Uncomplicated Kitchen

The 8 Types of Meal Plans (and How You Fit In!)

Over the years, I’ve seen and read about LOTS of different styles of meal plans. Some of these work, some I’m not a fan of. But here they are, in no particular order. Do you see yourself in any of these?

I’ll be outlining the 8 types of meal planners and helping you figure out which one you are or aren’t.

1. Meal Plan Rotation Plan

This is the style of meal planning I recommend to people who are comfortable with the thought of meal planning, but they’re feeling overwhelmed with the action of doing it every week.

Here’s how it works:Find 5 meals your family loves and that you know you can cook relatively quickly every night. Make those 5 meals every week, leaving room for leftovers (and maybe takeout!) until you get the chance to make a new meal plan.

Best for: Families with lots of activities on the weekend, or parents who get home late and struggle with meal prep. This also works great for times in our lives where we’ve entered a busy season, and a previously used style of meal planning falls by the wayside. Think: your husband has a big project at work, so you’re flying solo most nights. Or your kids is in finals for a sport and practicing more than usual.

2. Theme Nights

Beloved by Pinterest, using Theme Nights give meal planners creative license within a structure. It can be really helpful to find recipes within a specific theme, as opposed to the wide open internet and libraries of cookbooks.

How it works: Pick 4 or 5 “themes” and assign a theme to each night of the week. When you’re meal planning, slot recipes that fit into a specific theme on its specific day. For example: Monday is Meatless, Tuesday is Slow Cooker, Wednesday is Mexican, etc.

Best for: Planners who have a hard time finding recipes to make and feel overwhelmed with choices. If you’re trying to embrace more minimalism in your families’ life, this is a great way to streamline your planning and help narrow your choices so the whole process of planning goes much faster.

-Check out the additional Resources for this Method:

• Theme Nights PDF Worksheet

• Theme Nights Evernote Template

3. Post-It Note Method

This is a fun meal planning style that goes along with the idea of Meal Plan Rotation Nights.

How it works: Take about 15-20 of your families’ favorite recipes, and write the title of each recipe on a Post-It Note (or similar. Magnets are fun, too!) Add the post-it notes to a calendar, moving around the post-its over the course of the month to plan your meals.

Best for: Your family likes what it likes, and you like sticking to that- but still crave some kind of structure to your meal plans. This can be a great style of meal planning for those who don’t feel super confident in the kitchen trying new recipes and feel comfortable making dishes they know well and love- with a little room for improvisation at the same time.

-Check out the additional Resources for this Method:

• Post-It Note Method PDF Worksheet

• Post-It Note Method Evernote Template

• Listen to the Post-It Note Method via mp3

• Watch the Post-It Note on video

4. Beg, Borrow, Steal

This style of meal planning wouldn’t be possible without the internet! There is a world of fully written out meal plans out there, for free, and all you need to do is find them.

How it works: Use Pinterest, Reddit, Facebook groups, google searches, diet forums, and more to find where others have posted their meal plans. Many food bloggers (especially those in the areas of health and wellness) will post weekly meal plans, along with recipe links- so all you need to do is find a meal plan that appeals to you, and plug the ingredients list into your grocery list. This also works for paid platforms, such as eMeals, Once a Month Meals, Dinner Daily, etc.

Best for: You hate the whole process of planning for a meal, but don’t mind getting a little inspiration from others and trying new recipes.

-Check out the additional Resources for this Method:

• Beg, Borrow and Steal Method PDF Worksheet

• Beg, Borrow and Steal Method Evernote Template

• Listen to the Beg, Borrow and Steal Method via mp3

• Watch the Beg, Borrow and Steal Method on video

5. Batch Cooking

One of my favorite styles, although it’s sometimes tough to work into a busy schedule. With a little maneuvering though, this method can save you a ton of time later in the week (or even the month!)

How it works: Determine how many meals you can conceivably make in the time you have available, then prepare and/or cook all of them in one go. I go deeper into batch cooking and preparing a batch cooking session in the next module.

Best for: You hate cooking in the evening and love the idea of pulling dinner out, ready to go. If you can do a little forward planning and work, the payoff is immeasurable!

-Check out the additional Resources for this Method:

• Beatch Cooking Method PDF Worksheet

• Batch Cooking Method Evernote Template

6. Cookbook Workthrough

I love this fun style of meal planning, although it can take some work to find a cookbook that has many recipes that work with your schedule and tastes. But once you find that cookbook, it’s fun to find recipes to use!

How it works: Find a cookbook full of recipes you love. Every week, pick recipes for your meal plan from just that book.

Best for: When you’re inspired by a type of cuisine but don’t feel like sifting through the internet to find recipes to try; when you find a cookbook that looks fun and easy to pull a week’s worth of dinners from.

-Check out the additional Resources for this Method:

• Cookbook Workthrough Method PDF Worksheet

• Cookbook Workthrough Method Evernote Template

7. Brand New

I don’t recommend this style of meal planning- but if you’ve got tons of time, go for it!

How it works: Every week, sit down and create a brand new meal plan from scratch.

Best for: People without kids or lives? I’m joking. This style of meal planning is likely familiar to us all, although it adds a ton of stress into our week.

8. Wing It

I don’t recommend this style of meal planning either! It makes for a harried, stressful experience and makes getting dinner on the table every night stressful and haphazard.

How it works: Every night, figure out what you’re making for dinner about an hour (or less) before dinner is served.

Best for: More people without lives or kids. Another form of stressful planning that almost guarantees money spent, time wasted, and stress.

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Where do you fit into all of this? How do you decide which style of meal plan works best for your family?

Dealing With Different Diets at Dinnertime

There comes a time in many a family’s journey when they realize that, for them, meal planning is way harder than just selecting recipes and buying the ingredients and cooking the meal. Say you’re a mom working full-time out of the home and your husband works even more than you do (which means you cook the majority of meals) and he has to go gluten-free to clear up some health issues. And your kids will only eat breaded things. And your three-year-old is allergic to dairy.

Meal planning for a family that all have different dietary needs is a whole different kettle of fish as far as meal planning is concerned. If you’re not 100% confident in your meal planning game, it can feel overwhelming and mega stressful.

I’ve planned for a number of different diets in my past and I wanted to fill you in on a few tips and tricks that help with meal planning.

Number 1: Don’t go it alone.

Meal planning services are often as low-cost as $5 a month and with a little tweaking, you can find a service that helps plan meals for your entire family with only the click of a mouse. I covered these a little more in depth in the Meal Planning Service Breakdown, but many of those meal planning services really cater to families that need not just the burden of meal planning itself taken off their plates, but the help in creating a meal plan that works for every palate.

Number 2: Find the overlap.

This takes a little more work, and it’s where a meal planning service can really shine. When I say the ‘overlap’, what I mean is look for the recipes that have similar ingredients where you can swap some things out and use replacements for others. By this I mean, spaghetti bolognese can be served with rice (or gluten-free pasta) for some members of the family.

A great way to help find recipes that cater to specific dietary needs is to use recipe databases that let you search via filters. Most do this, but some are really huge databases, and it can be fun and helpful to narrow your search down!

Examples:

AllRecipes Dinner Spinner (check out the video in the Resources for a more in-depth video on how the Dinner Spinner works)

Yummly (Great, customizable recipe search engine)

Number 3: Meal prep your heart out

Meal prep is going to be your friend when cooking for a number of different diets and preferences because it makes it easier to “throw” something together on the night of. Review the meal prep section of this module to get some ideas about incorporating meal prep seamlessly into your week.

Meal prepping makes the next tip handier…

Number 4: Swap just the sides

When you can’t find the overlap or you don’t feel like making two types of pasta for one bolognese sauce, swap the sides to bulk up meals for those with dietary preferences. Make meals that have swappable parts, and then make it available for everyone to swap in their needs.

Creating a Meal Prep Structure

In this section, we’re talking about MEAL PREP, namely- how the heck you’re supposed to get it done when you have zero time.

