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Freezing Sandwiches?
There was a woman at work who used to make sandwiches for her DH and two DSs on a Sunday night for the week ahead and freeze them.
Then all they had to do was grab a sandwich out of the freezer at the start of each day and it would be ready to eat by lunchtime.
Obviously there would be some foods you wouldn't do this with (I think she mainly did ham and cheese) ... but just wondering if anyone else does this?
I like the idea of being that organised but it had never occurred to me to do that.
What does everyone else think?
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OMG I love it!
It would make mornings so much less rushed around here. Especially as I can never know if I'm going to get Ant's lunches made before Alex wakes for a feed.
I think freezing cheese sounds a bit weird though!
Hmmm will have to think about this.
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Sounds like a good idea im wondering though if they would go a bit soggy. Will be interesting to hear what other ppl have to say.
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morgan78 - I often use frozen bread to make sandwiches if it hasn't been taken out the night before and never had a problem in that respect
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When I made my lunches I used frozen bread and never had an issue with it going soggy. I reckon using frozen bread makes it less dry by lunchtime too.
I'd love to make Shel's lunch for her, but she leaves at 6am and I can never be @ssed to get out of bed that early :redface: I'm having an empty head moment but apart from ham and cheese (and it does seem a bit odd to freeze cheese...?) what other fillings could you use?
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You can freeze cheese, we freeze the big blocks all the time, and they defrost okay. But I will admit to never having frozen a sandwich, let alone with cheese in it.
I wouldn't think that 'salad' type fillings would go well, as when they freeze, their cells burst with all the water content and go a bit yuk. I had a lettuce freeze once in the back of my fridge. :doh: However, capsicum will freeze just fine raw. I guess chicken would be okay too, but don't know about anything else that you would put with it. I suppose the best way would be to put a small amount of a number of things on a tray, bung them in the freezer (omg, I nearly said oven! :doh:) and see how they go. I would say that this tray would also need to be covered tightly, just as a sandwich would, because if something is exposed to the air on a freezer, it is affected.
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I freeze salami all the time (for pizza :lol:) so that could work... chicken would work definitely, umm what about tuna? I used to make tuna, mayo and spring onion (mixed together) i wonder if that would work.
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I had a friend who took peanut butter & jelly sandwiches out of the freezer every morning for school.
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not sure about how mayo would go.
But tuna, capsicum and corn mix would be pretty safe you'd reckon.
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Well having lived in the tropics for years where the bread goes stale in about half a day not to mention everything spoiling, freezing sandwiches is second nature in our house!
Use the freshest possible bread and use the sandwiches in a week or two (any longer than that and the freezer dries the bread out). I have found the best combinations to be something and relish. Always use butter/cream cheese cos that stops the relish from soaking into the bread. We have found the snaplock sandwich bags to be the best tho gladwrap and cheapo sandwich bags work ok as well.
Use any of:
ham, cheese, sliced processed cheese, salami, chicken loaf, cheese spread, silverside, pastrami, etc
in combination with any of:
fruit or tomato chutney, mustard pickles, gherkin relish, corn relish, pesto, semi-dried tomato tapenade, mustard, or even vegemite (as in vegemite and cheese) :D
My personal favorite is the Baxter's chutneys, they are soooooo yarmy. When I get the sandwich out of the freezer (ie on the morning it will be eaten) and pop in a handful of cherry tomatoes, some carrot or celery sticks, etc, just to add some veggie to the lunch.
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dh makes his sangas every sunday night for the week. every day, without fail, he has his ham & cheese sanga. Its easy, quick, we just use gladwrap. They toast up nicely too if there's a sanga press available.
Another friend of mine makes up smoothies 2 days at a time - leaves half in the fridge, takes half with her the next morning for brekky on the run.
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I usually premake sandwiches for the week and take them to work...No problems at all!
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Blerk! i wouldnt lol. I used to have this for school and they were all soggy and tasted gross. I do like the organisation behind it, but nup i couldnt do it.
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Yep - works just fine.
Marydean's list is great. the other one that I love but only do when it is on a good special is smoked salmon and cream cheese - it feels really decadent having it for just a normal lunch :)
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TL - Smoked Salmon and cream cheese, oooooh I'm salivating. What a great idea!!!
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I do that for my toasties - and then I wrap them in baking paper so I'm not leaving a mess in the toaster at work (and don't have to deal with feral looking toasters) :)
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Punkin, the baking paper tip is genius!!
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You would be surprised what you can freeze. We freeze big packets of potato/corn chips that are open and it makes them stay really fresh. We also freeze bread, big blocks of cheese etc.
