Saving Time & Money by Stocking Your Freezer with Home Prepared Items

Your freezer is one of the most valuable money and time saving tools in the kitchen. One of the ways to use your freezer to save time and money is by preparing meals and other items ahead of time and keeping them in the freezer, ready to be used. Preparing meals ahead of time and freezing them will save you time later when you can pull a meal out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. It will also save you money to double a meal and freeze half.

One type of meal that can be easily frozen are casseroles. When you make a casserole for dinner one night, make two. You can either make an extra casserole in a tinfoil pan, or line a casserole dish with tinfoil. Once the extra casserole is prepared, put it in the freezer. If you put it in your casserole dish, once frozen remove from the pan and wrap in tinfoil. Lasagna is another type of prepared meal that can be frozen following the above instructions.

Meatballs are another item that can be doubled and frozen. Freeze meatballs on a cookie sheet before baking, then remove and put in a Ziploc freezer bag. Thaw before cooking. Freezing raw chicken, pork and beef in a prepared marinade will make for a quick meal. Buy chicken and beef in bulk portions at the grocery store and divide into Ziploc freezer bags to freeze. Just pour a marinade (either from a bottle, or whipped up in your kitchen) in with the meat. The night before you want to cook it, put the bag in a bowl in the refrigerator to marinate as it thaws.

Another prepared item to keep in the freezer is pesto sauce. You can make pesto sauce from scratch in less than 10 minutes using a food processor. Freeze it into portions using an ice cube tray and, once frozen, pop the cubes into a freezer bag. Defrost a few cubes, toss with cooked pasta and you have an instant meal.

There are also many items on the sweet side that can be prepared ahead of time and frozen. An example of this is quick breads. With zucchini in abundance in the summer, make several batches of zucchini bread and wrap in layers of plastic wrap and tinfoil to freeze. Pumpkin or banana bread also freeze well.

Freezing portioned cookie dough is an excellent timesaver when you want fresh, warm cookies. Baking cookies at home is cheaper than buying store-bought cookie dough, or even store-bought cookies, and with dough prepared in the freezer it can be almost as fast. To freeze cookie dough for easy baking, scoop it into balls on a cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop and pop it in the freezer for a few hours. Once the cookie dough balls are frozen, transfer to a Ziploc freezer bag. Be sure to write the temperature and time required for baking on the bag so you don't have to dig out the recipe later. Whenever you want warm cookies from the oven, just put some frozen balls on a tray, allow to thaw and cook as usual.For more time and money saving tips in the kitchen, check out my articles titled, "How to Save Time and Money Using a Crockpot" and "How to Save Time and Money Using Your Freezer."