And trust me, lady: I get that! I’ve got no time, either- between school and work and schedules and, even but also especially, my solo ME time to recharge my batteries, meal prep can sometimes feels like a huge, avoidable chore.

And yet, the payoff is immeasurable! Trust me on this one. I can spend anywhere between 20 minutes and 1 hour getting a few items prepared for the week, and what I wind up with is MORE TIME as the week goes on. It’s also a money saver, since the urge to order or pickup takeout is especially strong when my fridge is full only of plain ingredients and nothing has been prepped.

What’s a Meal Prep Structure, you ask?

A Meal Prep Structure is the detailed breakdown of how a particular meal prep session is going to go. It’s looking at the meals you’ve got planned for the week, then seeing what you can do ahead of time to make the preparation of those meals easier over the next 5 to 7 days.

A Meal Prep Structure can be detailed and work through an entire week’s worth of meals- or it can be basic, covering the necessities, what it takes for you to quickly get through the week’s cooking each night.

Most weeks, I know I can squeeze in at least 20 minutes to prep a few items once the groceries are in the kitchen. If I can fit in an hour- even better! But 20 minutes is usually enough to get the ball rolling on the week.

A great help is starting on your meal prep as soon as those groceries arrive in your kitchen. Whether you’ve bought them at the store yourself or ordered grocery delivery, taking the time to prep ingredients as you put the groceries away means things get done in a fell swoop.

Here’s how I create a Meal Prep Structure, Step-by-Step.

Step 1: First, take a look at your meal plan. Below, I’m using a dummy one I put together for the purpose of showing you how I create the structure.

For ease, in my family, we typically eat a rotation of the same things at breakfast, with more effort put into the meal on the weekends. Lunch is either leftovers or 2 or 3 quickly made items. Snacks rotate, too (although we’re not big on snacks). With dinner, I change it up depending on what we have going on that week.

Breakfast: waffles with natural peanut butter, yogurt, granola and milk, hardboiled eggs

Lunch: leftovers thrown on rice or salad, sandwiches

Snacks: pretzels and cheese, cottage cheese with fruit

Monday: Chicken Parmesan with pasta, salad on the side

Tuesday: Crockpot pot roast with mashed potatoes and roasted green beans

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: Sweet and Sour Couscous Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Red Onion, salad on the side

Friday: Homemade pizza and sweet potato fries

Saturday: out with friends

Sunday: Steaks on the grill, corn on the cob

Step 2: Then, write a short list of all the things you could conceivably prep ahead of time. Don’t just write down what you think you can get done- write down everything that can possibly be prepped and stored in the fridge until cooking day.

Step 3: Re-write that list in the order of longest cooking/prep time to shortest. We want to maximize our time here, so multi-tasking is important. You want to be prepping vegetables while a sauce cooks, or something bakes, so that you’re filling your time as efficiently as possible.

Step 4: Figure out what you can conceivably prep in the next 20 minutes. Expand that into 40 minutes if you have an hour free- I find that I often will underestimate the time it takes me to do things in the kitchen, although you’d be amazed at what you can get done in just 40 minutes.

Here’s the Meal Prep List I made from my meal plan:

• Hardboiled eggs

• Marinara sauce, saving some of that to be used as pizza sauce later in the week

• Ready the pot roast

• Roasted Green beans

• Slice and slice sweet potatoes

• Salad dressing

Here’s what takes the longest to cook- which means it gets done first.

• Marinara

• Hardboiled eggs

• Roasted Green Beans

If there’s time, I’ll add:

• Prepping the pot roast in a bag so I can just dump it in the crockpot.

• Slicing and dicing the sweet potatoes

• Mixing the salad dressing

Let’s begin!

First, preheat the oven to about 350*F. We’ll need it nice and hot for roasting the green beans.

10 minutes for marinara: The marinara I make is super basic- just diced onions and garlic cooked first in a little olive oil until they start to soften, then add 1 or 2 cans of crushed tomatoes and a little tomato paste and a tablespoon of dried oregano. Simmer at medium-low on the stovetop til the onion is cooked through and the whole pot smells amazing.

So before anything else gets prepped, I’ll chop the onions and garlic and get that going on one corner of the stove.

5 minutes for hardboiled eggs: Once the marinara ingredients are in the pot, I’ll add the eggs to a pot of cold water, cover it, and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and let the eggs sit about 5 minutes (that’s it!). If it’s already out on the counter or easily accessible, I’ll cook the eggs in my Instant Pot.

5 minutes for green beans: If necessary, snip the ends off the beans. Toss the green beans in oil and salt, then spread them on a sheet pan. When the oven is hot, place the pan in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the beans have begun to brown.

At this point, we’re roughly 20 minutes in. You’re ahead on breakfast, marinara for the chicken parm and pizza, and green beans for the pot roast. You’re doing great!

Got more time? Let’s throw the rest of the list together.

15 minutes for pot roast: Peel and chop the carrots, onions, and potatoes that’ll be going in the pot roast. Add them to the bottom of a gallon-size ziplock bag. Rub the roast down with oil, salt, and pepper, then add it to the bag with any other seasonings. Place the bag in the bottom of your fridge until you’re ready to add it to the crockpot.

10 minutes to prep sweet potatoes: Peel 4 or 5 sweet potatoes, then dice half (for the sweet and sour couscous chicken) and slice the other half (for fries).

A quick aside: Does your grocery store sell prepped produce? Mine does, and it’s a gamechanger. I buy my sweet potatoes already peeled and diced if I can- don’t feel guilty doing this!

5 minutes for salad dressing: In a small container with a tightly fitted lid, combine equal parts olive oil and apple cider vinegar, a little whole grain mustard, and your favorite spice. Secure the lid and shake it up- you’ve now got salad dressing that’ll keep in your fridge for up to 6 weeks.

It’s about 50 minutes in, and you’re good! If anything, you might be a little under on time. If you’re over, you’re still good! It’s been less than an hour and you’ve saved yourself time for later in the week.

What if I literally don’t have an hour to prep?

If I can’t squeeze in an hour, then I try to break the meal prep up over a few days- 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. This is easiest if you’re already cooking- try to do one small thing for prep to be used the next night, and the results will stack up over time.

Meal Prep Equipment: What Do You Need?

While you don’t need a TON of products and tools to get started with meal prepping, there are a few things I absolutely recommend you start out with. They’re all relatively inexpensive, but super helpful.

These are the tools that make my prepping sessions, no matter how short, MUCH easier- and fun!

My ‘must-haves’:

Grocery shopping app/service

While I understand not everyone has a grocery delivering (or online ordering for pickup) available to them, if it is available to you, I really recommend you use it! It saves me SO MUCH time, effort, money. There is nothing quite like clicking a button to get groceries delivered to you.

Here’s what I use:

Peapod

Instacart

Thrive Market

Shipt

Tools I love

Round plastic containers

Baggy racks

(these bad boys will hold your ziplock bags open so you can fill them using one hand. They’re indispensable to me when batch cooking for freezer sessions!)

Gallon ziploc bags and gallon reusable bags

Masking tape

Sharpie markers

Sharp knives

(I prefer at least 8 inches; they feel most comfortable in the hand for a wide range of chopping)

Cutting board

Optional:

Time-saving kitchen appliances like Instant Pot, rice cooker, crockpot, etc

Printable labels

Audiobook/podcast/music

Meal Planning Paid Services and Databases: Are They Worth It?

There are plenty of meal plan databases out there- so many that I couldn’t possibly cover them all! But as a meal planner, home-based cook, and recipe lover, I’ve tried a lot of them. In this lesson, I’m going to cover the handful of paid platforms and services I think are the best.

Why paid meal planning services? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me how to do this?

Even as a professional meal planner and cook, I still rely on paid services! I have a big recipe library of recipes I’ve developed and used myself, but there is literally an infinite amount of recipes out there in the world, and in a paid service, there’s a level of trust that the recipe you’re trying will work.

