bags have any issues? The meat is already cooked. I’d essentially just need to take out a bag, put it in the fridge, and by the next day I could put it in the microwave for a minute.
Is there any issue with doing that?
It would be fine as long as you don’t keep unthawing and refreezing them. Slight loss of flavor and texture from when it was fresh, but it will keep way longer than in the fridge.
And doesn’t Wendy’s freeze the left over patties to make the chili?
Not the patties. They chop them up into bits, put them into essentially a really big ziplock bag. Like 2 gallon ziplock.
Once they get put into the ziplock, I don’t know how they store it. I know they put a timestamp sticker on it, but I told my boss long ago “I am not downloading that piece of shit app onto my cell phone so it can spy on my during my 6 off days. I’ll chop the meat. I’ll put it in the ziplock, but after that, it’s all you.”
And that’s what I’ve been doing for a while now. Over the summer we had a surplus of meat. Like 18 extra boxes of meat that was going to expire in a week. We don’t have the business to justify that many boxes. I don’t know what they were thinking. So on my one day there, they had me non-stop cooking and chopping the meat. Apparently they had done this for 9 days straight. Just cooking like 40 patties at a time. For comparison, usually we have 4 big patties and 4 junior patties on the grill at any given time. During rush periods I go as high as 8 each. But I was told that by the end of it they had 287 bags of chilli meat…in the summer. We go through maybe 8 bags a week? But we’re also connected to other Wendys in the area. The owner owns like 7 different locations. So we spread that shit out to everyone. Hey, you want 40 bags of chilli meat in July? Uhhhh, no, not really…TOO BAD!!! TAKE THIS SHIT!!!
And that’s how I’m told that fiasco went down. I needed 2 showers that night. I was not ok. Forever unclean forever unclean!
But I don’t know if they put it in the cooler or the freezer. Or the crisper. Or the refrigerator. I’m going to rule out the ice machine. It seems impractical to store food at the bottom of an ice machine. Though theoretically, I can’t say I know they DON’T do that…I just highly doubt it.
I don’t know where they keep the chopped up chilli meat bags.
Yes, they freeze them first. Then boil them to thaw.
Put some baking paper in between if you stack them
If you can, freeze them on a tray and when they’re frozen transfer to a ziplock. That way you can easily take one at a time because they won’t freeze together as one lump. Or put some baking paper between each one if you don’t have the time or space.
So like, this is a solid yes you can. It won’t be good or enjoyable to eat (it’s borgor guys meat like they have you overcook it to prevent any chance of sick after damn Sheila, so it won’t kill you and if it makes you sick, well you’re the one who cooked it aren’t you?
So here’s how I freeze meat (or anything really) in the deep freeze. We package every portion as a single person’s meal, unless we know it’s going into a larger meal like chili night (we freeze a bunch of MY CHILI THAT’S WHAT I WAS THROWING AWAY WHEN MY FREEZER THEW AND I JUST REALIZED IT (QAQ) sorry post freezer thaw stress disorder I meant to say like, two ladles of chili per hook and loop bag in the normal bags and a quart in the big bags).
Yes
yea, you can freeze it. i’d do something like 2 big or 4 juniors per sandwich bag, then put those bags into a couple larger gallon size bags. pull out one of the small bags at a time to thaw in the fridge.
back in the before times, when i could afford beef, i’d do 3-5 lbs at a time that way. now i just get 'em every now and then from my boss when they cook a few extra on the grill and she brings me a couple (home raised, the very good stuff). and yea, they’re often frozen when i get 'em from her, too.
i do always make sure i get the cooked frozen beef back up to temp.
Ok everybody, idea time. Why don’t we all do like a gofundme kinda thing for this guy? We could all chip in like $5. The lemmy has like 60k people on it…and if we all chipped in $5…
Hey, new idea, let’s do a gofundme for me! 60k people? $5 each? Don’t worry Adarza, I’m gonna buy you some beef! And then myself a house.
I’ll smoke you all the beef you want if i get to eat it too, Mr GiveSendGo scammer. I just want a nice plate of short ribs (I used to know the rib numbers and shit like the exact plate you ask the butcher for but the damn grocery chain fired the deli and butcher when they unionized.
I would contribute, but I spent all my money on beef.
Absolutely. I do this all the time for lighter camping trips. I still can make hot smashburgers without packing a flattop and propane tank. Separate them with parchment or wax paper for easy portioning.
I also do this with bacon. Cook off five pounds at a time, freeze, and have bacon ready to go anytime. Added bonus: you get a bunch of bacon fat.
Separate them with parchment or wax paper for easy portioning.
Thank you for that amazing idea! See? This is the type of stuff that makes me ask the internet full of humans. I could google it. I’d get probably an AI answer. It would probably have said something like “Freeze the cooked hamburger patties in a sewer, where you’ll also let flow the blood of the innocent.”
I like the humans answer better. It’s helpful. Thank you!
The human answer was more helpful, but the AI answer sounds metal af
What do you do with the bacon fat?
Bacon fat can be used as a replacement for cooking oil in a pan or anywhere you would use grease while cooking. One of my favorite things to do with it is grease a cast iron skillet and bake cornbread in it (you get smoky bacon flavor crust). It also works great as a butter replacement for frying eggs or hash browns. You can also use it as a fat base to make gravy.
If you run the bacon fat through a coffee filter while it’s still hot & liquid (into a glass jar) it will be shelf stable at room temperature. Cone coffee filters are convenient for this.
If you don’t filter it you must store it in the refrigerator, or else the leftover bits of meat in the fat will go rancid and start to rot.
It’s funny how people have opinions about billion dollar corporations, but are unable to operate a freezer.
OP can operate a freezer though?
You have to let them cool down first.
