Freezer meals. Who knew about this concept before pinterest? Anyone? The only freezer meal I could think of way back when was a terrible but very familiar microwaved chicken pot pie. And yet now people ask if you have your freezer stocked before baby with the same expectation as is the crib set up. Well I have a secret. I really don’t care for freezer meals.
I know, who doesn’t love spending 6 hours on a Saturday slicing and dicing and mixing and pulling apart the entire kitchen to make a months worth of gobbledy gook you can throw into a crock pot, walk away and call it cooking? Me. I doesn’t love it. In fact I really can’t stand the crock pot mush. Actually I haven’t used my crock pot since I moved into our house 3 years ago. Mostly because I can’t find the lid but… minor detail.
I do love saving time and effort in the kitchen though. I like being able to pull something out of the freezer without too much thought as to what to do with it. So how do these two ideas meet?
Pre season
Very straight forward option here. When I separate out chicken or pork or beef cuts… I season it as I put it in the bag. It doesn’t have to be a marinade. Just plain herbs and spices will do. Lemon pepper, italian herb, garlic and lemon, chipotle. All of these are simple. Just a dusting of your seasoning mix before putting them into the freezer. Of course most sauces work fine too, BBQ, ranch, balsamic italian, honey mustard, teriyaki, whatever you like just throw it together and label.
Then when you pull it out you can decide how you’d like to cook it. Maybe you like the crock pot idea. Maybe you defrost and let it bake with some veggies. Grilling is always a nice touch. A simple sear and saute works great too. Instant pot cooking might mean skipping defrost all together. Decide later.
The point is to just focus on the protein part of the meal as you put it away in the freezer. Portion, season, freeze. Ta friggin da.
Side dishes
Now I don’t worry a whole lot about side dish freezer prep. However, sometimes I feel motivated to make 25 double stuffed potatoes for freezing. Or 100 pierogies. If you know your family loves homemade fries… learn to batch cook those for the freezer. They’re simple. Wash the potato, cut your fries, boil for about 5 mins until they’re slightly cooked. Freeze in one layer and transfer to freezer bag or sealed container after frozen. To cook just pull desired amount out, lightly coat with oil, season with salt and bake at 400 until crisped.
The easiest side dishes are frozen veggies. I like the big bags from Costco. They’re cheap and good quality. To cook it’s as simple as steaming in the microwave with some butter, salt and pepper. Or saute in a pan with a little seasoning of your choice. (try some dilly sweet corn- trust me!) Or go really big and make some cheddar sauce for your broccoli.
Keeping some staples on hand like rice, beans and potatoes means you can always come up with something. Both my homemade rice pilaf and seasoned black beans (from dried beans) come together in less than an hour. And really most of it is just cooking time so you can start all the food in 20 mins, set the table in 10 and then have a half an hour to do whatever till dinner is done.
Point is- no complicated, freezer safe, one pot menagerie of over cooked veg and weird meat pieces to eat (or not) because it seemed like a quicker option.
Make an extra
Here’s my exception to freezer meals. If I’m making say… a lasagna. I know it’ll freeze well and the finished product will be of acceptable standard. So I may make an extra to toss in the freezer and pull out later. But I only do this with things I know will come out good. And only if I’m already making it. It’s not much more work to make two if you’re already making one. So why not?
This can translate to a few other things, like chicken cordon bleu. Prepared just as if you were cooking it straight away. Except instead of frying or baking, you freeze it. And to prepare you only have to defrost, then fry or bake as usual. The quality is just as good as fresh and you didn’t have to pull out the breadcrumbs. Sounds good to me. Maybe I’ll use all that extra time to whip up some cheese sauce for my broccoli? Probably not. But a gal can dream.