So, when I’m in need of something new, or different, or a recipe that I don’t already have in my own arsenal, I turn to the paid services I’m a member of.

Don’t take this to mean that you have to be paying tons of meal planning services and platforms just to find recipes that work. I’ll often join a paid service, pay the monthly fee, grab as many cool looking recipes I can, and then cancel my membership. I know, I know. Not the nicest. But this is business. And I make a point to recommend the best services to anyone I think will benefit.

A roundup of paid meal planning services

This is a section that may ebb and change as time goes on. Paid platforms change- some get worse, some get better. Below, I’ve gone a bit more into detail with the programs I know, use and trust. The list underneath is as exhaustive as I’ve been able to find- so if you feel like doing more digging, check out each of the options!

Please note: These are only services that create meal plans for you, not just recipe databases that populate grocery lists for you.

How do I choose!?

So many of these meal planning services off similar systems and meal plans, all within the same price range. So how to choose!?

The best part is, most (if not all) will send you free plans, trial weeks, and more “try before you buy” plans. Browse through the sites and see which layout appeal to you, which meal plans send the best looking recipes, and go on from there.

Two services I use and love

When it comes to meal plan services, I do a combo of my own 5 Minute Meal Plan and Prep Sesh, my membership-based “meal prep meets meal planning” service. Your mileage may vary with what works best for you, but I find that these two systems give me enough space to easily create a meal plan no matter what is going on in our lives at the moment!

The Dinner Daily

This is a great service to try if you have specific dietary needs within your household. If you’re struggling with putting together a meal plan for your entire family when everyone has different allergies, needs, tastes, etc- the Dinner Daily creates meal plans that fit these!

There are two things I LOVE about Dinner Daily:

1. Once you choose your “local” store, they match you with menus that take advantage of sales those stores are having (they also give you EXTRA coupons to use on the rest of your groceries!)

2. If your local store has online delivery, they offer a one-click option to fill your cart with the ingredients of your weekly menu!

After you open your shopping list, if your store is compatible with the service, you’ll have an option to click “send to store”. In my instance, I use Stop and Shop locally. Their online delivery service is through Peapod. Once my menu is open, I can click one time to add the entire menu contents to my cart. You’ll also have the option to add or remove ingredients before this happens.

The Dinner Daily starts at $5/month.

Other services:

Emeals

Great for: Families who want choices in their meal plans. Emeals gives options of different diets, budgets, schedules, and more.

Plans start at $5/month

Platejoy

Great for: Platejoy strikes a balance between customized meal plans and you creating the plan yourself, landing somewhere in the middle. It begins by taking the answers you give on a questionnaire and using those answers to recommend recipes that slot easily into meal plans, the ingredients for which can then be ordered via one-click to your favorite online grocery store.

Plans start at $8/month for a 6-month subscription

$5 Meal Plan

Great for: Those who want simple, straightforward meal plans. They come in two “flavors”: gluten-free, and classic. Offer a 14-day trial and 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Plans start at: $5/month

Six O’Clock Scramble

Great for: Those who like a cross between done-for-you plans and customizing your own options. The Six O’Clock Scramble focuses on family-friendly recipes that kid like, too.

Plans start at: $1.44/week

Cook Smarts

Great for: Great for beginner chefs who are still getting comfortable in the kitchen. Cook Smarts is a lower-cost option for customized meal plans with one-click grocery ordering and offers a selection of cooking tutorial videos and how-to’s as well.

Plans start at: $6/month

The Fresh20

Great for: Busy people who are trying to eat more locally sourced, fresh foods without a ton of extra headache and preparation. The Fresh20 focuses on a split between freezer meals and weeknight meals, aiming for just one hour of prep at the start of the week to get you going.

Plans start at: $14/month

Once a Month Meals

I love this service and speak about it at length. For the price you pay, you receive tons of recipes, meal plans, guides, tutorials, video walkthroughs, live cook-a-thons, labels, and tips. This is a meal planning service primarily based upon batch cooking freezer meals, although every recipe in the database also comes with instructions for cooking and eating on the same day.

Once a Month Meals only opens their doors to new members on a sporadic basis.

[excerpt from my ebook, The Weeknight Dinner Survival Guide]

Use Evernote for Your Entire Meal Planning System

I use (and adore) Evernote, the cloud-based note taking app. It’s powerful, with great search and tagging features, and for a small monthly fee I can store EVERYTHING in there. I’ve got lists of restaurants to try, lists of the items I store at my parent’s house so I don’t have to pack as much when we visit, and pictures of the labels of my favorite bottles of wine, so I can remember what I drank! (We’ve all been there).

Evernote is also where I store my recipes – even the ones in physical, hard copy cookbooks.

If you want to go cloud-based, there are other great options, too, like Google Drive and Dropbox. The important thing is, being able to access these recipes anywhere, and on any internet-enabled device.

How to Get Started with Evernote

If you’re new to Evernote, you can download the app and get started for free.

Once you’ve set up your account, I recommend installing the Evernote Web Clipper on your computer’s browser.

You download the web clipper at www.evernote.com/webclipper, and it will give you the option to download based on the browser you are using, like Chrome, or Safari, or Firefox.

The Web Clipper is an extension for your browser, which means that whenever you stumble across a recipe online, you just click the little Evernote icon in the upper right hand corner of your browser, tell it which folder you want the recipe saved in, and it will save the entire recipe in

a file on that folder.

Here’s what that extension looks like:

After the Web Clipper Extension is installed, make sure you’ve got Evernote on your phone or tablet. Install the app from the app store, and set it up using your account details. Now, if you find a recipe while you’re on your phone, just click the option to “share”, as if you’re sending the page as a text message or to a social media account. The icon for Evernote will appear, and you can click it and save it to your files that way.

Here’s How You Set Your Evernote Up:

With Evernote, you create “Note Stacks”. Think of this setup as a filing cabinet; a Note Stack is the drawer in that filing cabinet labeled “Recipes” filled with folders labeled with type: Dinner, Breakfast, 30 Minute, and so on.

Note Stacks organize this virtual filing cabinet within your Evernote app so that when you need a recipe, you can easily sort through your folders to find it, and you can save recipes you find to their appropriate folder all with a few quick touches or swipes.

To make a Note Stack:

Take It Step By Step:

● First, create.a Folder for, say, Dinner Recipes. To do this in the app, tap the Notebook with a plus sign in the upper right hand corner, create your folder title, and hit ‘Ok’. To do this in the software/desktop app, click “File” in the upper lefthand corner.

● Select ‘New Notebook’ and label it with your category. Do this a second time with a different category- this time we’ll use ‘Breakfasts’ as an example.

Once you have two notebooks that need to be ‘stacked’ together (as in, placed in the same ‘drawer’), you can create a Note Stack.

● To create a note stack, drag one folder to the other until the first folder is highlighted.

This will automatically nest the folders into a Stack that can then be renamed.

● Rename the Stack ‘Recipes’ or similar, and congratulations! You’ve created your first Note Stack!

From here, add as many Notebooks as you need to fill the categories you cook from.

Now, we’ll start saving recipes to the correct notebooks. We’ll start with online recipes.

Take It Step By Step:

● Open up your Pinterest boards, bookmarks, and favorite recipe websites online.

● Go through each area where you have recipes stored online, and one-by-one, add them to your Evernote either with the Web Clipper from your desktop, or by the ‘sharing’ option on your smartphone.

● Add each recipe to the correct folder. You can tag each recipe if you’d like, too.

I know this part of the project seems daunting, if you break it into small tasks it’s much more manageable! I would spend about 15-20 minutes each night before bed while I watched TV, going through my Google Drive, bookmarks, my hard drive, etc and one-by-one moved my saved recipes into Evernote. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can tackle this; I had hundreds of recipes and I got it done in a few days.

