After my experience doing once a month cooking last year and my freezer cooking day last week, I have some helpful tips to pass along to anyone who might be considering doing their own freezer cooking day.
10 Tips for a Successful Freezer Cooking Day
1) Do it with a friend. I am so thankful for my friend Donna from Another New Season. I honestly can’t imagine doing a big freezer cooking day with out a friend along for the ride! Having a friend working with you makes the time go by faster and you can get twice as much accomplished. A win-win!
2) Get organized. Organization is so important!
- Double check your shopping list. Forgetting something really stinks.
- Do as much prep work ahead of time as possible! Browning hamburger, chopping onions and trimming the fat off of chicken are major time savers.
- Start with a clean kitchen.
- Have supplies like measure spoons, mixing bowls and pans setting out.
- Set up your kitchen in a way that will make sense for the big day. Additional tables may be needed for a work space and food packaging.
For our big day, I set all of the ingredients we would be needing on top of the washer and dryer in my mud room. This was perfect since the mud room is just off of the kitchen and it left my counter top space for other things.
3) Plan things to entertain your children. If possible, find childcare for your young children. The less distractions you have the faster you’ll get through your cooking list. If childcare isn’t possible or your children are old enough to stay entertained, be sure you plan something for them to do. For Grace, I was prepared with videos, new books and I let her play with water in the bathroom sink.
4) Make recipes you know you’ll love. If you are putting in the effort, time and money to make all of this food you want to be sure your family will want to eat it. The last time Donna and I did this we made several recipes that were new to us. We loved most of them, but… I may or may not have thrown away a year-old freezer meal to make room for the new dishes. *ahem*
5) Use fresh ingredients. Apparently I don’t do much baking. Apparently the shelf life of flour (according to a Facebook fan) is only 8 months. An unexpected highlight of our freezer day was definitely the moment I threw away my 5-year-old flour. White and wheat. Don’t be like me. Use the fresh stuff.
6) Freeze things flat in bags. The most common question I get about freezer cooking is, “How do you have room for all the food? Do you need a separate freezer to pull this off?” I do have a separate freezer, but I believe that most (if not all) of the things we made last week would fit in a fridge top freezer.
The key is to use freezer bags and lay the bags flat. I prefer Ziploc bags and never have a freezer burn issue when I remove as much excess air as possible. Money Saving Mom’s article How to Have a Freezer Cooking Day if You don’t Have a Deep Freezer has more great tips and a video that will help you find the space you need in your freezer.
7) Always label food and include the correct date. You will forget what something is. You will forget how long it has been in there. Save yourself the trouble and label all of your dishes along with the date. You would think that including the correct date would be understood, but apparently I missed the memo that we are in 2011. Welcome to April, Rebekah.
Don’t forget to include cooking instructions for your dishes in the label. Having the baking temperature and time listed on the packaging is super helpful.
8 ) Stay focused, but have fun! By the end of the day you’re going to be tired so try to stay on task, but enjoy yourself.
9) Document the day with pictures. Nothing is more satisfying at the end of a big freezer cooking day than a table full of food! So take a picture and remember the moment. And make your spouse look at it. And make him tell you how impressed he is. And make him massage your feet while he is praising you. 😉
10) Plan something for supper. The last thing you will want to do at the end of the day is make something for supper! Set aside something you’ve made that day to enjoy after all your hard work or order a pizza. I wish that I had planned better for the day after also. I still didn’t feel like cooking, but I felt silly for using one of my freezer meals already.
To read all about our recent freezer cooking day including the menu, meal count and cost, check out Freezer Cooking Day (Part 1) and (Part 2)..
So what do you think? Are you ready to get cooking??
Great tips!Yep…you are inspiring me!
It is offical. You must do this. And then blog about it. 🙂
Great job! You had quite a productive day. I love seeing how others handle their freezer cooking. very nice post, I enjoyed the tips.
Thanks, Lorie! I’m still a “newbie” to freezer cooking, but I really do enjoy it. I’m always looking for more freezer friendly recipes or freezer cooking tips, so if you have any I would love to hear them!
