How long can I freeze meat for?

[eslteacher]

Where I live (not in UK), meat is usually pretty expensive. But one of the big supermarkets in the area is currently doing a special on large quanities, so there are really good offers on massive packs of fresh meat: mince, chicken, sausages, pork chops etc.

Luckily enough we have a pretty big freezer, so I want to take advantage and stock up while it's cheap! But I am wondering just how much to get - how long can you store meat for in the freezer before having to use it up? Have googled but found loads of conflicting advice, from two months to a year and everything in between...

Looking for some collective wisdom: what do you all think? Am not overly worried about it tasting really "fresh" as I plan to use this stuff in sauce-based dishes (curries, lasagnes, casseroles etc). But obviously I want it to be safe and not to deteriorate in quality too much.

So what say you? How long can you keep meat frozen for after freezing it from fresh?

I am sure I keep stuff for up to a year, perhaps the odd thing gets left in there for longer!

My mum had a huge chest freezer, there was definitely meat in there for more than a year because things would get lost at the bottom

I wanted to know too - I have stuff in there which has been there for ....????

Basically, you can keep it frozen forever, so long as there are no accidents with the freezer defrosting etc, and it will still be perfectly safe. but the flavour and/or texture may not be so good after a while, that's why you see lots of different advice - not really about safety but about it still being as nice as it started out.

Yes agree you can freeze food forever however some foods degrade and become rough - you must wrap well to prevent freezer burn.

Ive had meat in freezer for many years, a quality bronze home bred turkey was stunning after 2 years of freeze.

Thanks for replies. Am going to go ahead and buy a lot then! I was thinking zip-lock freezer bags for storage, but would anyone recommend something different?