Tips on stocking your freezer full of easy dinners
You may have thought about stockpiling healthy dinners in your freezer for those busy nights. But if you’ve been putting this idea into the “too hard” basket, today we have some tips to help you get started. It is possible to get started without too much effort.
It’s great having some meals stashed away in the freezer. When you know you’ve got a busy day ahead, you can take a casserole out to defrost the night before and come home to just heat and eat.
Just got home from a week away and there’s no food in the house? Just defrost some bolognese while you make some pasta and dinner is served.
Make double or triple batches
This idea is quite simple. When you make a freezer friendly meal such as bolognese, curry, casserole or meatballs – double or triple your recipe. Then you can just pop the extra portions into the freezer, either in single serve containers or enough to feed the household.
Buy meat on sale
When you your favourite meats on sale, stock up and make a plan for how to use them. You can do a big cook up and freeze a few meals for a rainy day.
Freeze handy ingredients
When you have made something like pasta sauce or chicken stock, pop any leftovers in ice cube trays and freeze. Keep the blocks in a zip lock bag so that you can just defrost the perfect amount when cooking.
Package up leftovers before you eat
Rather than leaving a big pot of food on the stovetop while you eat, get into the habit of packaging up single serves of leftovers to put in the freezer. This will stop anyone from tucking into your freezer stash food on the night you made it.
Use freezer friendly containers
Ill-fitting lids or old margarine tubs don’t work well to keep your food in good shape. Invest in some good quality freezer friendly containers to freeze cooked food. You could also consider getting some oven-safe casserole dishes that can go in the freezer too. That way if you make a casserole you can spray the dish with olive oil spray before lining with a big strip of foil. Ladle the stew inside, covering the top with more foil. Freeze overnight then remove the foil wrapped meal from the dish and pop back in the freezer. Then when you want to use it you can just thaw and re-heat.
Label everything
You don’t want to end up with icy random blocks of food that will most likely end up in the bin. Keep some address labels and marker pens handy and write down exactly what is in there. You could even add some cooking instructions in case someone else is doing the cooking.
Keep track
Rather than ending up with eight packs of Bolognese, remember to keep track of what’s in the freezer. This way you will know what needs eating and what you have plenty of. A notepad on the fridge or a small whiteboard work well.