If there are two things every mum I know wants to save, it’s time and money – and I’m here to tell you how freezer meals are a genius way of doing both. Even if you think you’ve heard this before, please hear me out as it’s even more beneficial than it may seem at first glance.

Here’s how you can save time and money with help from freezer cooking.

1. Take advantage of sales

Making freezer meals is a great way to take advantage of sales. For example, if ground pork is on sale this week, you can stock up and make a few batches of slow cooker meatballs in tomato sauce to freeze for the future.

2. Avoid wasting food

You can save a lot of money making meals to freeze out of food that is about to expire. For example, if you have some chicken breasts in your fridge that are approaching expiration but your family has already had chicken three times this week, whip up some quick tikka masala with it and freeze it for future meals.

3. Reduce clean-up

When you’ve already spent more time than you’d like making dinner, the last thing you want is to spend even more time cleaning up. When you make freezer meals, you’ll have done the bulk of the cleaning and dishwashing on the day you prepped them, which means you won’t be facing a monumental clean-up after the fact. So not only do you save time on cooking on the days you eat freezer meals, but there will also be a lot less washing up to do!

4. Use your Crock-Pot

Freezer meals inherently save time, but you can up the savings even further by enlisting the help of a slow cooker. My Crock-Pot is practically a member of the family as it features in so many of our meals! It’s such a great hands-off method of cooking, which means you won’t be spending time standing over a pot and stirring or opening the oven door every ten minutes to see what’s going on. My advice to you is to buy the largest one that you can, because batch cooking in this super gadget is sure to save you hours!

5. Buy in bulk

You’ve probably noticed that bigger bags of many foods work out to be far cheaper per kilo, but it’s hard to justify buying them when you’re not sure you could possibly use the whole bag before it goes bad. Freezer meals are a great way to use cheaper bulk foods. You can double, triple or even quadruple a recipe to take advantage of those big bags, and if you do it on shopping day, you won’t have to figure out where to store it or how to fit it in your fridge, either!

6. Try gradual freezer meal cooking

If you just can’t wrap your head around the idea of devoting a few hours to cooking freezer meals, don’t worry! You can simply double or triple meals you’re already making for dinner and freeze the additional batches. After all, if you’ve already got the food processor out, chopping two onions doesn’t take much more time than chopping one, and it’s one less time you’ll have to clean all those parts!

If you double just two recipes a week, you’ll have eight freezer meals on hand at the end of the month to get you through those days when you’re too busy or just don’t know what to make for dinner – which is eight days you won’t have to cook at all. Talk about saving time! THIS is the way we do things inside The Dinner Plan…and you don’t even have to rack your brains about what in the world to make, because I’m in charge of that!

Freezer cooking is a great way to save both time and money, freeing you up at what is the most hectic time of the day for many mums. And with the right strategy, you may well end up finding it to be an enjoyable part of your routine! 

PS: Doors to The Dinner Plan are open for the last 5 days! If you want to have an easier time preparing meals, and want to cut down your cooking time by at least 35% – you have to join us. For the price of a pizza, and multiple no-cook-days every week, it’s a no-brainer. Come check out our new, exclusive offers before they go away!
>> Join The Dinner Plan <<