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My Freezer Is Too Small to Cook Ahead!!

© Kerri Bazzell

To someone with a 20-cubic-foot chest freezer in their garage, finding freezer space for cooking once-a-month is not much of a challenge. But what if you have only a small freezer on top of your refrigerator? Can you really benefit from cooking ahead? The answer is, "Yes, but it takes some planning." You may find that storing enough meals for an entire month is too difficult, but with a little planning ahead and wise use of the available space, you might be able to cook ahead for a couple of weeks. There are other options, too. You could have an entire month of breakfasts ready to be popped in the microwave on those rushed school mornings. You might have room to tuck in a bag of precooked ground beef to make dinner come together more quickly on "meeting nights." With a little creativity, you can benefit from the time-saving techniques of cooking ahead without breaking the bank on a new stand-alone freezer.

The first step is to clean out that freezer and take inventory. What is taking up space in your freezer? You might find several bags of frozen vegetables. You can use these as ingredients in some of your freezer meals. Plan on using frozen meat the same way. When you come across frozen dinners, make a note of them and plan them in your menus for the upcoming week. Pay attention to containers that have a lot of air space in them, such as gallon ice cream pails that contain only a pint of ice cream, and transfer the contents to a smaller container. It may take a few days to get the surplus out of your freezer, but then you can assess the amount of space you have to work with.

When you have a dish to store in the freezer, pack it as compactly as possible. Instead of storing a casserole in a glass dish, transfer the contents to a plastic freezer bag and freeze it flat on its side. When it is solid, it can be stored vertically. Several bags can be lined up like books on a bookshelf in this way. If you need to use rigid containers, remember that rectangular containers waste less space.

If you don't have room to store several meals in your freezer, consider using a "meal mix." A meal mix consists of a few ingredients that can serve as the basis for several meals. For example, boneless chicken breasts can be cut up and cooked with onion, bell pepper, and parsley and the mixture can be frozen and used as filling for enchiladas or the base for a casserole or chicken salad.

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