I don't make a lot of Freezer recipes as I've always been a cook day to day kind of girl, but lately I've really started to appreciate a ready to go home cooked freezer meal. It's so easy to pop a premade frozen meal into the oven when you simply don't feel like cooking. It's almost like cheating. But not.
School holidays at our house make me feel very school lunch lady'esque. Food loses it's fun factor. Why, of why do they eat ALL the time? Do you ever think that eating so often is a giant pain in the *ss? You just finish cleaning up the breakfast dishes and you're already late on prepping lunch?
Meal Planning does take a lot of the feeding a family headache away, but even then, if I didn't have a few easy recipes up my sleeve, I'm not sure if I would ever leave the kitchen.
Related Posts
- How to Meal Plan for Beginners + Free Meal Plan Printable
- Clean Eating Family Meal Plan #13 (the School holidays one)
To Freeze or Not to Freeze
The thought of cooking all of next month's dinners in four hours has never appealed to me, but I must admit that I absolutely {right now especially} appreciate a good made ahead freezer meal.
Actually, taking a ready made made meal out of the freezer and popping it into the oven sounds kinda blissful right now. But instead I'm looking at a hunk of frozen solid, raw ground beef (Lasagne tonight if you're following my Clean Eating Mealplan #12). Agh! Not inspired.
I've never been great at the whole think-ahead-Meal Prepping thing. And I've only recently got to grips with week to week meal planning, but planning for anything longer than that hasn't happened and the idea of freezing a month of meals sets me off into a full blown panic.
What if I do all the work, and the freezer ruins the taste?
Freezing perfectly good, ready to eat, hot out the oven dinner feels wrong.
Maybe it ends up sitting in the back of the freezer forever.
These are actual Freezer Phobia thoughts that cross my mind.
Which is silly, because there are a few recipes that I already double up and freeze on a regular basis (and I'm going to share these with you in a bit) - so I know Freezer cooking works. They've been tried, tested and approved again and again - so I've worked my way through the freezer-fear. Thing is, I seem to resist trying new Freezer Meals.
But then I got thinking. What if I upped my Freezer Cooking Game. At worst, it means having a few more freezer friendly recipes up my sleeve. Which would be awesome!
So I've decided to to take on this Challenge. I signed up for Erins FREE Freezeasy Workshop to take on the task of making 10 Meals in 1 Hour. I can do 1 hour. Surely? And did I mention it's free?
I'll let you know how it goes next week. Sign up for my Newsletter if you want an update. Click here to subscribe
In the meantime - here are my 5 tried and tested freezer favorites:
5 Family Friendly Freezer Recipes
1. Classic Bolognaise Sauce
This is the ultimate mom hack meal. You can sleep better knowing you have a stash of bolognese Sauce stashed in the freezer.
2. Homemade Lasagna
Once you have your bolognese sauce sorted, assembling a lasagna is actually super easy. Ready made pasta is a modern miracle and if you are short on time, a basic blend of ricotta cheese and beaten egg makes quick work of the white sauce topping.
3. Budget Beef Stew
Dust off the Slow Cooker for this one. Slow Cooked beef stew is one of my top budget meals that freezes beautifully! And you can use up pretty much any vegetable you have on hand.
4. Chicken & Vegetable Soup
This takes my back to being a kid in my Granny's kitchen. I'm pretty sure that there was always a pot bubbling away on the stove. Her freezer was never short of neatly stacked bags of frozen Chicken and Veggie Soup. I remember holding them still while she filled them. She would have loved this tool. But then again, that would have made my super important bag holding job obsolete.
5. Choc Banana Muffins
This is a classic. Bake as many as you can fit in the oven in one go. And maybe another batch while the oven is hot.
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