Once online recipes are organized, it’s time for the physical recipes in cookbooks, magazines, and recipe notecards.

Again, I broke this project up into small tasks over the course of a few days and tackled it methodically. This went a lot quicker than my online recipes, to be honest.

See, Evernote’s search functionality is such so that it scans not just text, but text in an image.

This way, even if your recipes are saved snapshots of a magazine, for instance, Evernote will stil be able to find it even without a comment or a title added. It “sees” the text in an image, and pulls it up for you just like it does a typed recipe. Pretty cool, huh!?

So for a few days in the morning one summer, while my kids ate breakfast, I paged through my favorite cookbooks and, using the camera icon from within the Evernote app, snapped photos of the recipes I loved (you can snap a photo or use Evernote’s scanner functionality to do this). As I took each photo, I added it to the folder for its meal type.

Here’s What That Looks Like:

Take It Step by Step

● Open Evernote and tap the plus sign in the lower left hand corner

● Select ‘Camera’ from popup option

● The camera will open; use this to take a photo of your recipe. Ee the green box that appears, wiggling around your recipe? That means Evernote is trying to use the camera as a scanner. You can arrange the box to snap the recipe as a scan, or you can just snap a photo – either one works!

Now, whenever I’m writing out my meal plan, I’ll first look into the fridge or cupboard to see what we have that should be used up this week. Then, I go to my Evernote file and search for those ingredients using the tags I’ve added. The hard work is done and now the whole process literally takes 5-10 minutes!

Maybe a cloud-based app isn’t for you. But I do implore you to get as many of your favorite recipes into one place as possible; you won’t believe how much easier it makes recipe searching. You can do this the old-fashioned way, with notecards; you can create a binder you can save them to a different app or in a folder on your computer hard drive. Whatever works for you, having all your recipes available will make meal planning a snap!

So you’re new to the Instant Pot!

First off, I TOTALLY get why it can feel intimidating and scary when you first open up that box, man. I felt the same way, and I’m pretty comfortable in the kitchen, as you might imagine!

I’m going to go through today some of the common complaints, questions, issues, and troubleshooting methods that I hear from people ALL.THE.TIME!

One great place I recommend you start is in the Facebook Instant Pot Community group. It’s free to join and open to the public, and it’s the perfect spot to put any random questions or issues you might have that I don’t address, and you can find some fabulous recipes in there, too!

When you first open your Instant Pot and take it out of the box, it can feel mega intimidating. There’s this weird heavy lid and all the buttons and some little accessories like the trivet and the scrapey thing and what do I do with it all!?

And there are 3 really common questions I hear from people when they are getting comfortable with their Ips for the first time. I like to call them …

The 3 WTFs of the Instant Pot

So this brings me to my first common question: WTF with all these buttons!?

There’s the front panel of the Instant Pot, with buttons for saute and chicken and soup/stew and everything else and like, what’s the difference? It can be really overwhelming.

But think of it like this: an Instant Pot is basically a microwave. I mean, really: you figured out the defrost setting. You figured out the popcorn setting. And at the end of the day, if you need to add more time to something, you just punch in a few more minutes can wait.

The IP is really no different when you get right down to it!

Yes, it may look a little more complicated due to the lid and the valve and everything, but honestly, it works just like a microwave in that you add the ingredients, push the buttons to determined the heating time and type, and let it cook in the way it as programmed to do.

Honestly, I recommend you just kind of ignore the specific buttons at first. Get comfortable with the High Pressure time, with the Saute, and Cancel buttons. Later, once you’re feeling more comfortable with how the machine works, get moving into the buttons for Beans and Yogurt and everything.

There is a Time Chart in your little Instant Pot booklet, and if you lose that, they’ve got printable PDFs on their website, InstantPot.com.

So this moves us onto the next big question I hear from people new to the Instant Pot, and that’s this:

WTF do I DO first!?

You’re probably wondering, do I…. just hop into a recipe? Do I need to clean the thing?

The Water Test is simply putting water in the Instant Pot, setting it to pressure, and making sure the thing works, you’re comfortable with it, and seeing it do something that is literally impossible to screw up. You’re just boiling water to make sure the pot itself comes to pressure as it’s supposed to.

• 1. Add 2 cups of water to the pot

• 2. Set Pressure to “High”, secure lid, and add 3 minutes

• 3. Make sure the valve at the top is set to “Sealing”

• 4. This will check to make sure pressure, valve, heating element works.

• 5. When the pressure comes back down after the 2 minutes are up, you’ll hear a “click”- this means you can remove the lid. Or, just gently try to turn it- if it’s still locked, the pressure isn’t down yet.

• 6. Make sure the water is hot inside. If so: congrats! Your pot works.

Bonus? Doing the water test sanitizes your pot right out of the gate, so you don’t have to worry about going to town cleaning anything weird from the factory before you can start cooking.

So the water test is a basic test to make sure your pot works. It also gets you comfortable with it for the first time!

A common issue at this stage: “This take way longer than 2 minutes” . And I KNOW.

That’s the thing that drove me nuts about the IP when I first got it. I’d get all excited about a 20 minute short ribs recipe, but never mind that the machine took 10 minutes to get to pressure- IF I didn’t forget to put the Valve on “Sealing”, and then cook for 20 minutes, AND THEN it has like 25 minutes of release time! Talk about WTF.

So the thing is: you have to remember there are three sets of timing amounts when it comes to a Instant Pot recipe:

1. 1. The time it takes to get to pressure.

2. 2. The time it takes to cook.

3. 3. The time it takes to come back down from pressure.

That means you need to ALWAYS read right through to the very end so you can have an accurate understanding of how long it will take.

And here is one of my fave tips for the IP: Hit the “Saute” button!

It starts the heating process without needing to secure the lid first. I’ll set the lid on top without sealing and locking it, and let the heat build inside the pot while I prepare my ingredients to go in.

Starting with a hot pot will cut way down on the amount of time you need to bring the pot to pressure. “Bring to Pressure” means building up enough steam to pressure cook the food, right? And heat makes steam, so you’re giving it a head start with the Saute feature.

And then we can move on to the third WTF….

“WTF do I COOK first?”

Eggs are perfect for a first time!

Here’s a super basic egg recipe for hard boiling them with the Instant Pot. You will not BELIEVE how easy it is to peel these eggs, for real.

1. 1. Trivet in the bottom of the pot.

2. 2. Add 5 eggs.

3. 3. Pour in 2 cups of water

4. 4. Secure and lock the lid, make sure valve is set to “Sealing”

5. 5. High pressure for 5 minutes.

6. 6. While eggs are cooking, fill a bowl with ice water.

7. 7. Once the machine beeps 3 times, do a manual release of the pressure.

8. 8. Let the eggs sit in the ice water for 5 minutes.

9. 9. Peel and go!

So another question I’m asked often is the difference in some “slang” terms for the IP.

Such as… What is NPR? What is MPR? What is QPR?

These are terms related to how the machine release steam pressure, which will trigger the safety mechanism on the lid to unlock, so you can access the inside!

NPR is natural release pressure, which is when you just let the machine sit and chell there and come down from high pressure on its own. Sometimes you let it come down until the lid opens, sometimes you let it come down for a specific amount of time and then you do an MPR or QPR to finish.

Which brings me to MPR and QPR, which are manual and quick pressure release. Now, with these types of release, you need to be safe because what you’ll be doing is letting the steam out of the machine. And when that happens, you have a risk of burning yourself. So make sure to always approach MPR or QPR release methods (btw, they mean the same thing), with an oven mitt, or a towel, or a wooden spoon, or similar.

See that little silver pin to the right of the valve? That’s one way you can do a MPR- by pressing that pin down. I do this with the stem end of a wooden spoon so my hand is kept far away from the steam.

You can also turn the valve to “Venting” which lets the steam out that way as well. It’s up to you; they’re both there to do the same thing so there is a backup method for letting the steam out.

Let’s talk sheet pan meals.

