During school season, our already busy schedule gets even more hectic. It can be a challenge to make filling, healthy meals for the family, especially on weeknights.
So, to help reduce my stress and feed the fam, I’ve decided to embrace the freezer.
For a large chunk of my life, my freezer was filled with quick, easy, convenient microwaveable meals that were full of chemicals and low on nutrients. But after diving into cooking in adulthood, and learning how to embrace veggies and herbs, my freezer became a spot pretty much exclusively for ice packs and frozen fruit for smoothies.
But the freezer can be a powerful tool for meal prep. It can be used to preserve fresh, nutritious foods of all sorts, and I’ve started leaning on it more and more in recent years.
I’ll make a big batch of sauce when I have time, then cool it and freeze it so when we’re busy, I can quickly defrost what I need and combine it with fresh pasta, grains or grilled veggies.
You can freeze sauces in larger batches for the entire family, or if you are cooking for just yourself, easily freeze “single serving” sauces in large ice cube trays. Check out my top tips for sauce preparation below:
Freezing sauces like a pro:
- Tomato-based and herb-based sauces freeze best
- Let sauce cool completely before freezing (I typically let sauces cool a bit in the kitchen then finish cooling in the fridge before transferring to the freezer)
- Divide sauce by serving in reusable plastic bags or ice cube trays
- Frozen sauces typically last for about three months, write dates on the container to help keep track of when they were frozen
How to Reheat
When you are ready to use your sauce, thaw it in the fridge, then reheat it in the stove or microwave.
And check out some of the best sauces for freezing that use or products – the chimichurri sauce is especially delicious to have on hand when we grill!
So, embrace the freezer, guilt free, and save yourself some time!
Caio!
Andi
