How Long You Can Store Omaha Steaks Before Their Quality Degrades

Omaha Steaks is that classic mail-order meat brand that's also branched out into chicken, pork, and seafood, along with prepared food as well. I remember seeing its print ads when I was a kid (uh, do you remember their butt tattoo stunt, though?), and I'm sure a package of meat is something people still give and send each other these days. But a gift like that isn't worth anything unless you use it, and even though your steak products come frozen, you will still want to use them by a certain point to ensure the highest quality. 

The Omaha Steaks' website says that in order "to truly get the world-famous Omaha Steaks experience, we recommend you fire up those uncooked steaks, roasts, or chops within four to 12 months, uncooked ground beef within four months, and cooked beef within two to three months to ensure you're enjoying your gourmet faves at their very best quality." So while you do have some time to sit on them, don't jam those things into the back of your freezer — now you have an excuse to grill that meat sooner rather than later. A steak is one of life's simplest pleasures, and you might as well enjoy it by tossing it on the fire while the weather's right.

It can be tempting to try to speed up the thawing process by leaving your steak out on the counter for a few hours, but Omaha Steaks highly recommends against doing that. The company says, "For the best and safest results, thaw in the refrigerator. This allows the meat to retain more of its natural juices. To begin, remove the meat from the box in which it was received and place it in a single layer on a tray in the refrigerator. Always leave the vacuum seal on the steak while thawing."

You'll definitely want to plan ahead if you do it this way, because any steak thicker than one inch can take anywhere between 12 and 24 hours to thaw, depending on the temperature of your fridge. Thinner cuts of meat (under one inch thick) can be thawed with a shortcut by keeping the meat in the vacuum-sealed package and running it under cold water. You should be able to thaw those out within 30 to 40 minutes, but anything thicker than that should be done gently in the refrigerator (especially those cuts containing bones). 

Four months to a whole year is definitely a long window to be able to enjoy steak at your leisure, but life is short — may as well enjoy it. Plus, at its most basic, steak just needs salt (a good one doesn't even necessarily need black pepper), and that means it's something you can cook without an extravagant shopping list, so go ahead and treat yourself before that window of time is up.