Freezer cooking saves my sanity nearly every night. Recently I whipped up 8 meal starters using two large packages of meat from Sams. My meat costs about $26. I purchased a double pack of ground turkey in the top right picture for less than $13. I also bought a large package of boneless chicken breasts for about $13. I already had the staples that I use for the seasonings on hand, but I factored those into the costs to show you how I made this freezer plan for around $30 if you had to purchase some items to create these meals.
Here’s my lineup:
- Convenience boiled chicken with broth (two batches)
- Cooked seasoned taco meat (two batches)
- Cheddar ranch burgers (two batches of 5 patties each)
- Asian Honey Chicken (no cooking-two batches)
The meals I make serve about 5-6 people. We divide our fifth burger between two smaller children to stretch it into six people. You can also add in a little extra raw meat from the other package to make six if you like. I also am able to stretch my taco meat even further by adding black beans and corn.
Another way I sneak in extra nutrition and stretch my meat is to add healthy fillers from the produce drawer. I change it up all the time. On this occasion, I grabbed a yellow squash and large carrot. I call this sneaky taco meat and I use my freezer taco seasoning that I always have on hand.
My non-veggie lovers don’t say a word when I cook it into the meat. Click here to see how I finely mash and cook taco meat.
Into the taco meat it went. I do this every time I freezer cook taco meat and meatballs. It’s become a healthy addiction for me.
Once I get my boiled chicken and the taco meat on the stove, I start on the no cook items, Asian honechicken marinade and mixing cheddar ranch burgers in my kitchen aid mixer.
The homemade ranch mix is always in my freezer.
I also like to shred my sharp cheddar from a block to mix in.
I like to keep my patties from sticking to each other with patty paper or I used to use squares of wax paper before I purchased a 500 count from Amazon.
Ranch burgers ready to go. We throw these on our indoor grill in the winter.
Once my taco meat and cubed chicken has cooled to the touch (30ish to 45ish minutes), I bag it and strain my chicken broth through a sieve.
I cool the broth over night and wait to bag it in quart bags in the morning. It’s great for making other freezer recipes like enchilada sauce or brown rice or you can thaw the broth and make these items fresh.
This was my weekend freezer cooking that will guarantee our family eight meals that are versatile. The taco meat and chicken can be turned into a variety of meals which I’ll share as we prepare them this month.
I wanted to share how easy it can be to have meal starters with two simple meat ingredients. Enjoy this easy plan and let me know if you have any questions.
Tell us what meals you would make if you had cooked chicken or cooked taco meat ready to eat.