Freezer Meal Cooking
I'm not sure about your family, but my family insists on eating everyday. Sometimes even more than 1 meal - geesh! I am a working person which means that some days (okay, many days) after teaching 5 years old I do not have a lot of energy left to whip up a delicious homecooked meal. Enter the beauty that is freezer meal prep.
Frankly, even if you do not have hungry family members clamoring for food sometimes it is just nice to pull something out of the freezer. A meal you prepared earlier in the week or month that is not loaded with processed bits. Also you can control the portion sizes. Maybe you are helping to provide meals to friends or relatives that are ill or can no longer cook for themselves. Freezer cooking helps with all these concerns.
If you do an internet search you can find tons of great recipes and websites specifically geared toward freezer cooking. The other nice thing is that you really do not need to purchase a ton of "things" to make freezer cooking work for you. To get started all you need are a few tinfoil pans or some large plastic bags.
My Two Cents
I have been freezer cooking for quite a few years. Based on my own experiences these are the items that do not freeze well.
- cream soups never freeze well (the consistency is just weird after they are reheated)
- plain eggs (eggs inside other meals or in a breakfast sandwich or burrito are fine)
- dairy products (milk and sour cream freeze, but do not thaw in a delicious manner)
Okay, now I froze something how do I fix it to eat?
I place freezer meals into 3 categories (oh that sounds so fancy, like I have a plan). Crock-pot/Instant pot, oven or stovetop. Depending on the item some are better in the crockpot rather than in the oven or on top of the stove and vice versa. For example, chicken meals in a slow cooker need to be complete within 3-4 hours. After that it get all dried out and tough. The kind of tough old chicken you would get if you got invited to Sunday supper at the farm and they killed their last scrawny old hen. Ham also does not like to hang out for long periods of time in a slow cooker.
One of the ways to outsmart the old hen is to put your slow cooker meal into your Instant Pot. This significantly shortens the cooking time and keeps everything nice and moist.
Equipment
When I started freezer cooking I did not start out with lots of new or fancy cooking tools. This is nice because maybe you will discover that you really don't like it. You might also not find anything you want to make as a freezer meal.
It is important to label your containers. Things tend to look very similar when frozen. How sad to be expecting to eat Chicken Tikka Masla and end up with Sloppy Joes for dinner. These are both absolutely delicious meal options, but not at all the same as far as flavor palate goes.
Lately, I have been getting all Miss Fancy Pants with my labels! I have been printing them with a list of ingredients and directions. I cut out the labels and tape them to the bag. A Sharpie marker works just as well and frankly is way easier to find.
Freezer space is usually at a premium at my house so I tend to only freeze meals in bags, not tin foil pans. Bags lay flat and take up less space. A word of warning if you are freezing tomato based items such as lasagna. Tomatoes contain acids that if left in tinfoil in the freezer for extended periods of time (I believe over 2-3 months) can cause tiny pin pricks to develop in the tinfoil pan. What a surprise that would be once you defrost the lasagna and place it into the oven to bake.
If you want to keep freezing meals the 2 items I highly recommend are bag stands and a vacuum sealer. I found both of these at Amazon.
I have a folder in pinterest labeled freezer cooking that contains many recipes if you would like somewhere to start. I have a link on the home page to my pinterest account.