If you didn’t know, sheet pan cooking is my JAM. I’ve written two bestselling cookbooks on sheet pan recipes and I’ve developed TONS of recipes over the years that require just one sheet pan and a hot oven. It’s kinda my thing here.

In this section, I’ll be going over what sheet pan cooking essentially is, WHY you want to even make dinner on the thing you usually use to bake cookies on, the types of sheet pans you should always make sure to use as well as the pans you should stay away from.

So why a sheet pan meal?

So first up, let’s talk about WHY you would want to cook a meal on one flat pan in the oven. One thing I’ve always loved about sheet pans is they’re cheap to buy, they’re readily available- as in, you can buy them almost anywhere you get standard home goods, from Walmart to fancy kitchen goods store, and they have a really low barrier to entry. Just about any cook at any skill level can make a sheet pan recipe.

A sheet pan meal is exactly how it sounds- it’s one meal, cooked on a sheet pan. You can sometimes use two different sheet pans in the oven at once, but for the most part, the entire meal is one that one pan. I like to line the pan with aluminum foil or a silicone pad to make for even easier cleanup.

Why does this type of meal work so well?

The low lip of a sheet pan combined with the heat from a hot oven brings upon maximum caramelization and browning, which is a low-fat, healthier way to pull tons of flavor out of ingredients.

Think of the beauty of a sheet pan meal as the OPPOSITE of a crockpot or Instant Pot meal: where the crockpot and the instant pot use high heat, steam and pressure to break down the proteins in an ingredient to cook it, sheet pan meals focus on pulling the natural sugars in an ingredient to the surface. This encourages browning and crisping and overall enhances the flavor that way.

How much flexibility is there in a sheet pan meal?

Most sheet pan meals follow a basic formula, which you can kind of see in the images above.

I also lay out a lot of this “formula”, along with breakdowns and examples, in this blog post here on Percolate Kitchen.

Here are the tried-and-true sheet pan formulas:

Formula #1: Lean protein plus sliced starch plus olive oil and kosher salt. Example: flank steak and sliced sweet potatoes, tossed in olive oil and kosher salt.

Formula #2: Protein plus cruciferous vegetable plus acidic seasoning. Example: Seared tofu + broccoli + orange and sesame dressing

Formula #3: Fat rendering protein plus non-starchy root vegetable plus fruit. Example: chicken thighs, parsnips, cherries

What to remember when putting together a sheet pan recipe:

Space. If you’re going for caramelization and browning, you need to allow the hot air to move around the ingredients. This means spacing things out, at least half an inch, so the browning can occur. If you don’t, the moisture in the ingredients creates a steam effect, which will cook the ingredients but not brown them- which means you’re missing out on that texture and flavor.

Low lip. The lip is important- too high, and it traps too much moisture around the food and doesn’t get you the amount of browning you want. Too low or nonexistent, and you run the risk of juices sliding off. I recommend a lip of about one inch, all the way around the pan.

Sturdy. I’m paraphrasing an Anthony Bourdain quote here, but you want the pan to be heavy and sturdy enough that when you bring it down on someone’s head it could cause serious damage. Obviously that’s not what I’m recommending, don’t hit people with your pans! But it’s an easy way to remember that those flimsy dollar store sheet pans are not your friend, and a sturdy, heavy pan from a trusted brand like Analon or Calphalon is. Spend the extra few bucks, My Analon pans are over 10 years old and I have really put them through the wringer, and they show no signs of stopping.

That’s it! From here on out, I recommend you just play around with some sheet pan recipes. Once you start making them, the concept of how things should be laid out on the pan will start to come together. Use the formulas I mention here to start creating your own recipes, too!

Crockpot and Stovetop Meals: the Basics

In this section, I’m combining the Crockpot, aka the Slow Cooker, as well as Stovetop cooking. There isn’t really enough on each topic to warrant its own section in the resource, but there are a few things in each that I want to touch on- mainly some of my most important pointers about crockpot cooking, and a breakdown of stovetop pan types.

Crockpot/Slow Cookers

I’ll begin with crockpots/slow cookers. Most of us are pretty familiar with these devices, but if you’re not, here’s how they work:

The crockpot is comprised of two layers, an inner pot, and the outer pot. The inner pot is something that conducts and holds heat really well, like stone or ceramic. The outer pot heats the inner pot to keep low, slow, even heat distributed around the inner pot for the entire duration of the cooking process. Keeping a tight lid on is essential because you’re trapping that heat inside. This type of low, slow heat helps break down tough ingredients like sinewy meat or starchy and or cruciferous vegetables, which results in really sumptuous flavors and textures.

Most crockpots start at about $20 for an average size, which is about 6 quarts., They go all the way up to 10 quarts, and you can buy double or triple potted crockpots that have separate heating elements, which work great for things like parties or feeding large groups of people.

I got my family crockpot on Amazon about 8 or 9 years ago for $20, and it’s still trucking along. The brand I purchased was the Crockpot brand, which is the original slow cooker and honestly, it’s the brand I trust the most- although I think it really depends on your type of brand loyalty, and what you’re used to. Black and Decker make a fabulous crockpot, as does Hamilton Beach.

Stovetop Meals

The other type of one-pot cooking I want to discuss today is stovetop meals. Thing encompasses anything cooked on- obvi! – a stovetop burner. Think stir-fries, soups, pasta, etc.

Stovetop cooking really comes down especially to know the right type of pan for the recipe you’re cooking. Wide and flat? Stainless steel or nonstick? Cast-iron? Wok? Pot? There seems to be a million different types of pans, and they all have different outcomes when it comes to the recipe you’re making.

If it helps, here’s a quick outline on each of the main types of pans and pots on the market today:

Stainless steel: I love this type of pan, and recommend it to everyone. My favorite is my wide saute pan with a helper handle as well as a long handle, and I use mine all the time. It conducts heat well and washed clean, especially with steel wool and elbow grease.

Cast iron: I love these in all shapes and sizes. The two size pans I use most often is my grill pan and my 6” flat cast iron, although a lot of people swear by their cast-iron griddles for things like pancakes. Make sure that once your pan is seasoned, you don’t clean with soap (and use an approved scrubber to get the grit off- I linked to one in the Amazon shop) and towel dry, don’t air dry- this will help prevent rusting.

Nonstick (Teflon and other): These definitely have their place, although don’t write off the nonstick of a good cast iron pan. In the last few years, I’ve been moving away from nonstick as I find they don’t last as long and I’m worried about toxins that leach into our foods. Make sure you don’t use metal utensils with these, such tongs or metal spoons, and stick to plastic, silicone, or wood.

Ceramic pans: Similar to nonstick, ceramic pans have been treated with a glaze to stay nonstick. They conduct heat well and are generally pretty affordable. Most companies do recommend lining pads between the pans when you stack them in the cupboard, to protect the glaze.

Aluminum pans: I recommend aluminum with reservations; when used in a pan as the cooking surface, aluminum is typically uneven in cooking and leaches heavy metals into foods- so stay away wif you’re trying to have fewer toxins in your life. However, this isn’t so if the aluminum is a core, sandwiched between other layers of metal. In fact, it’s hard to get away from as adonized aluminum is an extremely popular core in many brands.

Copper pans: Conduct heat beautifully and, bonus, are gorgeous to look at.

A quick word on Induction vs Gas & Electric Stovetops:

Gas and coiled stovetops heat pots and pans through contact. Thermal conduction is the energy created via heating elements that in turn heats the pans and your food, via direct contact. Your pots and pans are sitting on more or less direct heat.

But with an induction stovetop, meaning, one of those flat-top stovetops, the heat comes via coils underneath the surface and is then transferred via an oscillating magnetic field.

Because magnetism is the way the heat is transferred, your pots and pans MUST have a magnetic element to them in order to conduct that heat. Metals that don’t attract magnets, such as aluminum, nickel, glass, and copper. If you want to know if your pan will work on an induction stove, stick a fridge magnet on it. If the magnet sticks- congrats, it’ll work on induction.