Here’s a flour tip for you: buy it when it’s on sale and stock up. Store bags in freezer until you need them. I’ve stored flour in the freezer a LONG time! A bag of flour fits nicely in the door of an upright freezer.
Jennifer, I should definitely store my flour in my freezer!!! Why didn’t I think of that? However, I don’t think that I’ll need to “stock up” since you can clearly see by this post that I’m not using my flour very often. haha!
I forgot… when you first posted about this you mentioned browning hamburger and freezing. I’ve been doing that for a few years now and absolutely love it. It is so handy to have on hand. Again, I stock up when it’s on sale and buy enough that I brown most of it and leav a couple pounds raw for the few recipes I need raw meat for. Another easy freezer meal is buy chicken breast when it’s on sale and immediately put 2-4 in a freezer bag with your favorite marinade. Let them sit in the fridge for a day to soak up marinade them freeze. Perfect for the grill.
Jennifer, I’ve been browning up my hamburger for awhile too. It is such a great time saver! This time around Donna & I used Italian dressing as a marinade for our frozen chicken breasts. Honestly, that is the only chicken marinade that I ever use! I would love to hear recipes or suggestions for other kinds. What is your favorite?
Why didn’t I think of pre-browning hamburger?!?! I’ve thrown away burger that has gone bad bc I’ve purchased it on sale and it didn’t last in the fridge til I could finally get to it (thought I’d get to it faster than I did…). This is an amazing idea and quite a time saver!!
Definitely gonna start doing some freezer meals!
Thanks!
I’m happy to help, Ben! You would be amazed at all the wonderful things you can learn from reading “mommy blogs!” haha!
I freezer cook sometimes but I’ve never done it with a buddy. I think that may be the extra motivation I need, thanks for the good ideas!
Anne, you will love having a friend along for the ride! It makes the dishes a lot less painful. haha!
You’ve inspired me to do another freezer cooking day. I have done them before having a baby, or before going on vacation, but it has been a long time. I can’t believe I forgot how convenient it is to have meals ready to go. Off to read your recipes and other tips.
Jessica, I would love to hear your favorite freezer friendly recipes! Have you ever tried Once A Month Mom’s menus? She is amazing!
LOVE it! I’ve been wanting to try the Once a Month cooking thing but I don’t really have a friend to cook with… so for now I resort to cooking a few times a week and making multiples of all those things to freeze.
One thing that is essential for me is making a list of everything I put into my freezer. That way I don’t have to go digging through everything when I am trying to figure out what’s for dinner 🙂
Tiffany, the baked spaghetti we made is a great dish for batch cooking. It takes almost zero extra effort to make two instead of one. I plan to share the recipe on SimplyRebekah.com.
Also, I completely agree with the list tip you shared. My freezer can be such a black hole!
I loved your post about the freezer cooking day. I will need to check out your other posts about freezer cooking.
Blessings
Honey
I just recently did a freezer cooking post too. I have been enjoying the benefits of it for about 3 rounds now (3 months). I love all the tips, #6 is such a biggie and I never even thought about #10, that is so true!
Great tips. I bet making it with a friend would be so much better!!
Lindsey @ GrowingKidsMinistry.com
Oh my word! A friend is definitely needed for a full day of crazy freezer cooking! 🙂
Regarding #6 – I recently went on a freezer-cooking spree and I was able to fit 19 dinners into my freezer. This is in addition to some frozen hamburger patties, a whole chicken, frozen fruit and veggies, beans, tortillas, and homemade bread. Here’s my blog post on it: http://aspiring-grace.blogspot.com/2014/04/today-in-my-kitchen.html Just pretend you are playing real-life Tetris. 😉
Great tips. I have been doing freezer meals for years. Tip: Watch your freezer bags on wire racks in the freezer, the freeze bags get stuck. Also, be aware of servicing sizes. Lots of recipes have larger serving sizes. I.e. Burgers do not need to be quarter pounders. I can get 6 burgers out of a lb recipe.
Sabrina, that would not be good to have a bag stick to the wire racks! Thankfully that hasn’t happened to me yet.