Inside: Every thing it is advisable learn about beginning a freezer meal swap group. Scale back “what’s for dinner?” stress and have enjoyable with your folks and neighbors.
It’s a weeknight. You’re drained and frazzled. Your individuals are hangry.
And you haven’t any thought what’s for dinner.
You’re able to hit speed-dial and order take-out, however you then bear in mind the casserole tucked within the nook of your freezer.
You slide it into the oven, flop onto the sofa, and provides due to three-weeks-ago-you for squirreling that sucker away.
Wouldn’t it’s good to have that sort of security web each week?
Meet the freezer meal swap!
A number of years in the past, a neighbor invited me to affix a freezer meal swap group. The way it labored: We every made two dinner recipes for each particular person within the group. Each month, we acquired collectively to socialize and swap dinners. And everybody went dwelling with a cooler filled with home made freezer meals.
It was an effective way to satisfy extra mothers in my neighborhood and broaden our household dinner rotation.
It additionally demolished my dinnertime stress–as a result of two nights per week, I may pull out a home made meal to reheat whereas I prepped just a few easy aspect dishes. All of a sudden meal planning turned a complete lot simpler.
Sound like music to your ears? Wish to type your individual group? Listed here are my finest ideas for a profitable meal swap group.
Arrange your meal swap group
Collect your group: A great group measurement is 4-5 members on your freezer meal swap. Greater than that, and it’s difficult to arrange so many meals directly. (And all the time conform to seek the advice of your entire group earlier than inviting different individuals to affix.)
Ensure your cooking kinds and tastes align too. What are your loved ones’s favourite recipes? Do individuals within the group have comparable tastes? Do your group members like fundamental meat-and-potatoes meals–or extra elaborate dinners which may require journeys to specialty markets for elements?
Work out the small print: Work out the variety of meals you’re going to commerce. You might begin by everybody cooking one meal for every particular person, and enhance to 2 if that’s doable.
Speak to your fellow swappers about preferences and any particular dietary wants. Any allergic reactions, intolerances, or different different dietary restrictions? Any elements households don’t like? Are natural elements vital to group members?
Resolve on recipes: Plan for a wide range of meals and a stability between dinners like soups, casseroles, primary dish meats, and meatless recipes. It’d go with out saying, however keep away from attempting a model new recipe for the swap. Check it at dwelling first to verify it really works and tastes good.
Set a swap date: We met each six weeks, which gave sufficient time for everybody to make use of their meals between swaps and never get a backlog of things of their freezer.
Make & pack your swap meals
Don’t neglect about your self: While you’re cooking recipes for swap members, make sure to make sufficient for your loved ones too!
Pack them up: We packaged our meals in disposables like a freezer bag (pressed flat, to avoid wasting area) for dishes like soups and spaghetti sauce. Disposable baking trays are perfect for lasagna, casseroles, and enchiladas. However your group may additionally spend money on reusable containers (glass or plastic) for the swap, or you possibly can return containers to one another each month.
For disposable packaging, write the date and cooking/reheating directions proper on the bag or foil with a Sharpie. Or you may preserve a gaggle Google Doc or different digital file to share, so you may all the time entry the directions.
Add up your prices: Calculate how a lot cash you spent in your meals, together with the portion you made on your personal freezer. Embrace any cash spent on objects like freezer baggage or containers. We didn’t depend some issues, like just a few teaspoons of salt, drizzle of oil, or a pair cloves of garlic. However take into account including a small quantity (like $1.00) to your complete for those who use quite a lot of your spices, as an example.
Alternate freezer meals
Use a cooler: On the day of the swap, deliver your meals packed in a cooler or insulated bag in order that they keep chilly and frozen.
Settle up: Carry a tally of how a lot you spent in your meals. Examine prices and discover the common (obtain this free price sheet for a how-to), then settle up so it’s even–money, Venmo, no matter is best for the group.
Maintain observe: It’s useful to designate somebody within the group to be a kind of “membership supervisor” and preserve a file (paper or digital) of the totally different meals made, which of them have been hits/misses, and the common price per meal. When the group is stumped on what to make for the approaching month, you may look again and see what went over particularly nicely.
Plan for subsequent time: Set a date for the subsequent swap and work out which recipes you’ll make.
Take your meals dwelling and get organized: Listed here are my finest ideas for organizing a backside drawer freezer and organizing a chest freezer. And right here’s a free freezer stock printable you need to use to maintain observe of your stash.
Swap group ideas for achievement
- Be trustworthy. If a swap meal wasn’t successful, make certain it’s not repeated once more.
- Maintain your inventory of swap group provides separate. If the group pays on your field of freezer baggage, as an example, solely use them for group meals.
- Be versatile. The purpose of the group is to be a assist, not a stress. So if someone wants an additional few days to get their meals collectively, roll with it. If the group desires to go on hiatus through the holidays or different busy instances, take a break and resume later.
- Be in contact with members’ wants. For instance, one particular person in our group needed much less meals and one other needed extra, so we made modifications accordingly.
- Suppose exterior the casserole: You don’t have to produce all the meal. Making a key meal element is useful too, comparable to taco meat, spaghetti sauce, or grilled hen strips–which can be utilized in every kind of various methods. Listed here are some concepts for this type of batch cooking.
Freezer meal concepts
These have been a few of our favourite meals from the freezer meal swap group, plus extra concepts:
Soups
- Lentil soup (recipes makes two batches)
- Hen taco soup
- Hen chili
- Italian wedding ceremony soup
- Butternut squash soup
- Beef stew
Casseroles
- Hen Tetrazzini
- Lasagna
- Enchiladas
- Hen pot pie
Meats
- Marinated pork tenderloin
- Pulled pork
- Sloppy Joes
- Meatballs
- Taco meat (recipes makes 4 batches)
- Marinated hen for the grill
- Cooked, shredded hen
- Marinated steak or hen kebabs
- Filling for Baked Turkey Tacos
Miscellaneous
For extra meal swap concepts, try my publish 30 Wholesome Freezer Meals and the cookbook Repair, Freeze, Feast.
I’m a participant within the Amazon Providers LLC Associates Program, an affiliate promoting program designed to offer a way for me to earn charges by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated websites.
