5 Easy Kitchen Tips-Make Extra Food To Save Time!

Today I’m continuing a series of posts with various easy kitchen tips that have helped me feed my family healthier meals and save time in the kitchen. If you have more ideas/tips on making extra meals or freezing food, please comment below!

TIPS ON MAKING EXTRA FOOD FOR LATER:

1. When making cookies, double or triple the recipe (easy to do in the Bosch!), then make balls of dough and set them on the cookie sheet. Freeze for 2-3 hours and once frozen, put them into a freezer baggie (labeled with contents and date) – this way it doesn’t take up much freezer space. Now when you need some freshly-baked cookies, just pop them onto a cookie sheet to bake, and you have cookies as easy as the pre-made ones at the store, but without all the trans fats and other junk! (I also bake some extra cookies to freeze and keep in a freezer baggie between pieces of waxed paper, so the kids always have a quick treat to put into their school lunches.)
2. I thought everyone already knew this one until a friend said she hadn’t thought of it before, so I’ll share it just in case: when you’re making a meal, make an extra pan or two, then before baking, freeze it for later. On evenings when we have kid’s activities, church meetings, or whatever, it is a lifesaver to have things I can just pull out of the freezer and bake. This helps you avoid the temptation to pick up fast food on busy nights, and it’s also nice when you have a sick friend or a new mom who would appreciate a meal. Having a couple options in the freezer is always comforting to me, because as all busy moms know, a day can go bad at any moment and getting supper made could quickly become an impossible task. Of course, if I didn’t have my Krups Toaster Oven, getting it thaw and baked in a short time would also be impossible – it is probably my favorite kitchen appliance! It has settings for defrost, bake, convection bake, toast & broil.
3. When cooking ground beef, ground sausage, chicken, etc., make extra to freeze and then it’s all ready to toss into a recipe. For the chicken, my friend, Lyn, shreds some and cubes some, since different recipes call for it different ways.
4. Another possibility to make things easier on yourself is to have planned leftovers. If you know your next day will be crazy, have something tonight that can easily be warmed up the next day. Many Sundays we’ll eat a whole chicken, and then I’ll boil the bones all day Monday for stock, and use the leftover meat along with a few veggies for chicken soup. This is an easy and fast meal.
5. An easy way to freeze muffin dough (and again, to save freezer space): when making muffins, make an extra batch, fill paper muffin cups (in the muffin pan) with the extra batter. Freeze muffin dough in the pan for 2-3 hours or so, and when frozen, put the muffin cups with frozen dough into a freezer baggie, now your muffin pan can go back to the cupboard in case you need it. When you have a busy day, or maybe a friend is coming over, you can pop these back into your muffin pan and then bake like normal. (I usually let them set out a little bit first to thaw.) These are much tastier than the ones you bake first and then freeze, because these are warm and fresh from the oven.

Subscribe in a reader

Learn more from the COMMENTS BELOW - join the conversation!