How much time do you spend cooking meals every day? What about all of the other minutes that go into meals: planning, grocery shopping, cleaning up? To be honest, sometimes I feel like that is all I do. As soon as I have finished with one meal, I need to start thinking about the next. But when I have a freezer stocked with meals, I spend so much less time in the kitchen and so much less mental energy on meal prep. But exactly how much? Is the big cooking session really worth it? Can you really save time by freezer cooking? YES!
Learn how to save time freezer cooking! What would you do with 30 free hours each month?
Save Time Planning
Having a plan simplifies everything. Once A Month Meals Members * have access to over 1,300 delicious meal plans curated by Once A Month Meals complete with recipe cards, cooking instructions, grocery lists, even labels! Even more, when you create a custom meal plan with our MenuBuilder software, you can quickly search over 13,500 freezable recipes for the perfect fit and create your own custom planning documents with just a few clicks.
Choose your serving size, hit print, and you’re ready to go! You save time freezer cooking because you don’t have to figure out what is for dinner at the last minute, or gather ingredients, or cook. Just thaw and enjoy!
*There are some limitations with free membership. Resources are included with paid membership only.
Save Time Grocery Shopping
On average, most of us go to the grocery store once a week, so roughly 4-5 times a month. (This is a super conservative estimate, as I know that in reality most of us make numerous quick stops for random items!) When you consider driving time, kids tagging along, shopping multiple stores, etc. the hours start to really add up.
Compare that to ONE bulk trip for 30 meals! My freezer cooking grocery trips usually take a little longer, and I usually go to at least 2 stores, but it doesn’t come close to the typical monthly average. You save time freezer cooking when you make one longer trip instead of many smaller ones (which saves money too!).
Save Time Cooking
Consider a few things. First, when you double a recipe (as we do on freezer cooking day) it doesn’t typically increase the cooking time by much, if at all. So you can spend 30 minutes on a recipe on cooking day and then eat it twice. Or you can spend 30 minutes on a recipe on a weeknight and eat it once.
Second, consider all the time saved by prepping items in bulk. Spend an hour or two prepping all of your veggies for 30 meals in a food processor or cut each one by hand every single night? You may shed a few more tears over a bag of onions, but you can see how convenient this is, right?
Also note that the infographic we created is based on cooking 25 meals per month, assuming that you will have leftovers, eat out, or be away from home at least 5 days out of the month. But our freezer cooking numbers are based on cooking a full 30 meals! That could be a mix of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, or it could be a custom meal plan of 30 dinners for the entire month.
You save time freezer cooking when you prep and cook in bulk instead of starting from scratch every single night when the natives need to eat….again.
Save Time Cleaning
Think back to all of that prepping and chopping. How many times did you have to wash your cutting board and food processor bowl during the process of freezer cooking prep? Once, maybe twice? Now think about daily food prep for a month. How many times do you wash the same cutting board, knife, and prep tools? I won’t lie to you, your kitchen will be a total disaster after cooking day, BUT you only have to clean it once.
When you serve those freezer meals, all you have to do is warm it, put it on a plate, and throw out the bag. Just a few minutes to load the dishes into the dish washer, and you are out of there! You save time freezer cooking by reducing the number of dishes used on daily basis.
Now do you think you can make time for a freezer cooking day?
You can learn more about freezer cooking on our How it Works page, and learn about the benefits of membership on the Join page.