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I generally keep sausages in the freezer, but I buy them in packs of 8 or 12, and they tend to freeze together, which sometimes makes them hard to separate. I usually need to force a knife into the gap.

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Does anyone have any suggestions of how to storage the sausages so they are easier to separate. Without spending a lot of time or effort on the storage part. They come in packs like on this page

The obvious plan would be to separate them before freezing, and put them in individual food bags, but that seems a bit wasteful, and would take time if I bought a few packs in one go.

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  • Voted for second answer, but would advise this type of sausage is more likely to freeze solidly together, probably because the meat content is low and the water content higher. 80% meat sausages seem not to stick so much, although they do come in trays so the sausages are spread out more, not packed on top of each other. There's a reason why these sausages are advertised as having 'no bits' - more water and rusk than meat!
    – Bamboo
    Commented Jan 29, 2015 at 12:01

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I don't want to elaborate obvious and simple things, so I will just cut to the chase: When you buy them, take them out from original package, separate them, put them on plastic salver or plate and put it in a freezer. After few hours, or tomorrow, you just take sausages and put them in a plastic bag, so they wouldn't take as much space as they would on the plate. I have tried it, works every time. No need to worry about squeezing them, because once they are frozen they are solid as a rock.

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Aside from the obvious - freeze them separately, each in their own bag - you can freeze them with plastic, baking paper or fat-free paper in between them. Don't use plastic that's too thin (like the plastic foil you use to keep the food fresh), or it will just tear off when you try to separate the sausages leaving all bits of plastic in your food. And don't use aluminium foil as well, as it tears way too easy, and you will find yourself peeling the bits, or chewing aluminium (although you could just get the last bits out when the sausage is already in the pan).

As moisture will attach a little bit to plastic and meat, the sausages will "stick" to each other anyway, but it will be significantly easier to separate them.

If your it is still a bit hard to separate them, drop them on the counter, or help gravity a bit and smash them with force. Not brute force though, your counter or sausage will break. Or neither will break but your sausages will fly around the kitchen.

And whatever you do, don't squeeze your to-be-frozen-food too hard together.

NB: yes, you do have to get them out of the original packaging...

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If you remove them from their original packaging which makes them quite tightly squashed together and them pull them all apart (no need to cut them individually just so that they're no longer squashed side by side tightly).
If then you go ahead and put them in a Tupperware box or even a sandwich bag or something and don't squash the bag again or at least make sure that they aren't squashed together in the box and then put that in the freezer. They will probably still stick together but as they won't be as squashed and tight so they'll be relatively easy to separate (just some minor pulling apart).

To reiterate:

  1. Remove the delectable tubes of meat from their original packaging
  2. 'Unsquish' (patent pending) the sausages and separate
  3. Put sausages in a bag or box (I would go for box to offer more anti-squash protection)
  4. Make sure they're not squashed too tightly together
  5. Place container with sausages in freezer and try to keep from being squashed by other things in the freezer
  6. Remove sausages when desired and pull apart - leave any you won't be using
  7. Eat

Just so there is no confusion, when I say separate the sausages I don't mean cut the string bit that connects them all together I just mean pull them apart from each other so they aren't touching as much, you could just pull them so they're in a straight line so you know that they aren't touching and then put them in the container. (although cutting the connector will probably make removing from the freezer easier).

Doesn't require any extra 'tools' and doesn't take long.

A fun other method that made myself laugh, because I am that sad, straighten the sausages out in a line and then line the edges of your freezer with them - it'll be a bit like decorating at Christmas but with sausages and instead of a tree, it's a freezer. Ha.

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I do this with lots of foods that are hard to separate after freezing. I roll them in plastic wrap and then put them all in a baggie in the freezer.-- I place a hotdog on plastic wrap, give it a roll, add another, roll, etc. fold the ends over. Then I place in a baggie in the freezer with the date. I can then easily unroll as many sausages, hot dogs, etc. as needed and put the rest back. There is only 2 of us most of the time and I find we have less waste.

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The best way to store sausages is to place them side-by-side, one layer deep, in a plastic freezer bag. Lay the bag flat in the freezer. When you wish to retrieve one or more sausages from the bag, strike the bag gently on the edge of the freezer or counter. Take what is wanted from the bag and return the rest to the freezer.

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