Thrifty Kate Creates: Thrifty Tip: Use Your Freezer!

For the longest time I was totally against putting food in the freezer. The main reason I felt that way was because I knew that if I put it in there I was never going to use it! I'm a single gal and this meant that if I bought 1 pound of ground beef that I was going to be eating it all week. As a result, my recipes usually had way too much meat in them. A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to move away from meat heavy recipes and use meat sparingly in addition to lots of veggies, beans, and whole grains. So...I investigated ways to end my aversion to freezing food. Here are some tips I came up with:

The first tip is to plan ahead. The proper way to defrost anything is slowly in the refrigerator. I have a few recipes that I can throw things in frozen (pre-cooked ground beef in Chili for example) but for the most part, I defrost food before cooking it. So I need to plan ahead and transfer the food I want to cook to the fridge the evening before I need it.

Another tip is to prep or even cook food before freezing it. Like I mentioned above, I like to cook ground beef before I freeze it. I will buy a value pack of 1.25 pounds of ground beef and divide into portions for about 3 meals once it’s cooked. Let’s say I’m using it for spaghetti, I’ll add some mushrooms and squash to the dish. If I’m making chili, I’ll fill the pot with beans and frozen corn. Less meat, more veggies!

If I know I’m going to use a cut of meat for a stew or soup, I’ll dice it before I put it in the freezer. When I buy veggies for a stew (usually carrots, green beans, onions, and celery) I’ll chop up everything and divide it into recipe sized portions and freeze it.

Frozen veggies that are ready for a stew!