Skip to main content

Cooking for your freezer- Ground beef



Life is busy for all of us. It's so easy to get so busy that instead of home cooked meals we grab food through the drive through and eat on the run. A big timesaver is cooking for your freezer.

You can do this as simply or as complicated as you want. Some do once a month cooking. However, it's also handy to double up on a casserole or main dish that you're making and freeze one. This is a bit more manageable for me. For the most part, I cook meat and freeze it. Then use it to make a meal at a time.

My favorite thing to cook is ground beef. I just cooked up about 10 pounds of this and put it in my freezer. It is so nice to pull that package of frozen cooked ground beef and use it for whatever I need. Spaghetti, a casserole, tacos, burritos, anything! It eliminates a step and a pan to be used.

How to cook the ground beef:
I place several pounds of ground beef in my stockpot and then add some water. Usually a 2-3 cups. Then season the beef however you like. This time I just used salt. then break up the meat as it cooks. You don't have to stay right there with it. Just break it up occasionally to get it to the size crumbles you like. I like mine pretty fine.

Packaging the meat:
I use a strainer over a bowl to drain the meat and then put it in containers to go in the fridge to cool down. I usually like to let it cool before I package it for the freezer. I just use sandwich bag and then put them all in a freezer bag. Make sure that you get as much air out of the bag as possible. Don't forget to date it so that you know how long it's been in the freezer. Every now and then a bag can get away from you if you have a large freezer.

I highly recommend doing things like this to save time. You can freeze any meat after it's cooked. I even have some pork from a roast I fixed in the freezer. I have pulled a package out for a quick lunch and have it planned to use for bbq sandwiches soon.

The freezer is an awesome tool and one that I wouldn't want to be without. I would love to hear your favorite freezer tips!

God bless,
Amanda

P.S. Here are a couple of my favorite sites for freezer cooking.

30 Day Gourmet

Friendly Freezer
There is a yahoo groups called Friendly Freezer that goes along with this. I highly recommend joining because they are a great group of helpful freezer cooks. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Friendly-Freezer/

Comments

Unknown said…
oh - you know I love this post. It saves so much time, doesn't it? I'll have to check out that yahoo group. Sounds great. :)
Jen, Thanks! I love doing little things like that to save time on cooking. Thanks for your comment and for stopping by! :)
God bless,
Amanda
Anonymous said…
I do the exact same thing! It does save so much time. Last month was my first month that I did it in a long time and I couldn't believe how much time it saved during the dinner hour!
Toni
Toni,
It does! It's amazing how such a small thing can help so much. Especially if it's 5pm and you need something fast. Thanks for stopping by! :)
God bless,
Amanda

Popular posts from this blog

Duggar Family Tater Tot Casserole

Nov. 2020 update: Hi all! I am updating this recipe as it has changed for us over the years. Also, I am featuring it over on my new YouTube Channel Faith, Food and Family ! Make sure to check that What's for Dinner video out. Updated recipe: Tater Tot Casserole Ingredients: 1 pound of ground beef, cooked 1 32 oz bag of tater tots 1 cup of milk 2 cans of cream of chicken soup (you can use a mix or chicken and mushroom, chicken and celery, or whatever combo you like) 1 cup of shredded cheese of your choice (I usually use cheddar or triple cheddar) Preheat your overn to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine the 2 cans of cream of chicken soups and the milk. In a 9x13 pan, spread cooked hamburger meat evenly on the bottom. Pour tater tots on top and distribute evenly. Pour soup/milk mixture on top and bake for about an hour. When it is hot and bubbly, remove from oven and add shredded cheese. you can use more that a cup if you like. Place back in the oven for about 5 mi

Salt-Free Ranch Dressing Mix

I don't know about you but I really enjoy ranch dressing. The stuff in the bottle is okay, but if you look at the ingredients it contains some not so good stuff like MSG and added sugar. It also has a lot of added sodium. I'm trying to watch my sodium so I decided to make a salt-free ranch mix, then I can control the salt whenever I make the dressing or add it to a recipe. It's super easy to make your own ranch mix. If you make a batch of this up, you can have it already on hand to make ranch dressing or add it into other recipes. Let's get started! Salt-free Ranch Dressing Mix Ingredients: 4 Tbsp of dried parsley 4 tsp of dried dill 4 tsp of onion powder 4 tsp of minced dried onion 2 tsp of garlic powder 1 tsp of ground black pepper Combine the spices in a bowl and from here you can process them for a bit in a mini food processor to mix well and make some of the parsley smaller or you can use a coffee grinder as a spice grinder. Then place in a contai

A Civil War Recipe..... Oatmeal Pie

Princess came home with an assignment to to a Civil War project. There were several options but she and I always gravitate to the ones that involve cooking. So we chose to make a recipe from the Civil War time to share with her class. Can I just say how grateful I am for the internet when it comes to these school projects? We looked online and found many different recipes. I wanted one that used ingredients I already had on hand and hopefully one that would be a bit tasty. I finally found a forum where people were sharing Civil War recipes and someone had shared one for Oatmeal Pie from Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, during the Civil War, pecans were in short supply. So oatmeal was subbed for pecans to make a sort of mock pecan pie. This recipe is very tasty and really easy. It does remind me of a pecan pie, but at the same time a little reminiscent of an apple crisp because of the oatmeal and the cinnamon. Very delicious! I'm hoping her class really enjoys it. She said th