How Long You Should Freeze Costco's Butter Cinnamon Sugar Loaves

There are a lot of perks to shopping at a members-only club like Sam's Club or Costco instead of a regular grocery store. You do have to pay up front, but once you buy a Costco membership, you have access to its stores, which are loaded to the gills with everything from car tires and wheels of Parmesan to patio furniture and clothes, often at a discount when compared to other retailers.

Lots of customers specifically heap praise on Costco's prepared foods, like its ridiculously cheap rotisserie chickens, its food court snacks, and its baked goods. Starting in 2015, Costco started making its own bread from scratch at each location (via Baking Business) and these days, the ever-changing selection of baked goods is a veritable wonderland for those looking to stock up on bulk quantities of pastries, quick breads, and more. If you're on Costco-Tok or follow any Costco fan accounts on social media, then you might have seen the cinnamon butter loaves that Costco shoppers are obsessed with. These butter-dipped, cinnamon sugar-coated quick breads come three loaves to a pack, which is a great value, but what if you can't eat them all before they start to go bad? The freezer is your friend.

When a fan favorite item like Costco's cinnamon butter sugar loaves makes a comeback after not appearing in the bakery for a while, it's tempting to stock up. But if you can't eat three loaves of rich cinnamon sugar bread before they start to go bad, you can freeze them. According to the USDA, you can safely store purchased breads on the counter for 2-4 days, in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks, or in the freezer for up to three months. That's not to say that the food will spoil after three months. "Food stored constantly at 0 °F will always be safe," says the Food Safety and Inspection Service. "Only the quality suffers with lengthy freezer storage." 

That means that you could technically thaw and eat a loaf of cinnamon butter sugar bread six months or even a year after putting it in the freezer, but it probably won't taste as good as it did when it was freshly baked. Only buy as many cinnamon butter sugar loaves as you can realistically eat in that time period, and your thinking ahead will be rewarded with a treat — a cult-favorite Costco item that has a reputation for disappearing from store shelves just when customers start to get hooked on the stuff, served in your home weeks or even months after it goes missing from the store.