I have been really amazed in the last few years at how the internet has exploded with freezer meals. There are so many amazing cooks that are sharing their recipes for the world to see. It is alot different now from the first recipe blog I made so that I wouldn't loose our most loved recipes.
For me freezer meals have changed into what I now call super starters. Don't get me wrong, I still make freezer meals, but it is on the occasion and not all the time. Let me explain the difference :)
What is a freezer meal?
- A freezer meal is a complete meal in one. It stands alone all on its own and has all meat and items gathered together completely and frozen. You may need to add a side dish or make rice, but generally it is the whole enchilada. Thaw, cook, eat.
- Freezer meals can be in pans such as the little aluminum 9x9 or 13x9 pans. By doing these pan freezer meals you can stack them and have many at a time. Generally these pan freezer meals take up much more space in your freezer.
- Freezer meals also can be in a gallon zip freezer bags. These would be thawed and place in a skillet, crock pot or pan to cook. The advantage of having them in gallon freezer bags is that they can be frozen flat and stacked. They can also be turned sideways to make it easy to see and pull out what we are cooking.
- Generally freezer meals are not cooked, but may require some portion of your meal to be cooked, such as the meat in chicken enchiladas or lasagna. This step of having to cook the meat ahead complicates the meal a bit more, but by multiplying them you save time in the long term.
What is a Supper Starter?
- A supper starter is basically a freezer meal but it does not include the meat, or a few other bulky ingredients. We then collect these few items at the time of cooking and easily make our meal. The advantage of this is to (1) save room in our freezers by not adding items that can easily added later. (2) by leaving the meat out, we do not commit the most expensive part of our meal to only be used in that one meal. (3) By cutting out our expensive meats, we can multiply our meals at much less of an expense, allowing us to reasonably make and keep many meals in our freezers.
- For example- We are making Vegetable Beef Soup. We add all the ingredients to our gallon sized bag BUT we don't add the cubed beef, potatoes and water. At the time of cooking we would gather and add the freezer meal, 1 pound of cubed beef (or browned hamburger) our few potatoes and the water to our crock pot. This cuts our prep time down drastically.
- Another example- We are making Tortilla Soup. This is a family original that we love. We like to make it with our own homemade chili. We have chili as meal regularly and freeze our extras to have in this meal. By having this a supper starter, we allow ourselves to be flexible and it doesn't demand that we get all the ingredients at the time we make it.
- Super starters are also nice because it opens up the KIND of meals we can prepare ahead for. There are many meals that we love that require fresh ingredients that can't be frozen. However, much of those meals have ingredients that can be gathered together ahead and frozen, cutting down the time it would take at dinner time.
- The perfect example of this is our Cowboy Caviar. Before making this into a supper starter we had it rarely, even though we love it so much. It requires alot of gathering and chopping. While I still chop the tomato, bell pepper, green onion and avocado the day we are eating it, all the rest is gathered into a supper starter and made in multiples, making this meal fast and easy. Now we have it much more often. Its the perfect mix of fresh and frozen! YUM!
- Salads are another example. We eat alot of salads in my home, changing up the protein, toppings and dressings. Much can be done ahead such as marinades for the meat and fun and fancy dressings. When we plan our salads as multiple meals, making fancy dressings for all of them at once and splitting it up makes it worth making once. Allowing us to take time to do things we normally wouldn't have time for.
- Supper Starters are also super space efficient! By gathering our supper starters and a few items such as meat and water or other easily grabbed items, we reduce how much needs to take up space in our freezers. This is especially critical when we only have our fridge freezers. It is surprising how many supper starters can fit into a cubic foot! If you only choose the skinniest supper starers, you could fit about 40 or more in that cubic foot. Crazy helpful isn't it!
- The best thing about supper starters is that you can make many at one time! By making many, when we already have all the ingredients and spices pulled out does not take that much more effort! Most of our efforts go into tracking down what we put in a meal at the store or in our pantry. By planning to spend a little time and multiply meals, over time we SAVE time
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