Wanting to make sure that your family has healthy, home cooked meals?
Looking for some ways to avoid that stressed-out, “let’s get takeout tonight” feeling?
Wondering if you should give Freezer Cooking a chance?
Freezer Cooking?! What in the world?! That sounds like quite the oxymoron. Freezer = cold, cooking = hot. Something’s missing here.
Well, it’s a practice that is also known as “bulk cooking,” “batch cooking,” once-a-month cooking,” or even “oamc.” It’s the idea of cooking several batches of your favorite recipes and storing them in your freezer to use throughout the coming month. It might sound overwhelming, but it can be as easy and as quick as simply making a double batch of tonight’s dinner and freezing half for another night. Freezer Cooking can save you time, money, and more than a little bit of anxiety when it comes to dinnertime.
Trust me. I’ve been freezer cooking for well nigh 13 years. {FishMama sits back in her rocking chair with her knitting, nodding her head.}
13 years ago this month I was seven months pregnant with our first child and preparing to quit my job as a high school teacher. My friend Jessika and I had read Once a Month Cooking, the grandmother of all freezer cooking books, and we decided to give it a go. My pregnant swollen feet got a work out, but it was so worth it when I had 40 meals stashed in the freezer for the coming month and beyond.
Jessika and I now have 8 kids and 180 miles between us, but we both still practice freezer cooking, though it’s been quite some time since we had the opportunity to cook in the same kitchen.
But, that doesn’t stop me from freezer cooking with friends! Along with my friend Money Saving Mom, I’ll be hosting another “Freezer Cooking Day” this next week, April 30 through May 3.
Want to join in?
Here are a few ways that you can be involved and learn to freezer cook:
- Read up on a wealth of freezer cooking information, including how to make use of a small refrigerator freezer, what you can freeze, and what to do with the kids.
- Follow along with our Facebook Event page.
- Attend our Twitter party on Thursday, April 29th from 2-4 pm, CST. We’ll be using the hashtag, #oamc. You can follow Crystal @MoneySavingMom and me @FishMama
- Crystal will post a link-up opportunity on Friday to share your plan as well as another one on Monday for you to share your freezer cooking progress. Cook when you want and tell us all about your experience.
So, are you in?
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Did this last month, enjoyed it and my meals were awesome and such a time saver. Hope i can repeat.
Definately gonna do it for May.. HUbby is back to work which means Mom is the Main chaffaur… AGAIN..
we just did this today…it is awesome and I love having a freezer full of food. It is great not to worry each night what we are having for dinner!
Definitely in; I did it last month and it was such a timesaver.
I don’t have enough recipes =( can someone hold my hand??
@Stef @ Layton Family Joy,
Steph – I have 100′s of recipes that I have been using for more than 10 years – let me know what you would be interested in — I would not mind sharing at all – Michelle
@Michelle Lingle, I’m happy to help too! What kinds of foods do you like?
I have been doing once a month cooking, or freezer cooking for over 10 years. I have 7 children, a husband and a full time job, I dont know how I would survive homework, sports, church and dinner if this was not my practice. I guide a group of women in my hometown every 8 weeks or so in this practice and we have made as many as 458 meal between 14 women in less than 6 hours – LOve it!!!
I am so down for this! I just need some good ideas.
So far I’m thinking
cinnamon rolls
chicken “things”
chimegagas
southwest roll ups
help!
I did this last month and loved it! Still have tons in the freezer but I want to try the cinnamon rolls, the foccacia bread this time around.
I am going to do some.I dont do a all day cooking spree.I pick one kind of ingredient and expand on that.I think I am going to prep hamburger meat.Last week I cooked a pork roast and got 8 meals.The week before last I cooked aturkey and got 11 meals from that.I think I will try to cook enough hamburger for 8 meals.
I am so doing this this month. Something’s gotta give – I’ve gotten far too lazy and complacent. And seriously, it’s only nice 3-4 months out of the year here in Wisconsin, who wants to spend all their time cooking? Not I! And anyway, as I’ve said in past Freezer cooking posts – I’m SO lazy.
I’m making:
marinated chicken
marinated steak tenderloin
marinated pork chops (teryaki!)
pasta sauce
mashed potatoes
pizza dough
marinated veggies for grillin’
potatoes au gratin
Any other ideas?
I was so happy to read this blog today. I have been wanting to do this for some time now…Thanks!
Today I’m making:
A big pot of spaghetti
Porkchop and rice cassarole
Marinated chicken–grilled..This will be for lunches all week.
I’m off tomorrow and may make more stuff.
I have gained so much inspiration from your site! I am a single mom of one daughter and two pups! In the spring, my work schedule makes for a lot of don’t-walk-in-the-door-til 730 nights. I haven’t fully tackled the once-a-month cooking, but I’m taking some baby steps… in March I did up a huge batch of lean ground beef with onion and crockpot pork tenderloin, divided in portions to dole out later in the month. In April, did the ground beef, pork tenderloin and chicken. This month, I’m adding twice baked potatoes. This has saved me so much time and so many trips through the fast food lines! This has been so great!
Yeah, Leslie! I’m so excited to hear that. Great job. Baby steps are where it’s at!
Hey my hubby and I are planning on doing some freezer cooking this weekend and I am so excited to get back to homecooking instead of easy, quick to throw together convience food like hot dogs, burgers, and pizza. They are good on occasion but not all the time and we have been so busy lately, that’s been all we have been doing and we are both tired of it! Coming upon this was like an answered prayer and to be able to use some of my stockpile too!? BONUS! One question – I need recipes that use breadcrumbs. When I started stockpiling last year I found a GREAT deal on them and went a little crazy and bought more than I can use in my normal cooking but if I’m making big batches of something then that might eat thru some and clear up some space! Oh and if anyone in the Birmingham, AL area needs some breadcrumbs.. let me know! lol
I’m in! We have a lot of meals & sides left over from last month, so this month will be a bit toned down, but that means it’s time to try new recipes!
What are some good kid friendly freezer recipes? We’re a little tired of lasagna!!!
@kelly,
My boys love meatballs. I use 3# beef with a box of stovetop and an egg. Season however you like bake 20 minutes @350. Cool and freeze. You pick how to cook later. We do the brown gravy route with rice, in spaghetti sauce, or just as our meat during a meal.
I don’t understand how the twitter party works? Im not sure I understand how the cooking day works with everyone, lol. Sorry so new at this, but this has been something Ive just been reading about for a year and even got cookbooks for, attempted it on my own and it was extremely a lot of work for only 5 meals, so I must have done something wrong. I spent all day and by that I mean all day and into the evening – so now I would like to attempt this again but maybe with a little help this time with everyone and gain some insight and direction. Right now, I’m not sure where I even begin . . . maybe some sort of plan, recipes and then shopping??? Thanks for any and all help – can’t wait to get this one right. I have 5 kids and 4 are boys and like to eat!
OK, first things first. Twitter party at 12 PST. If you’re already on twitter, you’ll know that you can follow a topic by clicking on a hashtag. In our case, it’s #oamc. If you click on that, Twitter should search for every post that has that in it. You can follow the conversation that way and ask a question, including that hashtag. If you use Tweetdeck, that will make it a little easier as you’ll be able to see several streams at once.
I’m guessing that if you only got 5 meals last time that is because you didn’t make multiple batches of each thing? You need to make triples of each recipe. That is where you will save the time. You already have the ingredients prepped and ready to go and the assembly-line style put together three lasagnas, three casseroles, etc.
Have you followed along with our past FC days? Those might be helpful, too.
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