However, I quickly found the vacuum sealer was my best friend when making freezer meals.
Freezer meals can help your family in many ways. If you struggle with running from work to school events, practices, and everything in between and finding a healthy meal in the meantime, then freezer cooking is for you.
If you just want to make life easier through your work week, freezer cooking is also for you.
I’d venture to say freezer cooking is for everyone!
The Benefits of Freezer Cooking
Freezer Cooking Saves Time
Making larger amounts of food doesn’t take much longer than cooking smaller portions. For example, five pounds of ground beef doesn’t take much longer than one pound of ground beef. Why not just go ahead and do it all at once?
You’ll also save yourself the headache of only prepping food once and cleaning once! You will only have to chop up the onions once (which means you’ll only have to cry once)!
Making Freezer Meals Keeps the Kitchen Cleaner
Like I mentioned before, you’ll only have to do the major cleaning once! Instead of having all the knives, mixing bowls, and other kitchen utensils to clean on your busy weeknight, you’ll only have one or two pans to clean that night.
Freezer Meals Can Serve as Gifts
I’m from the south. We love to give food in times of need. We take it to homes after the funeral of a loved one, take it to our sick friends, take it to our friends with a new baby, well – you get the idea. Food is love. Food says you care. If you keep freezer meals on hand, they serve as the perfect way to show you care. With it being frozen, they can save it for later or make it when the time is best for them.
Freezer Cooking Saves Money
Buying large amounts of meat rather than smaller units of meat can save you tons of money. For example, 5 lbs of ground beef can be just a few dollars higher than 1 lb.
Also, instead of hitting up the fast food restaurant on a busy work night, you can just use what’s in the freezer instead! Sure fast food is convenient, but it’s unhealthy and it’s expensive!
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Less Stress
We are busy. Trying to feed our family after a long day can sometimes be more difficult than we’d like to admit! However, if you have a freezer stocked full of meals, you’ll have something you can pull out and heat up easily!
What should I freezer cook?
My favorite thing to freezer cook is The Pioneer Woman’s spaghetti sauce. This stuff is amazing. It’s so easy to prepare and make on a Sunday afternoon. It freezes amazingly well. I’ve never met a friend who doesn’t love it – and I’ve taken it to my friends on several occasions. (Pro tip for your vacuum sealer: If you are vacuum sealing something with a liquid, you can get special bags that have a liquid barrier!! This will keep the liquid from getting sucked up into your sealer!)
Don’t feel limited to full meals, though! You can do simple things like basic ground beef. If you brown up the ground beef and freeze it, you can pull it out for tacos, spaghetti, casseroles, or whatever you want to make. It’ll save you the step of browning your beef. You can also freeze shredded chicken ahead of time as well! This will save you the trouble of making the chicken and shredding it when you want to cook!
Related Posts: How to Make Meal Planning Quick and Easy
Don’t Get Overwhelmed at Freezer Cooking
Maybe cooking 10 meals in one day seems a bit much. That’s fine! Sometimes, I will just make one large meal and freeze it one weekend and do another the next. No one has a hard and fast rule that you need to make a dozen meals in one day. Do what works for you!
Another great tip for freezer cooking is to get all your ingredients via a grocery store pick up/carryout. This way you can use your master recipe list to order them online and let someone else find them in the store and pack them into your car. You’ll save even more time by not having to hunt for everything yourself in the store, and you’ll save money by not being tempted to buy extra things!
What’s stopping you from freezer cooking? After knowing all the benefits, don’t you want to get started!
Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter to get access to free printables, including a great freezer inventory sheet that will help you track what meals you are putting in that freezer!
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