What’s In Your Freezer? How to best utilize freezer contents when meal planning
39. What’s In Your Freezer? How to best utilize freezer contents when meal planning
Have you ever searched through your freezer to find mystery old meals that have been there for ages only to have to toss it because it’s beyond a safe time to be used?
That’s so frustrating because you felt like you were going to save yourself time at a later date by not having to cook for one meal when you used your leftovers, NOW not only did you not save yourself time but you also wasted food.
URG!
In this episode I’ll share times why, and how to use your freezer more and also how to keep an inventory of your freezer and meal plan using the freezer contents so that nothing is ever wasted again!!
Transcript of the Episode
Hi friends, this is Andrea Heyman with another episode of Adventures In Feeding My Fam. Have you ever searched through your freezer to find mystery old meals that are stored in there, they've been there for ages, and you have to toss it away because it's beyond a safe time to be used. That's really frustrating because you feel like you were ahead of the game. And you're gonna save yourself some time at a later date by not having to cook for one particular meal while you use your leftovers. Now, not only did you not save yourself time, but you've also wasted food. Oh, and this episode, I'll share why and how to use your freezer more efficiently and effectively, and how to keep an inventory and meal plan using freezer contents. So nothing is ever wasted. Again.
I got this question from one of my facebook group members. So my facebook group is a really fantastic place where we're supporting one another and asking questions and kind of going deeper on what we have brought up here in the podcast. The Facebook group is called adventures and feeding my fam. I'd love for you to join and be part of the further discussion. And I will leave the link in the show notes so that you can join if you're interested
Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman, and I've been a registered dietitian for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges and tumor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests. We'll discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around th family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them.
Really the first question is why you should use your freezer more? Well, the most obvious is that you can save yourself time by using frozen already prepped food. And that can be so easy to have on hand for a quick meal or even a snack later. Using the freezer can save a lot of money, you can buy in bulk, you can stock up on good sales and then freeze what you're not going to use right away. The freezer obviously keeps things fresh, so you don't have to throw away stale or spoiled foods, freeze it instead. Obviously, the freezer is super convenient. So having things on hand eliminates the need for last-minute runs to the grocery store. And it's healthy, freezing fresh fruits and vegetables when they're in season kind of at their peak ripeness and full of nutrients. Or when things are on sale, you can have that all year long. So what are some tips to best use the freezer.
My first suggestion is really to keep the freezer nice and tidy. You know, we have this tendency, or I assure you I think a lot of people do is just to pack things in there as tight as possible. But really an orderly freezer allows for air to circulate throughout the unit. And it makes it a lot easier when you're trying to find specific items later on. This also avoids having to unpack all the contents and repack everything every time you need to poke around in there to find what you're looking for. So I like to keep it everything a little bit more accessible. Here's some good tips of how to go about storing things before you actually put it in there. So I want you to picture this. So imagine you just made a really big pot of soup and you're going to store it for future dinners. You definitely want to have it divided among the dinners, right, you don't want to put it all in one big container, obviously, because then you're going to have to use that all in one shot. So putting it in separate containers is really, really helpful. But then you also need to cool food a little bit before it actually goes in the freezer. If you put hot food in the freezer, it can cause other food items to partially thaw, which then can affect the quality of that food. Specifically, if it's a soup to cool that down. You can do that by using an ice bath. And then for other foods to cool them just putting them in separate shallow containers that can be really helpful by putting them in the refrigerator first to help cool them down before you transfer them over to the freezer.
What containers are the best to use. So there's a reason that different containers exist because they all serve a specific purpose. The first thing you want to do is make sure that whatever containers you are using, that they are freezer friendly. So if it's flimsy wraps or containers that aren't really designed for the freezer, then you're going to end up with freezer burn or, you know, spills in your freezer. And that's obviously not what you want the containers that can lock in the moisture of the food in order to help preserve it. So there are a lot of options to consider when choosing a container. Really good strong plastic wrap is ideal for solid foods like me, or bread or things like that. But plastic containers work well for short term storage as well as zipper bags. And zipper bags are really great for everything like soups or smoothie mixes lots of different things. If you need longer storage, glass jars or containers work really well. But when you're using glass, you need to make sure that there's some space at the top of it. So that the container like when it cools in the freezer, you don't cause the glass to shatter. I know that you think you're going to remember what's in your containers when you pop it in the freezer. But trust me, I have made this mistake so many times. So taking a couple extra seconds to label your item is really helpful. I always suggest labeling with the name of the food item as well as the date that you put it in there. That's really important in order to know if the shelf life of your food item is still safe to eat. And labeling food can help you keep you from confusing the food from something that it's not. So just you know using a sharpie on the container or the ziplock bag directly, or a piece of masking tape with the name of the food item and the date. There are lots of really good charts out there that indicate how long you can safely freeze a specific food. So it's pretty similar to like an expiration date, but you will know that different foods are safe to store in the freezer for a different length of time.
Alright, now that we've gotten that nitty gritty out of the way, let's talk a little bit about how we can meal plan by using those freezer, staples and those freezer meals that we've got in there. So first and foremost, when you're putting things in the freezer, I would keep a running list of inventory of what's in there. This is going to save you so much time in the future. And it seems like a silly extra step. But trust me, trust me, this will save so much time in the long run on your inventory. Definitely list everything that you have in the freezer. As time goes on, you can cross things off that inventory list. I like to keep a list on my notes in my phone and then I just delete the item once I've used it. When you're meal planning, what you can do is look at your inventory list and determine Hey, okay, I've got, let's say a chicken casserole in there, you can use that item to create your weekly or monthly meal plan based on that idea list. If it's just like some leftovers, let's say some some chicken leftover from a dish that you made, you can use that in other recipes and just add the chicken that you've already got available to to that recipe that you're wanting to create. Obviously, if you have miscellaneous things in the freezer that aren't a complete meal. When you're planning your meals, you can definitely shop for odds and ends in order to complete that recipe or to have it as an accompaniment to the item that was in the freezer. And then of course as you use and take things out of the freezer, cross them off or delete them from your inventory list so that you keep that nice and up to date.
Those are a few of my tips on how to best use and how to best plan meals using foods that you have in the freezer. If you like this episode, I would really appreciate it if you would rate and review the podcast. It takes two minutes to do it and it really helps other busy moms like yourself. Discover the podcast because really it takes a tribe and I am here to be part of the tribe supporting you and feeding your family. Until next time