Make-Ahead Healthy Freezer Meals
I've finally figured out the trick to eat healthy consistently, staying on budget and doing way less work - make-ahead freezer meals. It's such a simple solution to such a big problem!
The Four Basic Steps for Healthy Freezer Meals
#1 - Shop Sales and Buy Large Quantities of What is on Sale - it really is worth it to follow sales and learn what a good deal is and use the sales to meal plan. When you see a good deal, stock up on it! Join my mailing list and I will share with you the resources I use to help me decide what a good deal is.
#2 - Cook Huge Batches of Food - using an easy method such as the slow cooker or Instant Pot. Focus on freezer-friendly meals (I will give you ideas I have tried myself)
#3 - Eat one meal of your large batch of food then immediately freeze what is left - I use individual containers so each person can have something different but you may want to freeze family-size portions.
#4 - Repeat steps 2-3 once or twice a week (or less) and the rest of the week heat your frozen meals quickly and don't worry about making dinner.
That's the basics. I have tons of additional ideas in each of these categories I'm excited to share with you.
Some of the Main Benefits
- Most days you only have to reheat your food and maybe add to it a bit. An example is spaghetti. You will pre-cook the sauce and freeze it then the day you eat it you will cook the pasta fresh and reheat your sauce either in the microwave or on the stovetop.
- We pretty much don't eat out anymore because we know we have food we actually like ready and waiting at home that we don't have to prepare. Talk about a money saver . . .
- It is barely any more work to cook a large batch of food than a small one (at least if you use the recipes I do).
- We are eating healthier than we used to because our meals are pre-planned so it is easier to be consistent, rather than doing well most of the time but then slipping up every once in a while (or more).
- We eat way more veggies because I pre-cook those too and freeze them individual containers so they are easy to reheat and don't go bad in the fridge.
- It's amazing how much money you can save by buying in bulk and on sale.
- Meal planning is super fast because you only have to plan two meals - and even faster if you do what I do and just rotate between 10 meals or so.
- It's a flexible plan so if you want to add some non-freezer meals into your meal plan that's totally doable.
- Once you figure out dinner you can do a similar method for breakfast and lunch.
Supplies
8 Ounce Freezer Containers - these one cup containers are good individual sizes for things like veggies for children or most main dishes for children
17 Ounce Freezer Containers - these are used the most in our home because they are good for individual servings for most adults for most items
25 Ounce Freezer Containers - I use these quite a bit to put leftover chicken broth or tomato sauce or for meals for my husband that take up more room, like watery soup
Bento Box Lunch Containers - these are fun to freeze lunches in and place in the freezer or just fill one of the slots and freeze then put a salad or fresh fruit in the other slots when you take it out of the freezer
Grease Pen - these are my favorite for freezer meals because they write on the containers and you can even wash them and it stays on but then all you need to do to get it off is use a paper towel and scrub for a few seconds
Popsicle Molds - I always freeze leftover smoothie as popsicles, especially if I have smoothie ingredients that are going to go bad soon.
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All My Healthy Freezer Meals
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