Which is better?

Personally, I prefer gas, since you can control that heat so much better. Most recipes are written for use with gas stoves, so if you’re having trouble with a recipe and you’re working with an electric stove, that may be why. Plus, electric stovetops tend to heat slowly and don’t give off even heat for the most part, which can be tricky when you’re following new recipes. But, if you’ve got an induction or electric stove at home, don’t worry! It just takes a little more finesse and understanding the workings of your stove and before you know it, it becomes second nature.

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty about freezer meals!

First up, I want to dispel some myths about freezer meals, and then we’ll talk about what they are and aren’t.

I hear this question a lot: “So do you just like, make a meal and then put it in the freezer?”

No.

But then again, kind of.

When we refer to freezer meals, what often springs to mind are the casseroles your grandma would make and save for a rainy day, wrapped in aluminum foil and stacked in her freezer. But that’s not the case for all freezer meals. Sometimes they’re stored like grandma did, as a whole casserole. But sometimes, it’s a big ziploc bag full of ingredients that need to be put in a crockpot or Instant Pot (or similar) to cook. So the type of meal, the way it’s been frozen, the way it needs to be reheated and eaten- that all matters when determining what type of freezer meal it is.

There are two main types of freezer meals: Casserole-style, and Dump and Go.

Let’s break each of those types down:

Casserole Style Freezer Meals are meals that have been prepared in a casserole dish and need to be baked in the oven once thawed.

They don’t necessarily have to be casseroles: chicken enchiladas are a great example of a casserole-style dish that isn’t really a casserole. For the sake of simplicity, however, I’m going to refer to any freezer meal that needs to be thawed and then baked in the same vessel it was frozen in as a casserole-style.

Casserole dishes can be frozen with raw ingredients or cooked and then reheated. Depending on the type of recipe, this can affect the flavor and how that dish is handled once it’s out of the freezer.

For example, a casserole-style dish that would need to be prepared (as in, cooked or mostly cooked) prior to freezing would be something with pasta in it, such as lasagna or baked ziti.

Dump-and-Go Freezer Meals are my favorite kind of meal.

A dump-and-go (despite its ugly name; can we try to come up with something more pleasant-sounding?) is a large freezer-safe Ziploc bag of raw or cooked or partially cooked ingredients that you “dump” into a crockpot, Instant Pot, or onto a sheet pan to finish.

They make the frozen food taste as though it’s been cooked from fresh, saving a ton of time in the kitchen on the night you use them.

Plus, in the case of cooking with Instant Pot dump-and-go’s, you don’t even have to remember to thaw beforehand; they can go straight from the freezer to the Instant Pot and be on your table in under an hour.

That’s the rundown of Freezer Meals in general! I’m so excited about you getting into this section- it’s one of my all-time favorite topics!

How to Prepare for a Batch Cooking Session

This section is relatively straightforward, although it may feel as though there are a lot of moving parts that come with preparing for batch cooking session!

First up: what’s batch cooking?

Batch cooking is a chunk of time dedicated to cooking or preparing a bunch of meals at once, which will then be stored so they can be eaten/prepared at a later date. If we’re loading up our freezer with a bunch of meals, a batch freezer session needs preparation and a bit of planning before it can happen.

What if I have like, zero time to do this?

Well, I have two answers for you there.

1: Plan for it anyway. Listen, mama, we’re all crazy busy. Like, really busy. I get it! To set aside a 1-3 hour chunk of time to make a ton of food you won’t even be eating that night seems like…. Yeah, no.

But I’m telling you, if you can find that time in a weekend, you’ll be setting yourself up for success and a TON of saved time later on.

I find that setting aside ~1 or 3 hours of cook time on a weekend can save me up to 6 hours that WEEK in making dinner.

2. You’ll never HAVE the time. You’ve got to MAKE the time

There are a thousand and one things you could also do instead of batch cooking. But this is important. And you’ll never know how important/sanity-saving/helpful it is until you actually DO IT.

Think about it this way:

Instead of making dinner like this:

• Cajoling the kids out of the kitchen

• Pulling out your knives, cutting boards, pans, etc

• Getting all the ingredients for your meal out of the fridge/cupboard and ready to be prepped

• Cooking the meal (which could take up to an hour)

• Serving the meal

• Cleaning up the pans, cutting boards, knives, etc AND the plates, serving dishes

• …and then doing it all over again the next night

Think instead of making dinner like this:

• Removing a thawed, mostly thawed, or totally frozen meal from your freezer

• Placing it the oven, Instant Pot, or crockpot

• Doing whatever the hell you like until that meal is cooked

• Sitting down to dinner with your fam jam

• Washing ONLY the serving dishes and plates, silverware, etc afterward.

Which option sounds more appealing at the end of a long ass day?

Find the time to cook a batch of meals, my love. It’ll save you time, money, effort, and sanity.

Step One: The Preparation

So here’s where we’ll get into prepping for the batch session and all that it entails.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. Recipes for the meals you want to make

2. Ingredients for the meals

3. Appropriate storage containers, labels, and accessories

4. Chunk of time in which to cook and prepare

(make sure you also have childcare at this time, even if it’s just your partner herding the kids out of the kitchen and distracting them in another room. Kids’ll make the batch cooking take 10x longer, as you may imagine. Or, if they’ll be genuinely helpful, keep them around and put them to work!)

1. Bonus requirement: I like to load up podcasts, playlists, and audiobooks because it helps me pass the time faster.

Let’s break these steps down:

1. Recipes for the meals you want to make.

If they’re not recipes I’ve developed myself, then I find my freezer recipes from a number of different sources.

• I’ve got a list of make-ahead and freezer meals stored in my antique recipe box

• Not Your Mother’s Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook is my favorite freezer meal cookbook

• Pinterest (I’ve got a whole board of freezer meals)

• Reddit, in different subs like /mealplans, /mealprepsunday, and more

How many meals for one session?

I can usually fit in about 5 meals at a time. If I’m working solo and have prepared well, this will take me about 2ish hours. I’d love to spend a whole afternoon and cook a month’s worth of meals but I just can never find the time to do so.

In all honesty, If you have the time to make 5 meals, you have the time to make 10- so try to double up on the recipes you’re especially stoked about. But that’s about where I max out on time. Your mileage here may vary.

If you’re super new to batch cooking, I recommend starting at 3 recipes. Try to double them if you can. Once you’ve got a few sessions under your belt and feel like you can nail a batch cooking session with more recipes, go for it!

What kind of recipes should I choose?

Try to find a couple of recipes that have similar ingredients, like chicken thighs, tomato paste, etc. This is where a service like Once a Month Meals is really handy, since you can do a search in their recipe database for recipes containing a specific ingredient.

I love the concept of dump-and-go meals, where you prepare everything for an Instant Pot or crockpot and then dump it in the pot to cook. So I tend to gravitate towards those. I’ll prep everything, then I use a couple of baggy racks, which you can find on Amazon, and fill the bags up, seal them, and place them in the freezer at once.

2. Ingredients for the meals

Look at the recipes you’ve gathered and make a huge list of everything you’ll need. Like, everything. If you’re using one of the meal planner apps that populate a grocery list, this is a great time to do so, since that’ll save you time. Go down the list and cross off anything you already have.

I really love online grocery shopping, since it means I can just peel through my list and get groceries ordered. I use Instacart, since they have a 2-hour delivery window in my area. If you’ve got something similar in your area, I really recommend it, 2-hour delivery or no! I’ll often order the big, heavy things online and then pick up things like produce, etc so that I can be a bit more choosy with quality.

3. Appropriate storage containers, labels, and accessories

I debated including this step before the grocery haul, because if you don’t have the appropriate containers, they’ll need to be added to your list or bought beforehand via Amazon or somewhere local.

Once you’ve decided on your recipes, take a look at what you’ve got available to store all this food.

