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It seems like freezer cooking is becoming more and more popular these days. People are desperate to make dinner prep easier and find ways to save money by avoiding takeout. Either way, it sure seems like I’m seeing more and more people talk about freezer cooking.
What is freezer cooking?
The concept is genius, in my opinion, so I am loving all the chatter. Essentially, freezer cooking is preparing meals (or parts of meals) ahead of time and freezing them for later use.
Why do it?
There are probably many reasons to begin freezer cooking, but there are a couple that immediately come to mind. First, freezer cooking saves time (and stress). If you are like me, it’s very easy for dinner time to creep up. If I don’t think about dinner in the morning or early afternoon, even my perfectly crafted menu-plan isn’t executed. Either I’ve forgotten to defrost the meat or waited too long to get everything prepped and now my kids and husband are dying of starvation and can’t wait another minute for me to stick my freshly made casserole in the oven.
Or maybe that’s just our house? Having ready-made meals (or even some commonly used ingredients) in your freezer cuts down on the time and stress surrounding mealtime. Dinner then becomes as simple as pulling out your freezer meal to thaw and then cooking it as needed.
Secondly, freezer cooking saves money. If something happens to prevent me from getting a meal on the table, we end up eating out. While I would love to eat out for every meal, there is just no way our budget would allow it. Though there are some ways to save money on eating out, eating at home is by far the cheaper option. By having meals ready in the freezer, we are less likely to pick up dinner elsewhere.
Not only that, but by planning your freezer meals in advance, you can choose recipes that call for budget-friendly ingredients or you can shop for your freezer meal ingredients when they are on a great sale at the grocery store.
Thirdly, freezer cooking is healthier. It’s hard to eat healthy when eating out. By having ready-make freezer meals, you are more likely to be eating healthier meals.
How do I get started?
I’ve just started experimenting with freezer cooking in the past couple of years. I haven’t done as much of it as I’d like, but I’m slowly getting my feet wet. I wish I had a well-stocked my freezer right this second, but I just haven’t gotten there yet. But, I’m working on it as time allows because I really see the value in it.
From what I’ve read and in my experience, it seems like there are also a few different approaches to it. So, depending on the time you have and how ambitious you are, you can tackle it from a few different angles. At this point, I’ve only done #1 and #2.
1. Prepping ingredients
The most ideal time to do this is right after a trip to the grocery store. If you buy in bulk, this might entail dividing up ingredients and freezing them (such as with big portions of meats). This is also a great way to stock up on seasonal ingredients/produce. Just the other day, I shredded and froze some zucchini that I got from a friend’s garden, so that it would be ready for baking later in the fall.
Grate blocks of cheese, brown ground beef, shred chicken, etc. Even if you don’t have an entire meal frozen, it’s still a huge help to have some of your common (or out of season) ingredients at the ready when you may need them.
2. Doubling meals
This is a great option if you are just getting started or time is seriously limited. I have been trying to double at least 1 meal every week. Just this week, we ate Pioneer Woman’s BBQ Comfort Meatballs for dinner (this recipe is in her first cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl*). I made a double batch and froze some for later. When I peeked in my freezer yesterday for this post, I noticed I still had some Bean & Cheese Burritos, Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Pancakes, and Chocolate Zucchini Bread left in there from when I had doubled those recipes previously.
3. Freezer cooking sessions
I haven’t been able to make the time for this method, but I would like to eventually. The idea behind this one is that you designate a large chunk of time (or even an entire day/weekend) to freezer cooking, so you knock it all out at one time. You pick all your recipes, buy all your ingredients, and then spend the time prepping everything and putting it all together.
A friend of mine did this recently and it seems to have worked out well for her so far. She spent a good portion of her Sunday afternoon putting together her meals, but her weeknights are much less stressful. The meals are either ready to be cooked or in the crockpot* ready to be eaten when she gets home from work.
UPDATE: I’ve started to make freezer cooking sessions a regular part of my routine each month. I usually only have the time to do 5-7 meals at a time, which keeps it manageable and usually only takes an hour or so. {Make sure you follow my Freezer Cooking Pinterest board to see some of my favorites.} If I ever get a larger freezer, I may try and tackle some of the 20+ freezer meal prep plans. There are some greats ones out there!
Ree at The Pioneer Woman has a phenomenal post HERE about how she tackles freezer cooking. Her word means gold to me, so I’d give anything a try when she suggests it. 🙂
Crystal at MoneySavingMom has an article HERE with some great suggestions on how to get started so you aren’t overwhelmed.
Ruth at LivingWellSpendingLess has some great posts with lots of different freezer-cooking recipes to try. My friend got many of her recipes HERE from Ruth’s blog.
Lauren at I am THAT Lady has a great freezer cooking 101 post HERE. She also has some really popular freezer meal plan posts. For a small charge, you can get her meal plans in printable form.
I’ve started a Freezer Cooking Pinterest board if you are looking for some ideas as well. I add to the board as I see good ideas, recipes, or tips that might help.
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