The Lazy Genius Podcast - #94 - The Lazy Genius Guide to Freezer Meals

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

This week, we’re doing math on the podcast. Well, Freezer Math. Freezer Math will help you know how much to cook when you want to stock your freezer. Then, I share the Seven Rules of Freezer Cooking. This is serious business, y’all. So grab your calculator apps and let’s stock our freezers. Links to Help You Out Every month, I share books I loved, podcast episodes you should listen to, and stuff from me that I don’t share anywhere else in a newsletter. If you’re not on the list, sign up here. The next one goes out on Wednesday. If you need help meal planning before you start stocking your freezer, there’s an episode for that. Maybe you want to start stocking your freezer by stocking up on meat. Here are my words about buying meat. Become a supporter of The Lazy Genius Collective on Patreon. Every month, my sister and I release a special show for Patreon supporters called The Lazy Sisters if that’s your jam. Follow me on Pinterest to find freezer meal recommendations that won’t overwhelm you. Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there. You're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Before we get going on today's episode, I want to make sure you know about my mailing list. Our next monthly email with tons of good things goes out this Wednesday, a couple days. So if you're not getting those emails, jump on that bandwagon. I share books I loved, podcast episodes you should listen to, an update on all the content from the podcast and the blog that you might have missed. And then stuff from me that I don't share. anywhere else. A couple of months ago, I shared some huge news in the newsletter that I'll share now, even though you might have heard it already on Instagram or somewhere, but you guys, I'm writing a book for you. If you've been listening for a while, you might have heard me mention working on a book proposal and trying new things and taking leaps and all that. Well, I took a leap. I pitched a book and I signed a book contract last fall. I am currently in the middle of writing the book, and it is crazy and also awesome. But I announced the details about that in the newsletter back in December. So if you want a monthly hit of lazy genius in your inbox, and I promise not to waste your time, head to the lazy genius collective.com slash join to join the mailing list today. And you will get the next issue of the latest lazy letter. Okay. Let's jump in today's episode. It's number 94, the lazy genius guide to freezer meals. I get asked about this topic all the time. And for good reason, freezer meals save enormous time and money if you're intentional about it.

Now that said, there are other ways to save time and money on dinner. So if after this episode, you still feel kind of me on freezer cooking, just don't do it. There are other ways to save time. So just let this one go. Be lazy about it on purpose and you'll be better off. Okay, so here's how we're going to approach today. I'm going to give you a quick three-step process to figure out your freezer meal math. So you'll always know how much to cook when you want to stock your freezer.

And then we're going to go through the seven rules of freezer cooking. Okay. So first, let's do freezer meal math. I have an English degree, so I apologize for what's about to come. You need three pieces of information for your freezer math formula. First, decide how many meals you can fit in your freezer at once. This is an important number, and it takes into account any size freezer. You can make freezer meals, even if you only have the freezer on top of your fridge.

So no matter the size of your freezer, decide how many meals you can probably fit in there. Now remember, you have to fit other stuff too. So take that into account. If you're not really sure, actually open your freezer or freezers, if you have more than one, and eyeball the space. Like take stock of what's already there. Look at the bags of the fruit for smoothies and the ice cream and all that stuff. And just eyeball in general.

Like how many freezer meals you can fit in your freezer if your freezer is just shy of being maxed out? that is your freezer space number and that's information piece number one freezer space number okay the next thing you want your freezer dinner number decide how often you want to eat dinner from the freezer over the course of one month now it can be once a month and all the way to like eight or ten times a month because you're pulling from it you know like a couple times a week that's your freezer dinner number okay now you're going to ready this is comical right you're going to divide your freezer space number, how many meals you can fit in your freezer, buy your freezer dinner number, how many times a month you want to eat from your freezer. And that is your freezer

meal lifespan. Basically, how long can your freezer feed you? Okay, so because math is hard, at least for me, let's do an example. If I want to eat a freezer meal about once a week, so four times a month, and I have room for 20, Meals in my freezer. My freezer meal lifespan is five months. I can stock five months of meals at a time, right? Freezer space number 20 divided by freezer dinner number four equals five, five months. If you want to eat from your freezer twice a week or let's say eight times a month, we'll say that evens out to eight, and you have room for 10 meals, your freezer meal lifespan is 10 divided by eight, which is one. We're one. We'll say, one and a quarter. So your freezer can feed you for about a month and a quarter or for about five

