Freezer Meal Cooking

Many of us made New Year’s Resolutions to eat healthier, save money or to lose weight. Those are very noble goals, but really hard to do in practicality. A couple of years ago, in an effort to meet these very same goals for myself, I started a group at my house to make freezer meals for the Crockpot.

I LOVE my Crockpots. I use them multiple times a week, since between work, taking care of the kids (at one point we had four under four), and attempting a social life, I simply do not have time to stand in the kitchen for an hour at a time every night to make something for the family to eat.

The concept is simple: You’ve seen the ads pop up on Facebook for the best, healthiest, most delicious freezer meals EVER and clicked on the link and looked at the recipe, maybe hit the save button, and then never done anything further. Here are a couple of tips to get you on your way to a happier, healthier kitchen life:IMG_2633

  1. Don’t freeze potatoes. Weird, right? Almost any recipe in the crock can be converted to a freezer meal, except those that include potatoes. If I want to make a recipe that contains potatoes, I will freeze the rest of the ingredients and add the potatoes the day I cook it.
  2. Batch cooking is your friend. I get several recipes and make them all at once, so although I spend an afternoon in the kitchen, I wind up with a couple freezer meals per week for the next month.
  3. Having slow cooker meals in the freezer makes it easy to help a friend in need. When a fellow mom has a new baby, an illness or a family emergency, all you have to do is pull a bag out of the freezer for her. Several friends brought a hot meal and a frozen meal over when we had our daughter, and it was an incredible help.
  4. Don’t be afraid to try new things! I have made some real winners over the last two years of monthly freezer meal cooking, and we’ve had some real losers. My favorite out-of-my-comfort-zone recipe is this recipe for Cincinnati Chili. Chili with cinnamon and chocolate sounds really weird, but it is incredibly delicious.
  5. If you make several batches of the same meal, you can often save money buying ingredients in bulk. Things like tomato sauce or paste, spices and herbs, and diced tomatoes show up in a lot of recipes and buying larger versions of them, even at the grocery store if you don’t have a membership, caIMG_2866n help you pinch your pennies.
  6. Free broth! Don’t buy broth at the store. Instead, save your onion ends, carrot peels, pepper tops and the like in a freezer bag in the freezer throughout the month. When you have a full bag or two, put them in a giant pot of water with some salt, garlic and whatever other spices you enjoy, and simmer on low for a few hours. Drain the “bits” out (I use a strainer over a giant bowl) and you wind up with delicious vegetable broth. Add a chicken carcass or some beef bones if you want those flavors. I substitute veggie broth for all broths in recipes and haven’t noticed a difference.

I have found that prep work and assembling bags is so much more fun with friends. If nothing else, you are making dinner and memories!

 

Meaghan Koci
Meaghan wears many hats throughout the day: wife to husband of fifteen years, Jeremy, mom to two incredible children, Jacob and Aliza, legal assistant, foster parent, and surrogate. A Wichita native, she met her husband at K-State (Go State!) and they moved from coast (Los Angeles, CA) to coast (Manchester, NH and Groton, CT) before settling back down in Kansas. She is a big fan of her crock pots, has read more than a novel a day for the last five years, and crochets in her “spare” time.