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Interested in freezer cooking, but don’t know where to start?
In this post, I’m going to teach you beginner freezer cooking tips and tricks, and how to get started making freezer meals.
This is the complete Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking.
Once you know how to make easy meals to stock your freezer, you will be ready to serve your family a great meal even on the busiest nights when you have no time to cook.
These meals are great to help you eat at home more often and save a lot of money!
I created a free guide for you to print out, so you have this information handy in your own kitchen.
Print your free copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking here.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’ve had a super busy week, working, running errands, doing this and that, you have no time to cook dinner, and you are so over ordering pizza or circling the drive thru?
You might feel like there is no hope for you. Like you can’t feed your family a healthy dinner when you have no time to grocery shop or cook.
You’ve probably read posts about meal planning and freezer cooking. And it sounds great. But it hasn’t worked for you.
Maybe you tried meal planning for a week, life got super busy, and it just didn’t happen.
Well, what if you just started with baby steps? Made a few extra dinners for back up meals on crazy busy nights?
Let’s start from the very beginning and take baby steps towards freezer cooking.
Print your free copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking here.
How does freezer cooking work?
Freezer cooking is so simple, but can sound so intimidating. All you want to do is make a few extra meals to freeze, that you can easily thaw, heat, and serve.
If you are already making a meal, why not multiple it while you have all of the ingredients out, make extra, and freeze the meals for later?
You can make just one freezer meal, a few, or stock your whole freezer – it’s all up to you!
My 15 Top Beginner Freezer Cooking Tips:
- Start small. Just double a recipe that would freeze meal, and have one extra meal.
- Only make meals you know your family will eat. There are tons of freezer recipes out there, but to avoid waste and extra work for you, just pick the ones you know your family will like.
- Buy meat in bulk when you find a great deal. If I find a great deal on chicken breasts, I stock up, and then make a lot of chicken freezer meals.
- Block out time to do your freezer cooking. Schedule it and let your family know you will be busy during that time.
- Double check to make sure you have all of the ingredients the day before you plan to cook.
- Make sure you have plenty of freezer bags and containers. The foil pans from the dollar store also work great!
- Have a way to label your freezer meals, so you know what everything is. Once it’s frozen, things don’t look exactly the same and it can be hard to tell what is what. You can use a Sharpie marker on bags, or sticker labels.
- Once you make your freezer meals, make a menu plan for the week to use the meals.
- Make a list of the meals your family loves, so you have ideas of what to make for freezer meals.
- Listen to music while you cook – it makes it so much more fun!
- Ask someone in your family to help you with the dishes when you get done.
- Try no cook freezer meals when you don’t have a lot of time. These can be easily made with chicken breasts and different marinades.
- Focus on one meat when you make freezer meals. Brown a lot of ground beef for meals like spaghetti sauce, taco meat, and chili.
- To speed things up, use estimates of spices and seasonings instead of measuring everything.
- Keep a freezer meal inventory list to keep up with what you have and what you need to make more of.
Print your free copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking here.
How can I make my own freezer cooking plan?
You can easily make your own freezer cooking plan and make your family’s favorite meals. To do this, just make a list of the meals you want to make. Divide those meals by meat used. Start with one meat at a time. Buy those ingredients, make the meals, divide everything into the best portions for your family, label, and freeze the meals.
You are really just cooking up a bunch of meals, dividing them out, and freezing them.
Don’t be afraid to make your own freezer cooking plan!
What are the easiest meals for beginner freezer cooking?
The two simplest meals to start freezer cooking are taco meat and spaghetti sauce.
Is your mind blown with how delicious those sound?
Probably not. But that’s okay.
The point here isn’t to make the most grand, most delicious, most award winning dinner for your family.
What we want is to have something super simple that we can whip up and feed our hangry (hungry + angry) family. To have something warm, homemade, and frugal to put on the table.
You may only get 15 minutes to sit down with your family at night. And these meals are perfect to keep them happy and fed, and keep you out of the kitchen and spending time with your family.
Beginner Freezer Cooking Recipe #1: Spaghetti Sauce
Ingredients:
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3 28 oz cans tomato sauce
2 28 oz cans diced tomatoes
4 lbs ground beef
Assorted Spices: (Use what you love – this is what I add. And we are trying to make these meals quick, so I don’t measure! Just a good dash of each, and a small dash of cayenne pepper.)
Garlic Salt, Onion Powder, Basil, Oregano, Chili Powder, Cayenne Pepper
Directions:
1.Using a large skillet, brown 4 lbs of ground beef. Sprinkle with spices if desired. Drain grease when done. (I use a strainer over a large bowl that I can reuse for the taco meat.)
2.Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, ground beef, and desired spices to a large pot and let simmer (a.k.a. – leave the burner on low, but the top on the pot, and catch up on your to do list.)
3.Portion the sauce up by your family size in freezer containers, label, and stick in the freezer.
When ready to serve: Let thaw overnight (or heat from frozen – just will take longer), heat in stove pot, boil noodles, combine and devour.
This made 10 containers for the 2 of us, so it should be about 20 servings overall. Multiply it to make more!
Get the printable plan of these beginner freezer cooking meals here.
Beginner Freezer Cooking Recipe #2: Taco Meat
Ingredients:
2 lbs of ground beef
1 taco seasoning packet
*Multiply by adding 2 lbs of beef to every seasoning packet
Directions:
1.Using the same large skillet from before, add your ground beef to brown. Drain grease in strainer and large bowl.
2. Mix the taco seasoning packet with 2/3 cup water and add mix to beef.
3. Let boil, then simmer until mixed well.
4. Add family size portions to freezer containers, label, and stick in the freezer.
When ready to serve: Let thaw overnight (or heat from frozen), heat in skillet or microwave, add to tortillas, tortilla chips, or a salad!
Create a taco bar by placing all the toppings on the counter for everyone to create their own.
Try just these 2 meals to get started with freezer cooking. These will be tasty meals that will keep you family fed and happy, and keep you out of the kitchen and enjoying time with you family.
After you make these simple meals, try one of these plans:
No Cook Freezer Meals – 12 Meals in 30 Minutes
Breakfast Freezer Cooking – 11 Meals in 20 Minutes for $5
Freezer Cooking for 2: 21 Meals in 1 Hour
I’m so excited that you want to learn beginner freezer cooking to make freezer meals to eat at home more, spend more time with your family, save money, and quit stressing about dinnertime.
Freezer meals are a life saver on busy nights, and nights when you just don’t feel like cooking.
I love eating at home and spending more time at home with my husband, and I hope these freezer meals will help you to do the same.
You might just find a lot more free time and money – what will you do with it?
Make sure to grab the free Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking to have handy in your kitchen! Print your free copy here!
Want to learn more about freezer cooking?
Be sure to check out these top freezer cooking posts!
Want to make more freezer meals to fill your freezer with ready to go meals?
Check out these awesome freezer cooking plans!
- Make Ahead Freezer Slow Cooker Meals
- 19 Make Ahead Freezer Meals to Save Time and Money
- Make 111 Meals in 3 Hours
- Freezer Cooking for 2: 21 Meals in 1 Hour
- 10 Easy Freezer Meals for Beginners
- 7 Easy Ground Beef Freezer Meals
- Weekly Freezer Cooking Plan for Expecting Moms
- 5 Make Ahead Breakfast Ideas
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