Fall Cooking Class and Freezer Meal Tips
This weekend I held a cooking class for my friends and clients to help demonstrate how to make delicious soups, as well as how to create freezer-prepped meals for the family. Let's face it- we are all getting busier and cooking and creating healthy food in the home is tough. Cooking with real food and using whole ingredients is important to me, and I preach this every day to my clients and friends. We can see the implications of less food made in the home and reliance on boxed food items, take-out or fast food and even skipping meals altogether. I see this happen to many people prior to working with me, and therefore, it is important to me to help support the goal to make more food in the home, but find ways to make it easier on busy days.
Yesterday, we were able to take 1 hour and create three different freezer-prepped meals/snacks. I highly recommend doing this with a group of friends, for the time was enjoyable and fun. We were able to all learn together, share our strengths and weaknesses in the kitchen, and use teamwork to get our recipes done. I did the grocery shopping beforehand, then prepped some of the vegetables (chopping, dicing) and grains (rice, quinoa) and then we were all able to put the items together on the day of the event. Everyone was able to take home Mexican Quinoa Soup (freezer-ready, then ready for the crock-pot whenever they wanted to make it), Meatballs with Zucchini and Carrots (freezer-ready) and Chocolate Protein Power Balls (great for freezing in batches).
Freezer Meal Tips and How-To
The first step is grocery-shopping.
Now, I will warn you, it may be a bigger expense than your normal grocery trip. In fact, it should be. I spent about $350 at the store prior to this event, but I was able to get enough for 9 batches of each recipe, plus extras of frozen veggies and meatballs. It was definitely a money-saver! I recommend getting 3-4 recipes to start with and starting there. Write down all the ingredients, or, really save time by using a grocery pick-up option and picking out all the items on an app or website. However, you do risk some of the items not being available. One important tip I have is to be flexible. Try to not fret about small changes that need to be made, for this can completely de-rail you and throw off your time and progress. Think about what ingredients can be easily swapped out and you can keep on rolling! At the grocery store, be sure you get other necessary items such as:
cooking spray
quality cooking oil
broth
plastic wrap and foil
freezer bags
foil tins
salt and pepper
Prepping the ingredients
This is probably one of the hardest steps, so I recommend trying to find some good podcasts or books on tape to listen to while you chop, dice and prepare. During this step, be sure you determine what ingredients need chopped, and make sure you look at all the recipes to see what ingredients overlap. Often, two or three of the recipes may need similar ingredients, such as chopped onion or garlic, or diced chicken. Make sure you start with all the vegetables first, to minimize chances for contamination between meat and veggies. See more tips below.
Use your food processor! This can make dicing onions much easier. Be sure you chop them into a rough dice first, to help ensure they are all chopped evenly in the food processor. Don't over-crowd it or it will not chop well. Work in batches and be patient. Always do more than what you think, you can freeze extra diced onion.
Use frozen ingredients for time-invasive ingredients, such as chopped/riced cauliflower or butternut squash.
Have several bowls and containers ready to add the chopped items. Use the flexible cutting boards to make it easy to fold and pour contents into a bowl.
Cut and chop meat last. Use this as a time to buy meat in bulk and additionally freeze chicken in marinade. This is easy by taking chicken breasts that have been trimmed, placing them in a freezer bag, adding marinade over top, and then sealing the bag and freezing them. When you thaw them, they marinate and you have a really delicious protein for your meal.
Consider making a day to do the food prep on your own, then gather with friends to create the meals. This may be something you want to take turns who buys the ingredients and preps them, or you may all want to take 1-2 items to prep and bring that day-of. This could look like one person dicing all the veggies, one person doing the meats or protein, one person gathering any baking ingredients, and one person bringing all the bags, tins and supplies.
The day of your meal prep...
Gathering together to prep meals is not necessary, but it may allow you to share your successes of making meals with some of your friends who feel overwhelmed or who are still trying to learn. You also can treat it as a "girls day" where you will feel incredibly satisfied when you leave with meals to make for the family! I chose a late Saturday morning, which ended up being a rainy day, perfect for staying inside to cook. We set aside just about 2 hours for the whole process, but time was spent learning, sharing and eating a light lunch as well. I set up my kitchen island and dining room table with all the ingredients in stations, therefore we could split up into groups to make the items, taking turns so that each group was making a different item, then switching stations once complete. Below I outlined what our stations looked like.