My personal preference, with my love of dump-and-go meals, is freezer-safe ziploc bags. I’ve got a ton of them! I also like round tupperware plastic containers, since I can just dump a frozen round block of food in a round Instant Pot and press “start”. Other containers may include disposable trays. Remember, you can’t freeze a meal in a glass baking dish and then place it straight from the freezer into the oven, because it’ll shatter. Glass also won’t expand with frozen ingredients inside, and that can shatter, too. I love storing my meals in glass containers because I’m terrified of BPA, but I purchased a number of BPA-free plastic containers with snap-on lids that have been working great for us.

4. Chunk of time to prepare.

This can be the trickiest part of the whole deal, I’m fully aware. But what’s a batch cooking session if you can’t do it all in one go?

If you’re nervous about not having enough time, start small. Get one hour in and prep 2 meals. A few days later (or next weekend), squeeze in another hour. Once you see how awesome it is to get batch cooking done, you’ll be more excited to figure out the timing with your partner or family to get it done.

Have you ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? Put simply, it’s filling the space we have entirely. If you’ve got an hour to write a paper, it’ll take you an hour. If you have 30 minutes, you’ll find a way to make it take 30 minutes. If we create the space we need in our lives to get something done that is important to us, we’ll figure out the time, no matter how much it takes.

5. Then, have fun!

I call this the ‘bonus’ part: it’s where I find fun playlists, podcasts, audiobooks, etc to listen to while I cook. Or, I’ll open a bottle of wine and invite a friend over so we can cook together, split the work, and split the meals.

If you make this fun, you’ll look forward to the process, not just the results. And that’s just as important as a fully-stocked freezer!

What’s a Freezer Meal Kit, Anyway?

I’m sure you’ve heard of companies like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Sunbasket, Green Chef, etc. If you haven’t, these are “meal kit” delivery companies that ship you the ingredients for 1-5 days worth of meals in a refrigerated box, along with their respective recipes, so you have everything you need to make a fresh, home cooked meal for dinner.

Meal kit delivery boxes are pretty cool, although they have their downsides: you might not like what recipes the company chooses for you. They don’t make a ton of leftovers. They’re on the expensive side. And the packaging is pretty wasteful.

But how can you have the ease of meal kits, with the fresh flavor of cooked-that-night meals? Enter Freezer Meal Kits!

Here’s How a Freezer Meal Kit Works

Freezer Meal Kits (sometimes called freezer meal packets, or freezer meal starters) are put together exactly like home delivery meal kits, but they’re packaged by you and stored in your freezer so you can pull them out, thaw, and cook the way you would any other freshly made meal.

Freezer meal kits are slightly different than regular freezer meals. Whereas a freezer meal is prepared to be cooked prior to freezing, or cooked and then thawed and reheated, a freezer meal kits has its components of the meal packed separately but together. When you’re ready to make the meal from a freezer meal kit, you pull out the “kit” from the freezer, thaw if needed, assemble, and cook.

This means you’re eating food that oftentime tastes much fresher than a standard freezer meal. It takes slightly more work on the night of to assemble and cook, but the ingredients and recipe are all right at hand and previously prepped, so there’s very little chopping, sorting ingredients, cleanup, etc.

It’s just Hello Fresh lives inside your freezer!

Talk Me Through This

To give you an example, I’ll break down one of my favorite freezer meal kits: my Chicken Enchiladas.

Here’s the recipe:

Chicken Enchiladas

This simple weeknight dish of chicken enchiladas, packed with shredded chicken and black beans and smothered in salsa verde and melty cheese, also makes a perfect DIY Freezer Meal Kit.

Simply freeze each component of the dish in separate containers and store together in the freezer. The ingredients thaw faster this way, and the dish tastes like it’s made from fresh- with less of the work on the night of!

I usually cook big batches of chicken breasts all at once in the crockpot, then shred and store for recipes like these.

If you’re starting from scratch, poach the chicken in water until cooked thoroughly, then shred using two forks or a hand mixer on low.

I really recommend using flour tortillas in this recipe as opposed to corn; they’re more durable and hold up to cooking much better, meaning there’s fewer enchiladas falling apart while you’re trying to serve.

Ingredients:

for the salsa verde:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 8-10 large tomatillos (papery shells discarded and rinsed)

• 2 tablespoons lime juice

• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional if you’re a cilantro hater )

for the enchiladas:

• 2 cups shredded chicken (about 16 ounces cooked chicken breast)

• 13.5 ounces black beans (cooked and drained )

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

• 8-10 large flour tortillas

• 12 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

Method:

1. Make the salsa verde: Halve the tomatillos. Heat the olive oil over medium heat until shimmering, then add the tomatillos and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have started to brown and soften. Add the lime juice and cilantro and stir to combine. Transfer to a food processor or blender and process until smooth, then set aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 400*F.

3. Roll the enchiladas: In a large bowl, combine the shredded chicken, black beans, salt, and cumin. Stir to mix.

4. Place 1/2 cup of chicken and black bean mixture in the center of a flour tortilla and roll the tortilla around the mixture in a long cylinder. Transfer the tortilla cylinders to a 9″x13″ baking dish, nestling them next to each other in one long row.

5. Once all the tortillas have been rolled and placed in the dish, pour the salsa verde over the tortillas, using a spoon to smooth the salsa verde into any cracks and crevices.

6. Sprinkle the enchiladas evenly with cheese and place the dish in the oven.

7. Bake until the cheese has melted and is bubbly, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.

Do you see how the components of this meal would be put together into a freezer meal kit? You freeze as much as possible separately, and then you put the items together one the night of cooking and cook almost from fresh at that point.

I know this seems like a lot of work for some recipes, and you might be wondering what’s the point of going to all this trouble? And in truth, freezer meal kits don’t work for ALL freezer-friendly recipes.

A Word About Foil Packet Recipes:

While scrolling around on the ole interwebs, you may see “foil packets” in the same breath as many freezer meal kits.

Foil packet recipes are super cool, and they translate really well to freezer meals. Put simply, a foil packet meal is where an entire meal is wrapped in individual foil packs and then that foil packet is placed in or on a heat source to cook- think campfires or grills, in the oven, and occasionally on the stovetop. The packets are filled with all the seasoning, veggies, and protein, so they all cook and steam together. Then you just open up the packet and enjoy!

They’re great for camping, and they’re really great to be made ahead of time for single-serve meals. When you’re searching online or in books for freezer meals, check out foil packets as well. 99% of the time foil packets can be frozen as-is, then placed (un-thawed!) onto a fire or in an oven to cook.

Why Go To This Trouble?

There are three reasons why putting together freezer meal kits are, in many ways, better than making freezer meals:

The meal tastes fresher. The items have been put together on the night of and didn’t spend any amount of time getting mushy. When the ingredients are thawed separately, there’s no odd flavors happening during the thawing process where two ingredient mingle together prior to being cooked.

Moisture can be controlled better. When ingredients are put together in a meal and then frozen, there is a period of time during the freezing and thawing where moisture from one ingredient can seep into another ingredient. Take these enchiladas. If they were rolled prior to freezing, the liquid from the chicken or salsa verde seeps into the flour tortillas long before the dish is cooked, making for some off-flavors and textures. This also goes for the salsa verde not seeing into the shredded cheese and creating that gummy line of texture between the melted cheese and the salsa.

When the dish is frozen in separate pieces and then assembled before being cooked, the length of time the ingredients are exposed to one another’s moisture contents is minimal, ensuring a better flavor from the meal.

You can pull from different kits if needed. This is “cheating” a little, but think about it: if you have the components of these chicken enchiladas stored together but separate, and one night you had a desperate craving for tacos but were missing cheese, you could just pull the cheese from the kit and use that instead of an extra trip to the store. Therefore, storing ingredients like this can feel like a two-for-one. Just make sure you replace the ingredients before you need to make the freezer meal kit!

