Making dinner every night is …hard! Although the benefits we get from sharing a daily homemade meal are extraordinary, it’s still truly difficult to pull it off. As much as we’d love to get a from-scratch meal on the table most nights of the week, it’s a tall order. We’re short on time, long on hunger and out of ideas.
As far as I can tell, the average person (me included) faces three major stumbling blocks when trying to get dinner on the table:
1 No idea for what to make
2 No groceries to make whatever idea we do come up with
3 No time
Good news: There’s a fix to all of these, but it isn’t particularly glamorous or thrilling: Your freezer.
That freezer, when stocked with the right stuff, can make your daily dinner unbelievably easier. It’s the first line of defense against all the factors that make you order take-out, or convince you to eat cereal standing over the kitchen sink.
A well-stocked freezer solves the first two problems instantly. Plus, all you need to do is pull one out every day and dinner is mostly done (even those frazzled evenings when you need dinner on the table in minutes), solving problem number three, too!
But before you start buying chicken thighs in bulk, please wait! There are a few important rules for making your freezer into a dinner- and life-saving easy button.
- Don’t freeze the wrong things.
Lots of foods don’t freeze well, and turn out unpleasantly mushy or pasty after a few weeks in the freezer. Make sure to get my list of To Freeze or Not to Freeze foods. - Don’t freeze foods you don’t like.
This one might seem obvious, but I once found myself marinating chicken legs for my freezer stash….and I don’t like chicken legs. Whoops! If it’s not something you’ll be excited to eat, don’t waste time and money on freezing it. - Stay out of the danger zone.
Bacteria start to party when a food’s temperature is between 4°C and 60°C, so get your food cooled as quickly as possible, and never freeze it when it’s still hot.
- Don’t expect the freezer to work miracles.
The freezer does not make bad food good. If the dish either tasted bad or – worse – was going bad in the fridge, a stint in the freezer will not make it better. (Bacteria do not die in the freezer, they just sleep.)
So what should you do instead? Take one afternoon every two to three months to fill your freezer with meal-making building blocks: foods that freeze well, that taste delicious and that you and your family really love.
As you fill the freezer, create a little inventory list. When you wonder, “what’s for dinner tonight?” simply check out your inventory and choose something to eat. Dinner = easy!
I do this for my own family–and you can join me! Check out my freezer masterclass and series of live freezer-stocking classes right here and use code HS10 for a special discount!
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Claire Tansey is Canada’s Master of Mealtime. She is the author of national bestsellers Dinner, Uncomplicated and Uncomplicated. She’s been in the food business for over 20 years; along the way she sang lead in a rock band, got a master’s degree and was Food Director of Chatelaine. Claire is a guest expert on Cityline and CBC Radio and she runs a virtual cooking school where she inspires home cooks with easy, delicious recipes.
Originally from Montreal, Claire lives in Toronto with her partner, Michael, who eats everything and their son, Thomas, who does not.
