Cook & Freeze for Week Nights

[McEDaddy]

i Need suggestions from the team - My wife and I both work 40+ hours and we’re blessed to have 2 young healthy kids... we often find ourselves short of ideas and time for a good dinner on the week nights. I just got a pellet grill and I’m hoping to be able to cook in bulk on sundays, and then freeze for the week nights.

Foods I’ve aldready thought of- pulled pork, chili, spaghetti sauce.

i appreciate any suggestions on foods or "how we did it" from similar experience.

[EdF]

A couple/three thoughts.

Get a vacuum sealer to store the leftovers of larger cooks.

You can rewarm a lot of different ways, but an SV machine lets you just drop the bags into the bath to rewarm. And at the current prices for a Joule or Anova, there's not much to argue against it. You can also drop the bags into simmering water in a pot.

You can also consider an SV like a cooking Tivo - a time shifter. Put something on, take it out hours or days later, refrigerate or freeze or use right away, then finish it quickly (a sear for meat, etc).

An Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker is a real boon for those busy evenings. If you get one, get Lorna Sass's "Pressure Perfect" book that presents a lot of useful recipes and tips, along with ways to vary them for related meals.

Have fun!

[RonB]

Depends on the day of the week.

[Steve R.]

I had some ideas, but EdF nailed every one of them. +1 to all of that!

[JGo37]

You wanna leave a little room for the rest of us Ed? ;o)

[Livermoron]

We smoke bacon/canadian bacon and freeze batches. Have you looked into sous vide? It's been a great time saver for us. We can cook the protein sous vide and keep it in the freezer or refrigerator, then sear it when we need it, using a variety of methods (grill, skillet, etc.)

[RonB]

Smoke a couple of chickens hot and fast and use the Simon and Garfunkel rub from the free side. That's always a winner. You could smoke a turkey hot and fast too.

Smoke a chuck roast low and slow. They cook like a butt, but normally need to go to a higher temp, and use a beef rub. Other proteins will also work - like pork chops, or even hamburgers.

A sous vide machine would also help. If they make a programmable one, you could set it up to have dinner ready when you get home from work.

A vacuum sealer will help simplify your life too. Make large pots of spaghetti sauce, soup, or stew and freeze in family size portions. You can do this with sides too. Don't try to do too much at one time, but when you cook over the weekend, bulk cook an item or two to add to the freezer.

[LA Pork Butt]

Quesadillas and tacos are good. We smoke a lot of boneless skinless chicken thighs and vacuum seal and freeze. Stuffing a potato is good. If you smoke beef like a chuck you could put it in a stew. In Mac and cheese, roll ups, on pizza, nachos, in beans, mixed in hash browns, or a great sandwich and salad are all good options.

[RonB]

Great point. Ya don't have to eat something the same way twice. Reheated pulled pork can be used many (quick) ways as mentioned above. Same for other things too.

[LA Pork Butt]

One last thing. Try making out a menu for the week. It helps when parents are too tired to think creatively or make a decision.

[Steve R.]

Yep. It also helps you stay within a budget.

[HawkerXP]

Chicken, whole, parts and boneless. Like pulled pork you can do pulled beef from a chuck roast.

[marshall]

recommend a vac sealer, I bought an inexpensive one on amazon for 35$ and it works great for non liquid foods and everything taste fresh from frozen.
my favorite is grilled pork chops , also vac seal and freeze sweet corn to have all winter, smoke whole chickens, jalapeno poppers, grilled peppers.
I also buy some pre made bubba burgers that you can cook from frozen to have on hand

[Hulagn1971]

I agree on the Bubba burgers. Tried them for the first time last week and they were a nice addition.

[N227GB]

Although I do cook for larger groups about once a month, most of the time it's just for two. A Food Saver vacuum sealer is your friend. I'd reccomenda model that can store a continuous roll with an integral trimmer to make custom size bags.

I recently picked up Bill Kim's book on Korean fusion BBQ. He has a lot of focus on keeping things on hand for quick weeknight meals. An excerpt:

Each master (sauce) recipe includes a list of all of the recipes in the book that call for it. That way, you can always plan a meal according to what sauce or spice mixture you have ready. But because these master recipes are so easy to prepare, I suggest you take an hour or two one afternoon to make all of them (this is when you’ll be really happy you have a food processor), then stash them in your fridge or freezer. You can freeze small portions of them in ice cube trays or little containers so you’re ready to fire up the grill on a weeknight, for an impromptu Sunday lunch, or whenever the mood hits.

Kim, Bill. Korean BBQ: Master Your Grill in Seven Sauces (p. 32). Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

[CaptainMike]

No help here, my wife won't let me get a job so I have all day to meal plan and prepare.

[Livermoron]

There are worse gigs. Well played!

[JGo37]

'everythingstaken@cook&freezeforweeknights.com' but one thing. Queso. Keep a variety of tortilla sizes on hand and true Queso, and you can grate & put a meal together in minutes with whatever else you have.

[Fire Art]

I said by everyone above the sous vide machine a vacuum sealer and your freezer are a great team ewe can cook a perfect steak from frozen in 2 hrs and sear in doors out doors. When I buy extra meat I salt pepper and freeze just in case i decide to sous Vide it’s work out great for me. O and pizzas on that pellet grill

[Troutman]

We regularly cook way more than we can eat on the weekends. Of the variety we choose to cook, chicken is probably the easiest to hold over. You can eat it cold or warm it up, it never seems to go to waste. Also keeps for days.

[fzxdoc]

I said by everyone above the sous vide machine a vacuum sealer and your freezer are a great team ewe can cook a perfect steak from frozen in 2 hrs and sear in doors out doors. When I buy extra meat I salt pepper and freeze just in case i decide to sous Vide it’s work out great for me. O and pizzas on that pellet grill

I agree wholeheartedly with Potkettleblack on many of his recommendations. I love to cook and love even more to smoke and BBQ. But most times there is just the two of us. (Our friends, however, are always ready to take handouts. )

So mostly I smoke and/or 'Q whenever I want. It's a hobby for me. Whenever we go to visit the kids, I load a cooler up with pulled beef, pulled pork, smoked chicken, whatever I have in the freezer. Both girls and their husbands work long and hard and are grateful for "instant pulled beef taco meat", brisket-laden Malcom Reed's chili, or whatever they use the frozen offerings for.

But the key for me is two things: a vacuum sealer (I love the Foodsaver 5800 series), and an all-freezer upright freezer. Not a chest freezer (which is the bane of the existence of a 5'2" woman trying not to do a 1.5 gainer into the freezer chest as she fishes for the 1 lb chunk of burger meat in the far corner). If you smoke it and freeze it, they will come.

Oh, and I only freeze/thaw in glass containers. Since hot food leaches from the container in which it is placed, I figure glass is safest. Those Pyrex glass storage containers seem to proliferate like rabbits in my freezer. Just ask my dear husband. Oh well.

Kathryn

[McEDaddy]

Thanks everyone, super helpful!!