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OMG, I can't believe I come across your thread ;)
... as I was only just thinking about 'the frozen sangers' the other day :cryinglaugh:
Mum would make them the day before & then pop them in the freezer only to take them out for us the next morn before we headed off for our 30min walk to secondary school.
... Oh, was thinking the other day how guilty I felt back then & still do even now (as my folks didn't have much money). As Mum never knew how much I hated those sandwiches still chilly cold & seemed to lose their flavour by the time lunchtime came around (must have something to do with having been in the freezer ?? :rolleyes:) ... and I did the unspeakable & always threw them in the rubbish bin at school ... yeh, 4 days a week, Mon - Thurs, (Friday was tuckshop lunch day) ... all those years through secondary school. Just couldn't tell Mum, ... yeh, sadly my Mum was pretty scarey to be around those days :(
BUT I just couldn't bring myself to eat them,
... So sorry FIONA !!!! Gee, I hope they taste better for you then they did for me, LOL :dance:
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OK, I'm finally getting around to actually doing this as we're spending way too much money on lunches.
I've just made a batch of: turkey, cranberry, swiss cheese and grated carrot.
Next I will do tuna, cream cheese and sweetcorn. And after that smoked salmon, cream cheese and roast capsicum.
Will let you know how they taste when thawed but I think my shoulder is still sore from the amount of back-patting it's been getting from me for actually getting around to it even.
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used to do this for my girls for school. peanut butter, vegemite, jam, honey, nuttela, pickles, cheese, chicken and mayo.
not ham, they didnt like it. bit soggy.
but if you wrap in baking paper then seal in zip lock bag to freeze... then take out of zip lock when you put in lunch box and just leave baking paper on... you dont get the sogginess so much.
bit fiddly with all the wrapping but i used to get the girls helping... AND... i would do 3 weeks at a time.
best idea EVER!
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wow, i would never think to do that!! its sounds like such a good idea! i'm going to ask dp if i can start making him sandwiches for his lunch! (he usually buys lunch)
i guess it would be handy on the days that me & dd are out all day.. just grab some from the freezer and go!
im excited! lol
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Have you guys tried this yet? Curious as to how the sandwiches tasted!
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Eating them as we speak - DELICIOUS! Tried both the turkey, cranberry jelly, swiss cheese and carrot ones and the salmon, cream cheese and roast capsicum so far and all VERY good. And I love my tucker so I'm quite fussy.
Great for when you're home too and want to take the kids to the park without faffing around giving them lunch first - just defrost in the morning, then you're set.
DP is usually averse to freezing anything but I've even won him over and he tells me I'm on to a winner.
Apart from the convenience, I've worked out this will save us roughly between $250 - $300 a month!
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Fantastic Fiona! So they're not soggy at all??
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Im going to start doing this too!
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Nope, definitely not soggy though I'd probably avoid tomato because sandwiches go soggy with tomato even if they're not frozen IYKWIM. I used a Cape Seed loaf from Bakers Delight and some white rolls too. The sandwiches seemed fresher than the rolls for some reason even though they were bought at the same time.
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What about curried egg??
My husband usually has ham and curried egg sandwhiches.
Could they be frozen?
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wow im a little late but this is awesome!!!
i usually make lunches in bulk and freeze. But i generally make - spag bake, tune mornay bake, plain spag bol, lasagne, canniloni or a selection of soups (all portion controlled and hubby and i just grab what we want before a shift) but i think this would save us even more money!!! we used to waste soo muchmoney on convience - i would buy weight watchers or mccains healthy choice any frozen meal for up to $6 a serve and hubby would spend upto $10 on lasagne salad and drink a day!!!
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Hi Guys!
I know this thread is on about freezing sandwhiches but the whole point was to save money on lunches.
Last week I bought just over a kilo of Chicken Breast, I came home and divided it up ( i ended up with 3 peices) and I thinly sliced it and fried it and cubed it up, then I used three different stir fry sauces and made the three different flavours (butter chicken, sweet and sour and honey mustard) and then i put them on rice and put them in chinese containers. I ended up with 4 or 5 of each flavour depending on how saucy it was.
In total I ended up with atleast 12 meals. I put them in the freezer and hubby gets one out each day and he has variety. All up it cost me about $20 or so for almost 3 weeks lunches (for just him) and I dont have to keep getting up and making them and if I am home duting the day and get hungry well - theres lunch.
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i do the same thing chaggie, to make the meals stretch out even further i add some frozen vegies on top
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Would tomato sauce freeze/defrost okay. I could do the above with Kam's sandwiches as he is a vegemite boy, but Lachlan likes fritz/devon & sauce.