weeks when it's full. Okay. I'm using, I'm using months as our time frame rather than weeks because some of you might not need to eat from the freezer more than once a week. But if you do, if you do want to eat from the freezer once a week or more, use weeks instead of months for this math. Okay. So, so like for example, if you want to eat from the freezer once a week and you have space for a dozen meals, you have a freezer meal lifespan of a dozen weeks. Make sense? Okay. Now, what do you do with your freezer meal lifespan number? What does this all mean? You decide how often you need to cook freezer meals in order to keep your freezer feeding you as often as you want it to. So to keep the math super simple. Let's say you want to eat from your freezer once a week and you have room for four meals at a time, which means your lifespan is four weeks or a month-ish. You now get to decide how often you. You now get to decide how often you. you want to freezer cook. Your freezer meal lifespan of four weeks, it tells you the absolute longest span of time you can go without freezer cooking. So in this scenario, with a lifespan

number of a month-ish, four weeks to a month, you can hold one month of meals at a time. That means at a minimum, you need to cook four freezer meals a month to keep your freezer stocked. Okay, now you get to decide how you want to do that. You can do four meals in one cooking session every month, and then it's full every month. You can cook a couple of meals every couple of weeks, right? You can plan one meal a week that's easily doubled and then freeze one of those meals. So that's one meal a week and that keeps you stocked. You see how this works? So how much, how much can your freezer hold? And how often will you pull meals from that free? You divide the first number by the second number to see how long your freezer will feed you without needing to be replenished.

That is your freezer meal lifespan. And then that's the magic number for how you approach freezer meal cooking and how often you do it. Okay. So let's map this out for like a larger freezer capacity. I'll use my own freezer numbers for this. I want one freezer meal a week. And when I say freezer meal, I mean like the whole meal is done. I don't mean components.

I mean like you saw the thing. You hate the thing. You eat the thing. All right. My freezer can hold 15 meals. And remember, I want to eat one a week. That's 15 weeks of meals. That's my freezer lifespan number, right? Or like about three months. So I can go three months. When I start from a fully stocked freezer, if I start from that, I can go three months without making a freezer meal if I do it all in once. Now, I can choose to do like a mega freezer session every quarter, every three months. and freeze all 15 meals at once and then never do it again until the next three months. I can do a monthly freezer session where I make about five meals at a time. Or I can do the weekly thing where I plan one meal a week that's like easily doubled and frozen and I just keep that rhythm forever since I need one freezer meal a week.

I hate talking about math. I hope this makes sense. But here's why we need the math. The problem with freezer cooking is that we see those images on Pinterest and like different Instagram accounts of people who have these major freezer cooking sessions and we get really overwhelmed. We're not sure if we have room for all that stuff. We don't have an expectation really of how often we're going to eat freezer meals. And then it feels like we'll do all this work without it actually helping us out. So if you know how many freezer meals you need a week or a month,

if you know how many meals you can fit in your freezer at one time, you can easily figure out how often you need to have a freezer cooking session and how many meals. You know, meals you need to actually make during that freezer cooking session. And then it's actually kind of easy. Deciding what to make is easier because you know how much to make and that you'll actually have room for it. Okay. Now we're going to get into the seven rules of freezer cooking, which will shed a little more light on how to put an actual freezer cooking session together. Okay. So rule number one, don't romanticize it. This is a weird freezer cooking rule. I get it, but it's an important one. You see like those photos and the stacks of food and all the pretty labels

things and it feels like if you can do that you have got your act together you want to feel as empowered as those internet women seem to be now hear me having a stocked freezer is empowering but it doesn't make you superwoman it doesn't completely eliminate dinner stress it can absolutely help it does make a lot of 430 panicky afternoons better but if you don't have a huge stack of food with like completely organized shopping lists and friends to share it with and all the things we see on the internet you're not doing it wrong don't romanticize it freezer cooking is a wonderful tool but it's not a magic pill or easy in and of itself i'm really selling this so well right now right but i think you know what i mean it's a helpful tool if you use it the way that you need but it's not magic

and perfectly grid it out on your counter ready for an instagram photo doesn't doesn't make it worth it. So rule number one, don't romanticize it. Okay. Now rule number two, if you bulk cook, you need a plan. If you bulk cook, you need a plan. A lot of you might be completely happy making one extra meal a week with whatever you have lying around. And that's, you get into that rhythm. But if you want to cook 10 meals at a time and one fell swoop, you will lose your mind if you don't have a plan. But now that you know how many meals to make and how often you need to plan your freezer cooking session, that plan will be a lot easier. Now here are a couple ways to approach a bulk plan. Check the internet for work that is already done. If you're not

super married to your own recipes, find one of the million blog posts with like freezer session plans or use one of those cookbooks on your shelf that has freezer plans in the back. Just find a plan that makes the number of meals you need and let someone else do all the planning work for you. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally, the ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca.

Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette. with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes.

Save the everyday with Amazon. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacker Keltener, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for City. of awe. A special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Now, if you don't want to use

someone else's recipes and you want to use your own meals, make your own plan. Let's say you want to cook six meals at once. You want to freeze six meals. You need to make a plan for six meals. They can be the same recipe six times. You can make double batches of three recipes, triple batches of two recipes or six separate recipes. You do the math however you want, what makes the most sense for you. Next, you need to make a grocery list of what you need in order to make that freezer session work. Go ahead and write down all the ingredients and the amounts, especially, that you need for every recipe. After everything is written down, all of it, check it against what you already have. And then also make sure that you're not using any of that stuff before your freezer

session. If you're like, I need four onions. Oh, look, I have four onions. And then that night for dinner you use two onions and then you're kind of out of luck and then now you have your shopping list you also need to make sure that you have the right containers to freeze your meals in but we'll get to that in another rule and to make your freezer session plan works super super well for you you need to know what tasks you're going to do in what order don't just choose your recipes and make your shopping list write out the actual cooking you need to do for each recipe you need to dice onions and grilled chicken and whatever your recipes need and you might be using like the slow cooker for one recipe, a saute pan for another, the oven

for another couple, whatever. Try and think about how you can do all that cooking in the most efficient order. I don't mean necessarily in the fastest. Usually efficiency means fast, but just like what makes the most sense for your sanity and how your kitchen is working. So you're not waiting for something to be available. Don't make one recipe all at once and then another and then another or you'll be there forever. This is where someone else is playing. it will really help you because a lot of times those plans, they list the tasks in order and they've already done the work of like what appliance is being used when and like, I'm cutting all these onions at once or whatever. But if that kind of decision making, it doesn't overwhelm you.

Figure it out for yourself, man. I'm a weirdo who likes that kind of stuff. So I do it myself. But have a plan. Regardless, have a plan. Plain your recipes, plan your grocery list. So you have every last bit of food you need for your freezer cooking session. It's so sad when you're missing something. and then plan the order of the tasks in the most efficient way that you can to make it quicker and easier than if you didn't make that plan. Okay, so rule number two, if you bulk cook, you need a plan. Yours or someone else is, but have a plan. Rule number three, freeze, full meals or meal kits. A full meal is something you can thaw all at once, heat up, and it's ready. Soup, chili, curry, stuff like that. Now, a meal kit,

is different. It's a kit of components that are mostly ready to rock but need a little bit of individual attention. An example of this could be fajitas. You have like a little baggie of sliced raw onions and bell peppers. You have another baggie of like already grilled steak that's been marinated. And then you have like a spice packet. You can you can free spices. Did you know that if that helps? So when it's time for dinner, you pull out your fajita meal kit. You saute the vegetables straight from frozen and like dumped from the bag. Then you add the already cooked meat to warm it up. Then you add a spice packet and a dash of water at the end to kind of bring it all together. So you still had to do a little cooking beyond just like heating something up on the stove,

but this you could use the microwave for. But the kit is about as ready to go as it can be. I prefer fully cooked freezer meals. But you might not. You might enjoy like that little dash at the end of actual cooking. So know what you prefer and what might serve your recipes. best. Some make more senses kits. Some make more sense of freezer, full freezer meals. Okay, so rule number three, freezer, full freezer meals, say that three times fast, or meal kits. Just do what works for you. Rule number four, think about thawing. Thawing. Think about thawing. That's another one. We'll be fun to say three times fast. How are you going to thaw your food? Does it even need thawing? For example, if you're making slow cooker means,

that just need to go in the crock pot, like straight from the freezer. It might be a great idea to freeze the food in a gallon freezer bag that freezes, like, mostly in the shape of the crock pot bowl. See, I often freeze things flat in gallon bags and freezer bags. So there's more surface area for like a quicker thaw. But chili that's frozen flat will not fit in a crock pot. It will just make you angry to not have things work the ways they're supposed to. So think about thawing.

Think about how this food is going to thaw. Think about the shape of the food compared to the shape of what you're going to cook the food in. If that's the thing. Think about if the food needs to be completely thawed before it's heated and how quickly that needs to happen. Thicker things, thaw much more slowly than thin things. But not everything needs to be thawed. And that's why rule number four is to think about thawing. Just think about what makes the most sense for you and the recipes that you choose.

