Labeling & freezing supper starter tips & tricks

Hi again! Today I'm sharing all the tested, tried and true tips and tricks I have learned over the years to label, make and freeze my supper starters. Freezer meals are not hard, and you get better as you go along, but I thought it would be nice if you could learn from my fails so you can have the best possible experience :)


Bagging and Labeling

What do I freeze my meals in?

• Freezer zipper bags - There are many choices for what to put your meals into. When putting it into a bag, it is best to use zipper bags and not the slider bags. This is because the sliders often leak, dripping out all that hard work. Not cool. It is also good to use freezer bags because they are a bit thicker and less likely to puncture in your freezer. I have found that brand is not that important, but I do tend to double bag my freezer meals regardless to save time later on having not to relabel. I will go into this more later.
• Tin pans - If you are making a casserole type freezer meal, I love putting them into heavy duty foil lined disposable tin pans. I line them with the thickest tinfoil I can buy simply so that I can reuse them. To make it easier to not have sticky food, I also spray it lightly with spray oil. I cover these meals with tinfoil and put them in my labeled freezer meals bag just like I prepare for all my meals. They fit great :)
• I have found that I just use the store brand generic freezer bags. The important thing is to use the SAME brand each time so that all the bags are the same size and dimensions, making them easier to stack.
• If you are making these meals for a freezer swap group... everyone needs to agree on which bags they are using, so that everyone is the same. I like using the walmart genaric brand just because I like how their quart size bags stack nicely into a shoe box.

Double bag your meals.

• By double bagging your meals you do a few things. 1. You prevent leaks. 2. You help your food last longer. and 3. You can reuse your labeled bag again and again for new freezer meals you make in the future... saving time. 4. you also can easily make "packets" of ingredients in your main bag. An example of this is Moroccan Chicken.

What size Freezer bags do I use?
I bag everything that goes in my freezer into a Quart or Gallon Freezer bag and freeze it flat. This way everything fits nicely together.

• When to use a quart size bag - Take a look at your ingredients, if they will equal less than 2 to 2 and a half cups worth, it would be great to put it into a quart bag. The exception to this is if your starter is going to be a marinade, and then you will want to put it in a gallon bag anyway, even if it is a small amount. This will allow you to add your meat into it at the time of cooking.

Labeling your bags

• The # 1 tip I can give is to prepare your labeled bags BEFORE you ever start to prep your meals. Why? Once food touches your bag it sweats, getting the outside wet, making it impossible to now label your meals, either by taping a label on or writing it. Label all bags first :)
• Make labels to tape on AND write on your bags what it is.  I would suggest not to write out all your instructions directly on the bag. Why? Sadly sharpies can rub off. Especially if you shuffle your meals around alot in the freezer. However, sometimes your labels come off as well, so it is good to have a written label on too. By making labels you save yourself a ton of time writing it out and you can reuse your labels each time you make that meal again.
• BEST TAPE to use is the postal packing tape. It is by far the stickiest and does the best job keeping your labels on your bags while frozen. When you tape your labels, cover the entire label, overlapping it with tape.
• Also it is nice to write the name of the recipe on your bag, just in case the label falls off AND so that you can easily see what you are searching for in your freezer. Those written recipe names end up acting as your tabs in a filing system. :) 

Assembling meals

Typically, when I am going to make freezer meals,  I divide them into 3 sections.

1. Calculating my shopping list and prep my labels/ bags.  

I usually get all my planning and labeling done all at once for a shopping period, a swap group, or even a season worth of meals for my family. This way I can then divide up what I am making for the time I have to make meals for and manage it on my terms with the time I have. For example, if I have all my bags labeled ahead, and I don't have time to prepare all my meals at once, then I do them one meal at a time. I can make tonight's dinner, plus assemble all of that same recipe that I am freezing with very little extra effort.

• When making meals in large quantities it can be tricky figuring out what we need to purchase. I created the below chart to help me figure out what I need. As with everything, this is just a guideline, due to different densities and sizes to weights or cups, but for the most part I have found it gets me pretty close.

2. Shop and prep my veggies
Once I do my shopping, I generally just leave all my non-perishables out on the counter so that I don't have to go find them again.

If I am assembling the next day I get all my chopping done with, Onions and carrots will last a few days in the refrigerator after chopping, but it is best to use bell peppers, celery, herbs or cilantro within a day of chopping.

3. Gather all my ingredients, assemble meals.
Once I am ready to assemble my meals, I gather all the ingredients for each meal I am making and somewhat organize them into meals and put ingredients together.

I then gather the proper size unlabeled bags to put each meal into and open them each up, folding out the zipper to keep it clean and make a bowl with your bag.

  Gather your measuring spoons and cups, and a plate to put dirty items on.

 One by one, add each ingredient to your supper starters. Once done, remove the air, and seal it. Add it to your labeled bag, removing the air once again and flatten it out.

By freezing these meals flat, you allow them to be compacted tightly into your freezer. Because these meals are very skinny in size, you can fit many in together, if they are uniformly frozen.

One of the tricks I have learned to freeze these all flat is to only stack them several meals high, on something flat such as a cutting board. If you do this, they won't slide, making one side thicker than the other. You can also add more on top as well, allowing for stable stacking.

It is better to only freeze what you can and add the others to your refrigerator until you have room, rather than getting them in to freeze in weird ways. When we get these meals all flat, we can then turn them on their side and easily find what we are looking for. Not to mention fit much more in our freezers :)

I hope this helps. :)  Let me know if you have any questions or additional things to add that will make this adventure of freezing supper starters easier.