Get Familiar with Your Freezer
While I’m not one to consistently set time aside to batch cook on a weekly basis, I do double almost every recipe I prepare, or at least double the main course. This way I have a steady supply of protein and meal options on hand. I can either serve the leftover meal in a different way for dinner the next day or pack it in a thermos for lunches. Beyond that, I divide the leftover portions and pack them into individual servings, label, and freeze. This is my version of takeout, as in ‘takeout-of-the-freezer.’
I freeze just about everything, both ingredients and prepared meals. I couldn’t imagine before having kids I would ever say that, but I definitely cannot live without our freezer. I know some of you are cringing, thinking about freezer burn food and I agree, that is never good, but over the years I’ve come to embrace our freezer. If you’re using it often enough, you stay on top of what’s in there before freezer burn sets in. I realize often how it simplifies eating for our family, navigating meals both inside and outside our house.
To me, the key to freezing foods is individual servings. Freezing individual servings of allergy-safe meals are quick to defrost and easy to transport for lunches, impromptu food occasions and they travel well for trips and vacations. It did take some trial and error early on to discover that freezing into individual servings made the biggest difference.
I remember a three-night vacation we took when the boys were just in elementary school. It was a car ride to stay in a hotel with a kitchenette just a few hours away. I had prepared all of our dinners ahead of our trip, and one particular meal, turkey chili, I froze in a large freezer-safe bowl. This bowl would get us through two dinners and was the answer to a carefree evening of me not cooking. However, when it came time to warm up the chili, I still had a solid rock of frozen chili that I couldn’t get to defrost. My usual swap from freezer to the refrigerator the night before didn’t work. I was a bit harried figuring out how we were going to eat dinner. I hacked away at the block of frozen chili and vowed to never forget: freeze in individual servings! (It was this lesson that made it possible for our kids to feed themselves for three weeks when my husband and I were sick and isolated with Covid back in April of 2020.
While continuing to embrace our freezer, I discovered you can freeze most foods (some requiring more prep than others). It’s the items I freeze that both save us time and most of all reduce that level of stress that is constantly there when striving to feed our son.
These are the most common items you’d find in our freezer:
Frozen berries
Muffins, scones, cupcakes
Homemade safe bread
Safe treats from allergy-friendly bakeries
Individual meals for lunches and travel
Soups
Meats, both raw and already prepared (like hamburgers and turkey burgers)
Fresh herbs
Vegetable scraps for stock
Homemade chicken and veggie stock
Frozen allergy-friendly packaged food brands
For some more tips on utilizing your freezer, check out Ten Freezer Friendly Foods, Tips and Tools.
I know the freezer of your kitchen refrigerator can get quite jam-packed. When we last moved, we were fortunate to ‘inherit’ an old freezer in the basement of our current house. It is a bit of a tank, but I use every square inch of it, and put food in or pull food out of it literally every day. If you can invest even in a small separate freezer, it makes life just a little bit easier when creativity is required living life with special dietary needs.
I hope that you already use your freezer to its maximum potential. If you don’t, start experimenting with using your freezer to stash away individual servings of meals and see how easy it is to pop out a serving. I usually place it in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator the night or morning before to defrost, then simply reheat. Check out some of our go-to freezer meals in Recipes.