Have you ever considered preparing freezer meals at home? While I have personally had little success with them, it is something I always wanted to accomplish. I love the idea of being able to have meals planned for weeks in advance always have something available when my husband and I are busy (which seems to be…well…always). As much as I hate to admit it, I know I need someone to hold my hand and help me through the process, especially if I want to succeed at getting my small family on a healthy eating schedule that doesn’t include eating out. Luckily, I recently found the perfect book to help me do just that – Seriously Good Freezer Meals: 150 Easy Recipes to Save Your Time, Money and Sanity.
Let’s admit it: we all want to save time and money while still putting healthy and tasty homemade food on the table. But how? Karrie Truman, creator of the much-beloved blog Happy Money Saver, is going to let you in on a secret: the answer is freezer meals.
When she was an exhausted young mom, Karrie found herself serving processed or fast food at the end of a busy day even though she knew it wasn’t what she wanted her family to be eating. Then she discovered freezer meals. Immediately, she had home-cooked, easy and delicious food at her fingertips and more time to spend with loved ones.
InSeriously Good Freezer Meals, Karrie shares 150 recipes photos that will change the way you think about freezer cooking. You won’t find your mother or grandmother’s freezer meals here (except lasagna, of course). Her recipes include Morning Energy Bars, Empanada Hand Pies, Coconut Cashew Basil Curry Soup, Smoky Grilled Louisiana Turkey Legs, and Layered Chocolate Mousse Cake with tons of vegetarian, gluten-free and vegan options, too. Plus, she adds a bulk-batch chart for ease in making large quantities of each freezer-meal recipe.
Karrie gives you all the tools you need to become a freezer-meal genius: information on shopping, cooking, freezing, thawing and everything in between. The book includes beginner, intermediate and advanced meal plan programs to guide you in cooking 7 to 50 meals in a day. You read that right: 50 meals in a day. No more excuses: it’s time to start cooking delicious meals that will have you feeling anything but left out in the cold!
Seriously Good Freezer Meals: Our Thoughts
As you can likely guess with our crazy schedulers around here, I was excited to start reading Seriously Good Freezer Meals: 150 Easy Recipes to Save Your Time, Money and Sanity when it arrived. I will freely admit, I am a freezer meal failure. Don’t get me wrong, I got it working one time and that was when we lived in our temporary apartment in New Jersey. When it worked, it was so amazing and such a time saver, especially with my husband’s breakfast when he needed something quick on the go. Once I got back though, I was constantly wasting food. It also didn’t help that many of the freezer meal books I bought were filled with junk food – yuck! Honestly, I was close to giving up on the entire concept…until this book.
For the first time in a long time, preparing freezer meals didn’t just seem easy, but doable. Best of all, the recipes in Seriously Good Freezer Meals: 150 Easy Recipes to Save Your Time, Money and Sanity sound absolutely delicious! These are the sort of meals you would expect to get in a restaurant or serve when you have guests, not when you are trying to get dinner together after a busy work day. While the recipes do take prep-time in the form of cutting vegetables and prep during the week, everything is truly doable for people who have busy schedules like my husband and me. If you are looking for a way to get yourself back into healthy eating or just eating from home on a regular basis, I highly recommend Seriously Good Freezer Meals: 150 Easy Recipes to Save Your Time, Money and Sanity!
Susan Bewley is a professional writer who has been writing content online & in print format for over 10 years. As well, she is an alumni of the University of Louisville with a Masters Degree in Special Education. When not working as an online business consultant or ghost writing, she can be found writing on Budget Earth, on her own novel, or working with various entities in the pet industry.
I have found that eating home-cooked vegetable-filled meals is not only healthier for me and my family, but also cheaper. Having a well-stocked freezer saves even more money by removing the temptation of takeout. It also saves prep, cooking, and cleanup time during the week so you can enjoy time with your family.
Whether it's a frozen single-serve meal or a combination of frozen prepared whole food ingredients like frozen fish, veggies and brown rice, frozen meals can provide a healthy, quick meal when there's no time to prep and cook.
Zip-top bags are great for freezing food because it's easier to get all the air out of them than it is with rigid containers. And zip-top bags have an added space-saving benefit: You can stack them, if you lay them flat to freeze first.
If your maternity leave is short or you plan to eat out regularly, then 10-20 make-ahead freezer meals should do the trick. But if you have more time before the baby comes or if you plan on eating at home most of the time, then 30-50 freezer meals might be more suitable for your family.
One of the biggest and most known disadvantages of cooking frozen foods is that it has the potential to remove much of the flavor obtained when consuming the fresh version. In addition, many foods lose nutrients and vitamins once they have been frozen.
Amy's offers a variety of "light in sodium" meals and uses some organic ingredients. Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine are two of the leaders in healthier frozen meals and offer some options with moderate sodium and lower calories. Their portions are small, however, and will likely leave you hungry.
Schmidt tells us that, for best results, you can keep mashed potatoes in "a freezer set to 0°F or colder" for "up to one year." At this temperature and for this length of time, frozen mashed potatoes can be thawed and reheated without losing texture or flavor (and without risking the transmission of foodborne bacteria) ...
Freezing temperatures do not damage glass the way they do plastic which makes them ideal to use to store frozen food. While glass can handle freezing temperatures and being heated, it's not a great conductor of heat.
On most days of the week, you'll want to rely on fresh meals — or tasty leftovers. “At the end of the day, I would limit frozen meals to no more than twice a week,” notes Taylor. But when you need the convenience of a frozen entrée, these tips can guide your choices.
How Long Do Frozen Recipes Last? Great news, according to the USDA, frozen meals are safe to eat indefinitely. However, after about three months, the quality (i.e. flavor and texture) of food can degrade. Therefore, we recommend eating foods within three months of stashing them in the freezer.
The exact cost comparisons will always depend on the meal in question, but one thing is for sure, when you cook from scratch, you need to buy every ingredient. In some cases, the cost of each individual spice, vegetable and meat for a recipe will outweigh the cost of frozen pre-made meals.
The convenience of frozen produce cannot be overstated, as it is often pre-processed (peeled, sliced, and ready to cook) and can be a lifesaver in a time crunch. As a bonus, frozen produce is often cheaper too!
For the majority of food items, buying frozen was cheaper, with breaded cod, raspberries, pork sausages, meat feast pizzas, chips and broccoli all working out as cheaper than fresh. However, the results showed for certain items, like pain au chocolat or cottage pie ready meals, buying fresh is better.
One of the big advantages of meal planning, they explained, is you don't end up overbuying or purchasing too many of some ingredients and having to throw them all away a few months later. They say planning each meal in advance can save a hundred dollars or more on groceries each month.
Hobby: Web surfing, Skiing, role-playing games, Sketching, Polo, Sewing, Genealogy
Introduction: My name is Maia Crooks Jr, I am a homely, joyous, shiny, successful, hilarious, thoughtful, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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