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Are you interested in freezer cooking and want to know the best beginner freezer cooking tips? In this post, I’ll teach you how to get started with beginner freezer cooking to save you time and money!
Freezer cooking is an awesome way to do a little work ahead of time to enjoy not having to spend all night in the kitchen every night.
You can easily make simple make ahead meals for the freezer with just a few minutes of time, or spend an afternoon stocking your whole freezer.
And when it’s dinner time, you’ll be so glad you have dinner ready to go!
Freezer meals are great for any time, but especially during busy seasons of life for expecting moms, new parents, or back to school time.
Tell me – does this sound 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?
What if you started with just 2 recipes, instead of 20?
Beginner Freezer Cooking: Baby Steps to Saving a Ton of Time & Money
Let’s start from the very beginning and take baby steps towards freezer cooking.
You can even make these meals while your catching up on laundry, or the dishes, or the millions of other things on your to do list.
These are the 2 simplest freezer meals that I make very often.
Nothing crazy here, just an easy meal for a busy family when the meal plan didn’t happen, when you forgot to thaw your other dinner, or when you forgot all about dinner.
These simple meals will be your saving grace when dinner time rolls around, you realize you had no plan, and pizza is not happening again.
Ready?
The two simplest meals you can make and freeze:
- Spaghetti Sauce
- Taco Meat
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. So, that’s what we are going to focus on. Super simple meals that can be ready in just a few minutes.
Related Post: 5 Make Ahead Breakfast Ideas
If you want a printable freezer cooking guide to have on hand in the kitchen, be sure to grab this free copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking. I’ll teach you my favorite freezer cooking tips and more!
Intro to Freezer Cooking 101
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.
Spaghetti Sauce
Spaghetti sauce is a favorite in our house. We eat it about once a week. And it’s one of the easiest things to make!
Here’s what you need:
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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:
- 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.)
- 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.)
- 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!
Related Post: 13 Quick & Easy Freezer Meals
Taco Meat
I love having taco meat already cooked up in the freezer. We can have tacos, nachos, or a taco salad for a super quick meal.
Here’s what you need:
2 lbs of ground beef
1 taco seasoning packet
*Multiply by adding 2 lbs of beef to every seasoning packet
Directions:
- Using the same large skillet from before, add your ground beef to brown. Drain grease in strainer and large bowl.
- Mix the taco seasoning packet with 2/3 cup water and add mix to beef.
- Let boil, then simmer until mixed well.
- 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.
Related Post: Freezer Cooking for 2: 21 Meals in 1 Hour
One of my favorite parts about freezer cooking is that you only have one large set of dishes to do. Everything else is pretty mess free!
Beginner freezer cooking is totally do-able. Just start with baby steps and try these easy 2 meals first.
Make these for a couple of months, and when you feel comfortable and you’d like to try a few more, come back and try this no cooking freezer cooking plan and make 18 meals in 30 minutes.
Want to learn more about freezer cooking?
Be sure to check out these top freezer cooking posts!
- Free Freezer Meal Planner Worksheet
- How to Plan a Freezer Cooking Day: My 15 Best Freezer Meal Tips + Free Beginner’s Guide to Freezer Cooking
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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