Why worry about the food you will eat every day when you can prepare them in a single day? If you have not yet tried preparing freezer meals, here’s a simple guide that you can follow.
1. Plan.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Your plan should include a list of all the recipes you will make, the food & kitchen supplies you will need and the tasks to do before cooking. Make sure your kitchen and everything in it are clean.
2. Start small.
Success starts with little steps. Pick meals that you know your family will like. When cooking a dish, allocate one-half for consumption and the other half for freezing. You can start with 3 to 5 different recipes that will make you 6 to 10 meals.
3. Freeze ingredients.
Pick “no cook” meals, if possible, so that you can just store all ingredients together into a resealable bag. You can also freeze ingredients individually so that you can easily add them to many recipes. Freezing ingredients enables you to save money. If you’re not sure if an ingredient freezes well, try to freeze a small portion of it and see the result.
4. Select what you will freeze.
Never refreeze anything, even if it was frozen raw and then cooked. Don't freeze old food just because you don't want to waste it. Avoid freezing raw and hard-boiled eggs, vegetables with high water content (e.g. lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts, radishes), soft herbs (e.g. parsley, basil, chives), egg-based sauces, plain yoghurt, and low-fat cream, single cream and cottage cheese.
5. Put labels.
Food items look exactly the same when they are frozen, so don’t forget to put labels. Take time to label every resealable bag with the name of the dish, the date you made it, and the thawing or cooking instructions. Use permanent marker.
6. Fill your freezer.
Whether your freezer is full or not, your power bill will still be the same. It’s better to fill it to its capacity. If after you put freezer meals in your freezer there is still free space, fill that with bottles of water.
7. Clean as you go.
Cleanliness is a must. The kitchen should be deep-cleaned following a regular schedule. All kitchen supplies should be cleaned and stored properly after use to avoid food sanitation issues.
Freezing will not improve the quality of your food, but it will prolong its edibility. If you want to enjoy home-cooked food but your schedule doesn’t permit you to do so, preparing freezer meals is the best option for you.
For more food and cooking tips, check out this page.