What is freezer cooking? you might ask. Freezer cooking, also sometimes called batch cooking, is making meals in advance and then freezing them so they can be defrosted and cooked at a later time.

For instance, if you’re making a batch of Bean-Free Beef and Vegetable Chili (recipe HERE), why not make a large batch and freeze half of it for later. If you’re already making a dish to begin with, doubling the amount that you’re cooking doesn’t really take that much more work.

This also saves the time and energy involved in cleaning up after cooking. You’ll only have to clean up once while you will have made two meals worth of food.

I frequently do this for my husband, who travels for work. I’ll make big batches of things and freeze them in single-size portions for him to take when he’s on the road (yes, he generally has access to a refrigerator and stove when traveling for work).

I also did a lot of this before each of my boys were born. I prepared a lot of food and put it in the freezer so my Sweetie would only have to warm it up in order to make sure there was lots of healthy food available 24-hours a day (if you have never encountered a newly nursing mama, let me warn you that she desperately needs to eat every 2 hours when the baby nurses, all day and all night).

If you don’t like the idea of eating something reheated, you can also prep and freeze all of the ingredients you’ll need to put together a meal on whatever day you’ll eat it, thus saving yourself the labor of cleaning, chopping, and mixing all of your ingredients. I find this works especially well for casserole or slow cooker meals.

But whatever type of meals you’re making, freezing some of later consumption can really simplify your life. For me, it makes the difference between eating a frittata for dinner (which is my fallback if I need a quick, healthy meal for my family – I’m guessing each of your fallbacks will be something different) and having some other fast, healthy options at the end of a long, busy day.

Do you engage in Freezer Cooking? What are your favorite meals to have waiting in your freezer? Have you found anything that freezes and reheats particularly well?

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