Mexican Quinoa Soup- I had bowls of black beans, corn, diced green chilis, onion, carrots, celery and diced tomatoes. Then, each of the spices were lined up as well. The ladies went around the table filling their freezer bags with the items (no bowl required!). Lastly, they were able to take the broth with them, for we found this was easier, rather than pouring it into the bag and risking spillage. We learned things as we went! The chicken was frozen separately in a freezer bag, because it will be added to the crockpot when frozen, and the other ingredients will be thawed. This will slow down the cooking process for the chicken to prevent it from being overcooked. The quinoa (and I did rice for those who didn't like quinoa) was also cooked separately (on my prep day), and added to individual bags. Frozen rice works really well and can be easily thawed and added to soup at the end. This station was quick! It took about 5-10 minutes and each person's meal was ready to be taken home and frozen. Bags were labeled to ensure they know which item it was. There was a lot of leftover ingredients for this, so I was able to make another couple of meals worth of food!
Meatballs with carrot and zucchini- This station involved the ladies wearing gloves, and I used large bins for mixing the meatball ingredients. They were able to mix in the bin, then also have room to roll out the meatballs. I chose this recipe to hide extra veggies of course! They can be frozen, ideally in a freezer-safe container, or placed on a cookie sheet to flash-freeze, then added to a freezer bag for space efficiency. This station took a bit longer, maybe 15 minutes in order to roll the balls.
Chocolate Protein Power Balls- This station is a little messy, but totally worth it. There are several ingredients to my power ball recipe, but that is because I like to pack a lot of nutrition into one little bite! I shop for the ingredients for this recipe at my local bulk foods store, with really affordable flaxseed meal, chia seeds and oats. You may want to purchase these items online when doing large batches like this. Anthony's brand is a great option for bulk health food ingredients. You may also want gloves for this station to minimize the need for messy hands. I was able to make several batches of the power balls for myself once all the ingredients were out. I was not going to miss my chance, as this is often the hardest part! Power balls can be frozen at all times and easily thaw in 1-2 minutes (they remain solid, but that is how I like them!). They can also be frozen in batches of 8-10, then you can grab one bag to move to the fridge each week as you eat them. You can also vary the ingredients for each batch you make and then label the flavors. I added protein powder to some, but skipped on others to give to the kids (they can have the protein powder, but lets face it, that protein powder is expensive!). I also added extra chocolate chips to some, and did just cocoa nibs in others.
Enjoying the process
I truly enjoyed the process of doing this and I really hope the participants did as well! I think everyone was able to learn a little bit more about new ingredients they may not typically use, shortcuts to use for cutting down prep time and most of all, they were able to experience the process of batch meal-prepping, so that they feel more comfortable if they were to do it on their own. I also made a batch of Golden Turmeric Chicken Soup, which was warming, comforting, and thoroughly enjoyed after an hour of putting meals together. I highly suggest you consider trying this with friends or family on your own, so that you can reap the benefits of having a stocked freezer! I have shared some tips below of what to do with the leftovers to minimize waste!
Freeze extra grated or chopped vegetables in perfect portions for adding to breads or cake (healthy carrot cake, zucchini bread, superhero muffins).
Freeze together perfect portions of the "trinity" (carrots, celery and onion) to make soup-making a breeze without getting out a cutting board
Freeze meatball "mix" (ground meat with spices, egg and seasonings all mixed together) to easily thaw and roll into meatballs with much less preparation
Freeze diced chicken for easy prep for kabobs or chicken fried rice or other stir-fry
Combine dry ingredients for the power ball recipe (minus the applesauce, peanut butter and vanilla extra) and place in mason jar, that way when you make power balls next time, you only have to pour in bowl and add wet ingredients
Use scraps of all your food chopping to make a vegetable broth that can be strained and frozen in mason jars
Happy Meal Prepping!!
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