Once A Month Cooking For Tasty, Economical Meals

Cooking dinner every evening can be enjoyable and fun but it can also become tedious. Sometimes when you have plans, spending hours making dinner is the last thing you feel like doing or have enough time to do well.

The best way around this is to do your cooking once a week or once a month, divide the meals into portions and freeze them. Freezer cooking, or once a month (or week) cooking means that you can spend one day doing the cooking for the rest of the month and not have to cook for the other twenty nine days. Does that not sound like an appealing way of feeding your family?

Which Meals are Good for Freezer Cooking

There are all kind of meals, which freeze well, and they will taste just as nice when they are thawed as when you first made them. Cooking big batches of food is a real timesaver and if you have a busy weeknight coming up, you can simply thaw your family’s evening meal in the refrigerator overnight and it will be ready to warm through in the evening.

You can often get great discounts when you buy in bulk. A big package of boneless chicken pieces, for example, works out cheaper per pound than buying a pair of chicken thighs or chicken breasts. Perhaps you spot some ground lamb on special offer one week or turkey another week.

There are freezer recipes for all kinds of meats, poultry, and fish. Meat and poultry in sauces and soups keep for up to six months. You might want to make some tasty family favorites like chicken curry or beef stew. Beef bourguignon, chicken tacos, and beef lasagna are other freezer cooking ideas.

Tips for Once a Month Cooking

Choose a day when you will not have many interruptions or commitments and ensure there is sufficient room in your freezer to store the meals. You might want to stock up on other frozen foods like cooked shrimp or meatballs, which you can add to your thawed meals.

Depending on your cooking experience, you can either cook one type of meal at a time or do several at once. When the cooked food has cooled down, you can wipe the edges of the plastic food containers or freezer bags and freeze everything. Store the food flat in Ziploc bags and you will be able to fit it all in.

You will need a lot of plastic wrap and aluminum foil, freezer bags or plastic containers. You will also need a marker pen to write the name of the meal, the cooking date, and any special cooking instructions.

Leave out any ingredients, which do not freeze or thaw well. Thawed potatoes do not have a good texture so either add fresh ones when you defrost the meal or use a replacement ingredient like barley or slightly undercooked pasta. Cream and milk do not freeze well so leave them out of the recipe and add them when you reheat the food.

Looking for something special for dinner try our chicken Marsala with mushrooms recipe just one of the many chicken recipes on our site.