Brine, cook then freeze? Or brine, freeze then cook?

A lot of this would depend on how you want to use them when you reheat them. If you're hoping to just pull them out of the freezer, defrost them and eat them quickly then it can be best to cook them using sous vide ahead of time. <br /> <br />However, if you don't mind cooking them sous vide later then just freezing them first should work very well. I've cooked frozen steaks by putting them directly into the sous vide water (instead of defrosting them first) and it worked great. I added a little time, 30 or 45 minutes, to the cooking time to account for them being frozen but it was a really simple way to have meals ready to go.

At the molecular level, freezing creates water crystals that penetrate cell walls. Depending on the cut of meat this might result in serious tenderizing or serious drying of the texture. I suggest trying the particular cut of meat each way and seeing which way works best for you...

Ernie <br />We brine, freeze and then cook later - particularly with pork cutlets and tasmanian salmon <br /> <br />There are taste and presentation advantages <br /> <br />The brining process is well described by Doug Baldwyn and chadzilla on the internet and there is also good info at <a href="http://www.cooksillustrated.com/images/document/howto/ND01_ISBriningbasics.pdf">http://www.cooksillustrated.com/images/document/howto/ND01_ISBriningbasics.pdf</a>