Rule number five. Google it. If you are unsure, if something can freeze, Google it. If you need some meal kit ideas, Google it. If you need the complete plan for a dozen meals, Google it. If you wonder how long something is good in the freezer, Google it. There's no single answer for your freezer questions. So it's just better to Google what you need specifically. For example, when we have our Instagram live this week on Thursday, you might want to ask me how long stuff can last in the freezer. And while I love answering your questions and I want to help you as much as I can, there's really no one answer for that question. Certain foods do last longer than others, but it depends on like

if they're cooked already or maybe how fresh the produce was in the beginning, that kind of thing. So once you have like a specific question, Google is your best friend. I know it's huge and it's not as trustworthy as a friend or your mom, but having some place to start asking your question. a huge difference. Because once you know what you need, specifically, the internet can be an enormous help because you're not just Googling freezer meals. You're Googling freezer meal plan for six meals. Make friends with the internet once you know what you need from the relationship. Okay. Rule number six. Label like it's your job. You have to label stuff. It's not just so you know what something is, which is definitely true. There's nothing like thawing a bag.

of reddish stuff, thinking it's chili to find out it's meat sauce. And now you have to boil pasta. So, yes, label so you know what stuff is. But even more than that, label so you can quickly see what you have when you open your freezer. I do this for my fridge a good amount too. When you open the door to grab something, especially in containers, you can, like, move stuff around and figure out what you have eventually.

But the quick decision making you get from labels is huge. hugely important, probably more than you realize. So label stuff so that you can see what is in your freezer or fridge. We'll talk about the fridge too when you open the door. Like I said, I freeze a lot of gallon bags flat and then I line them up in the freezer, almost like books on a bookshelf. But if I just label the fronts of the bags, I still don't know what I'm looking at when I open a freezer, right? So you could put a piece of masking tape around the side of the bag to give you like a tiny peak of what's in the bag, like a little flag almost. Does that make sense? That way you can just see it a lot quicker. And then here's a pro tip. Label the container,

especially bags, but anything that you're about to put a food of any temperature in, label your container before you put the food in it. Once hot food hits a container or cold, tape just doesn't stick well. Sharpies don't draw well. I mean, that's true of all the temperatures. So just label as much as you can before. the food lands in the container. And this isn't a freezer rule. I'm going to go into too much, but when it comes to temperature of foods when you freeze them, the colder the food when it goes in the freezer, the better off the food will be. But it's not a deal breaker. You don't want to put piping hot soup directly into the freezer, but it doesn't have to be completely cold to be frozen either. I mean, I might have like the tiniest bit of freezer burn, but it's not going to

count anybody. It's cool if it cools to room temperature a little, just like to take the edge off in the fridge. You could like have it come to room temperature and then you could put it in the fridge just to kind of like bring it a little cooler and then put it in the freezer. I usually don't stress about that part too much. Just don't stick super hot stuff in the freezer and you'll be fine. And finally, rule number seven, don't be a freezer hoarder. This is such a sneaky part of having freezer meals. We don't let ourselves use the meals that are there to make our lives easier. We're like, well, it's not a super busy night. I should probably save that meal for later. And then we stay stressed out over dinner and we have like an overflowing freezer and sometimes

might even have to throw out meals because they've been in there so long. So don't be a freezer hoarder. Once you decide your freezer dinner number, use it. If you want to cook from your freezer once a week, pull a meal from your freezer once a week. Use your meals as often as you plan to. That is what they are there for. Okay. Let's recap. We said a lot today. First, freezer map. Figure out how to do a freezer cooking session by figuring out how long your freezer can feed you. And you get that number by knowing how many meals your freezer can hold and divide that by how often you want to get dinner from your freezer. No more overwhelm over how to do a freezer cooking. session because now you know how much to make and how often to do it. And then there are the freezer

rules. Number one, don't romanticize it. Number two, if you bulk cook, have a plan. Number three, freeze complete meals or meal kits, whichever works best for you. Four, think about thawing before you freeze stuff. Five, Google it. Six, label like it's your job. And seven, don't be a freezer hoarder. And that, my friends, is it for today. I hope that this has been a huge encouragement to your freezer cooking life. You can do this with a tiny freezer, a huge freezer. If we're cooking for one or if you're cooking for 10, make it work for you. That's super weird freezer math.

And if you have any questions on figuring this out for yourself, join me on Instagram this Thursday around 12. I've been saying 1215, but we might start bumping it like the tiniest bit early. like 1210, if we're in it picky, Eastern time to talk about that. I am at the lazy genius on Instagram if you don't follow me. And I will have a post on my feed that morning where you can ask your questions in advance. And I'll get to as many as I can during our live. And again, please join the mailing list if you haven't yet.

I would love for us to be email friends, not just podcast friends. And thank you for being here for taking the time to listen and share and all of it. I'm just so grateful for you and your support of this. space. That is all for today. I'm Kendra. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Bye, guys. You ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available

to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.