Hi reader,
I hope you're doing well. I wanted to share one of my favorite tips for making dinner during the week a lot easier - meal starters.
Meal starters are components of a meal prepared ahead of time so that you can quickly put a recipe together when you're ready to eat it—for example, cooking rice ahead of time to use in bakes or stir-fries.
Here are three ways that meal starters can make your life easier:
1️⃣ You can get dinner on the table quickly. When meal starters are ready, you can significantly reduce cooking time.
2️⃣ Kitchen clean-up time is reduced. Having recipe components ready beforehand means you don't need to cook it the night you plan to eat it. This means you don't need to dirty up extra dishes.
3️⃣ You don't need to commit to a recipe. A common complaint with meal prep and freezer cooking is that people don't want to commit to recipes beforehand. They'd rather have more creativity during the week. Meal starters help with that. Think of all the different meals you can make with shredded chicken and rice. When you have meal starters in the freezer, dinner ideas are limitless.
To help you get started, I've included a list of my favorite meal starters along with some recipe ideas:
👉 Slow Cooker Buffalo Shredded Chicken: I freeze this chicken into 1 ½ - 2 cup portions for various recipes like buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese, buffalo chicken subs, and buffalo chicken wraps.
👉 Slow Cooker Salsa Shredded Chicken: After the chicken is cooked and shredded, I divide it in half and freeze it into chicken quesadilla freezer kits.
👉 Mexican Shredded Beef: This recipe takes about 8 - 10 hours to cook in the slow cooker, so it's a good recipe to cook all day while at work or on the weekend for dinners during the week. I use this shredded beef recipe in enchiladas, tacos, and burrito bowls.
👉 Rice and Quinoa: I freeze brown rice and quinoa in 1 ½ - 2 cup portions to use in recipes like Italian stuffed peppers, chicken cajun quinoa bake, quinoa fried rice, shrimp fried rice, and stuffed pepper soup.
👉 Marinara Sauce: I like to make a big pot of sauce every few weeks and stock my freezer with 2-cup portions. I use the sauce for spaghetti, ravioli, veggie lasagna, chicken parmesan, and eggplant parmesan.
There are many other meal starters, but these are my favorites.
I encourage you to block some time and get meal starters in the freezer. If you do, share a picture (and tag me) in the Facebook Group.
If you're looking for help stocking your freezer with healthy meals, I've got just the thing for you! Check out my Freezer to Flourish Bundle, which includes a step-by-step guide to freezer prep and my tried and true freezer recipes!
Learn more about my Freezer to Flourish Bundle!
Have a great day!
Tammy 💕
| | xo Tammy Overhoff Owner, Reset & Flourish & Organize Yourself Skinny. 🔥 Est. 2011 | Over 7000 students! 💕 In love with my big blended family! 🍫 Equally loves smoothies, mason jar salads, and chocolate. 📣 Cheer mom, volleyball mom, dog mom. ☕️ Needs a lot of coffee and a little RHONJ daily to stay sane. |
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