Can You Freeze Chorizo?

Frozen Chorizo Slices

Freezing chorizo enables you to keep it ready to be used in any cooking you’re doing, or just for topping pizzas – but can you freeze chorizo? And how would you freeze it?

Freezing chorizo is really easy to do.  I’d bought a pack of sliced chorizo just before Christmas, expecting to use it in a variety of dishes that I ended up never cooking.  The pack of chorizo was fine kept in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but the Best Before date was fast looming.

Freezing a Pack of Sliced Chorizo: 

  1. Remove the sliced chorizo from the factory packet – the reason I did this was because I knew that when I do use it I’ll simply want to use 2-4 slices at a time.  If it’s left in the packet and frozen as one piece, it might be tricky to prise 2-4 slices from the frozen lump
  2. Lay out the chorizo slices so they aren’t touching, on a baking tray, or a cutting mat – what you lay them out on is irrelevant, it needs to just be strong enough for you to pick it up and pop it into the freezer.
  3. Freeze for 2 hours.
  4. Take the frozen slices of chorizo and pop them into your regular freezer bags or boxes.

Easiest Way to Freeze Chorizo:

  1. Open the fridge and stare at the packet. Grab the packet, whole.
  2. Open the freezer door. Chuck the whole packet in.
  3. Forget it until you want to use it.

Frozen chorizo will be fine to eat for months – I’d be happy to eat it if it’d been in there two years to be honest.

To use frozen chorizo you can either defrost it by putting it, covered, into the fridge, or you can use it from frozen – it will depend how you want to cook it.  If you’re adding more toppings to a frozen pizza then using frozen chorizo won’t make any difference.  Even if your pizza isn’t frozen, you can still add the frozen chorizo to the top and it’ll cook fine in a hot oven in 12-15 minutes.

Freezer Tip: 

About once a week, when I open the freezer to get something out, I’ll just give the bag of chorizo slices a little rattle, to make sure they’re still free flowing and not all sticking together.  You don’t need to do this, I just don’t want them to end up freezing into one solid lump!