Safety in Freezing

I wish I had a sexier name for this lesson. But the fact of the matter is, safe practices in the kitchen are (duh, you know this) extremely important. Freezing meals for later use isn’t as simple as just popping a baked or prepped casserole in the freezer; there are a few practices you need to do and remember to keep food safe for you and your family to enjoy at a later date.

Safe freezing:

Want to know a secret? Just about any food can be frozen safely and consumed at a later date. Yes, even eggs and dairy products! I’ve included a handy chart below that you can print out of items that go in the freezer, how they need to be stored, thawed, and what they’re good for once they’re out.

What all frozen foods can’t do, though, is be guaranteed to always be the exact same once they’re thawed. Freezing changes the structures and moisture content in foods, and thawing or reheating can’t bring those original proteins and structures back to life. So, if we’re going to freeze foods we have to be ready to adjust and plan for the changes it can bring to meals.

Let’s touch first on how to safely freeze foods.

This fact sheet from the USDA is full of really useful information about safe freezing techniques. Some highlights:

• “Freezing to 0 °F inactivates any microbes — bacteria, yeasts, and molds — present in food. Once thawed, however, these microbes can again become active, multiplying under the right conditions to levels that can lead to foodborne illness.”

What they mean is: While freezing will kill bacteria on the surface of foods, thawing brings that bacteria back to life again. So always practice safe kitchen techniques- avoid cross-contamination of knives, cutting boards, and surfaces when handling raw meats and vegetables, wash your hands often, and make sure to wipe down any areas where meat was prepared thoroughly, before packaging your meal for the freezer.

• “Freezing keeps food safe by slowing the movement of molecules, causing microbes to enter a dormant stage.”

What they mean is: Freezing food means that the breakdown of food from fresh to inedible is stopped for the duration of the freezing time. It preserves nutrients, vitamins, and, in most cases, flavor. Once thawing starts, those molecules start moving again.

• “It is safe to freeze meat or poultry directly in its original packaging, however, this type of wrap is permeable to air and quality may diminish over time.”

What they mean is: make sure your foods are wrapped in airtight, nonpermeable packaging. Plastic tupperware is perfect for this since foods will expand slightly as they freeze, and plastic storage containers will expand along with the food.

When you’re packing food to be frozen, keep in mind that we want to lock air out from accessing the food. That’s why vacuum packaged foods freeze and thaw so well; the lack of air in the packaging maintains the quality of the ingredients inside.

A note about freezer burn:

That same air we’re trying to keep out is what gives freezer burns to food when it has access; The air on foods’ surface will discolor it, strip away moisture, and makes the food taste off. Freezer burned food is not actually bad for you, but it doesn’t taste good. If possible, cut away the freezer burned section of the food before preparing.

If you take away anything from this lesson, make sure it is this: when you are cooking foods to freeze, you must first let any hot foods sit in their container with no lid on until they are at room temp or just above before putting them in the freezer.

Why? The main reason is this: the longer foods sit at a “danger zone” temp, which is when they are in that in-between temperature of hot and chilled, the more hospitable it becomes to multiplying bacteria. Once food is cooked, you want to bring it to a safe temp as quickly as possible before freezing. BUT, if you put hot food straight into the freezer, the temp of that hot food will bring down the temperature of the entire freezer, placing the rest of the food stored inside at risk, since their temps will start to drop as well.

So how do you mitigate this “danger zone” from occurring? Once your meal is cooked, place it in the container you intend to freeze it in, with the lid off. Let it sit in a cool part of your kitchen or dining area until it is no longer too hot to handle with bare hands. We want that lid off because it helps bring the temp down faster, without trapping the heat inside. After the item becomes comfortable to the touch, the lid can be added and it can be labeled and placed in the freezer.

The big exception to the “lid off” thing is storing in ziploc bags, although similar rules apply. Ziploc freezer bags are thin enough to allow for rapid cooling; just place the food in a ziploc bag and seal it, then lay the bag flat (a flatter surface area means it will cool quicker) and once comfortable to the touch, place it in the freezer.

So once our food is properly packaged and frozen, what do we do when we’re ready to eat?

When we’re preparing freezer meals, it’s important to be cognizant of safe practices in the kitchen.

Here are some basic truths to follow for safety:

Be aware of cross-contamination; make sure to handle raw meat in a space away from other products, and wash all utensils and cutting boards after

That being said, the USDA recommends that foods stored at 0*F for a few hours will kill many harmful bacteria, including salmonella.

Here are three main ways to thaw your frozen foods:

Running under cold water

While the food is sealed in its freezer packaging, place it in a large bowl or dish in the sink. Run cold water over the food continuously, so that the water is constantly sluicing off and pooling up around the item in the bowl/dish. Using cold water instead of hot makes sure the temp of the frozen food doesn’t rise too fast. Let the water run for a few minutes, then turn it off and let the item sit in the cool water for another 20 or so minutes, until it is thawed enough to handle and further defrost or cook.

Place in the fridge for 24 hours

The fridge follows the same idea as the cold water; it allows the temp to come down from frozen without placing that food in a temperature danger zone. After 24 hours, even if the food isn’t completely thawed, it’s usually thawed enough to cook or prepare.

Defrost in the microwave

We’ve all done it; using the microwave is often the quickest way to defrost. To prevent discoloration and partial cooking, make sure to turn the item every minute or so, so it defrosts evenly.

Defrost on the stove

I got this idea from a friend of mine, and it works! She brings a pot of water to 140*F on the stove and then adds frozen meat in a well-sealed bag to the water. She constantly monitors the water with a thermometer, making sure it never goes above 140*F. This will defrost most cuts of meat in about 10-15 minutes, and it discolors them slightly but afterward they’re perfectly pliable and thawed enough to prepare. If you’ve got 10 minutes to keep an eye on the pot, this is a great alternative to the microwave!

I really don’t recommend thawing on a countertop; it’s too easy for the temperature of the food to come down to a danger zone without realizing it. If you’re not thawing in the fridge, stay close to your frozen foods as they defrost and then prepare them immediately after.

A quick word about cooking straight from frozen:

My honest take? I do this all.the.time. I place frozen foods straight into my oven, Instant Pot, or crockpot, and they cook fine, although they take a bit longer to cook, obviously. I recommend doing this more in the Instant Pot or the oven since the temperatures are hotter. A word of warning: the USDA does not recommend this, although anecdotally, every meal planning platform, chef, etc I know do, and they’ve all lived to tell the tale. So take from that what you will.

What’s a Pantry Meal?

A pantry meal is a dish made entirely out of items that can be stored in your pantry or cupboard. They’re sometimes made with one or two ingredients from the fridge, but for the most part, they’re almost entirely with non-perishable staples.

Why on earth would I want to make these?

Listen- anyone can throw together a fab meal using fresh ingredients. But to go old-school and make something tasty, filling, and not a total sodium-bomb using shelf-stable ingredients? That takes some talent.

Pantry meals are great to have on hand because they take even less preparation than a freezer meal, yet they’re there for you on those nights when you haven’t gotten to the store, don’t want to call for takeout, and you need to get dinner going.

Plus, they can be a great budget meal, as shelf-stable items are frequently on sale or coupon-friendly.

Are they all super boring/gross/weird/heart-attack-ready?

They don’t have to be! The one thing with a pantry meal to keep an eye on is sodium content, and hidden sugars. Check the included PDF of 35 pantry meal ideas in the Tools section to see what I mean.

Do they HAVE to be only shelf-stable ingredients?

No, totally not. I like to keep pantry meals on hand that can be dressed up with vegetables or a meat protein.

Where can I find pantry meal ideas and recipes?

Honestly, church cookbooks are rocking for this sort of thing. Another great place is to look through older cookbooks and also find recipes from the back of cans, boxes, and bags.

Next Action Steps:

-Check out the bonus of PDF of 35 Pantry Meals in the Tools section, and see what you can put together from your cupboards!