Inside: All the things you’ll want to find out about beginning a freezer meal swap group. Scale back “what’s for dinner?” stress and have enjoyable with your mates and neighbors.
It’s a weeknight. You’re drained and frazzled. Your persons are hangry.
And you haven’t any thought what’s for dinner.
You’re able to hit speed-dial and order take-out, however then you definitely bear in mind the casserole tucked within the nook of your freezer.
You slide it into the oven, flop onto the sofa, and provides due to three-weeks-ago-you for squirreling that sucker away.
Wouldn’t it’s good to have that sort of security web each week?
![Taco meat for freezer](https://www.realmomnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/TacoMeat10.jpg)
Meet the freezer meal swap!
A number of years in the past, a neighbor invited me to hitch a freezer meal swap group. The way it labored: We every made two dinner recipes for each individual within the group. Each month, we bought collectively to socialize and swap dinners. And everybody went house with a cooler stuffed with selfmade freezer meals.
It was a good way to fulfill extra mothers in my neighborhood and broaden our household dinner rotation.
It additionally demolished my dinnertime stress–as a result of two nights every week, I might pull out a selfmade meal to reheat whereas I prepped a couple of easy facet dishes. Instantly meal planning turned a complete lot simpler.
Sound like music to your ears? Wish to type your individual group? Listed below are my finest suggestions for a profitable meal swap group.
![Freezer-Friendly Beef Burritos](https://www.realmomnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/Beef-Post-7.jpg)
Manage your meal swap group
Collect your group: A perfect group measurement is 4-5 members in your freezer meal swap. Greater than that, and it’s tough to organize so many meals without delay. (And at all times conform to seek the advice of your entire group earlier than inviting different folks to hitch.)
Ensure your cooking kinds and tastes align too. What are your loved ones’s favourite recipes? Do folks within the group have related tastes? Do your group members like primary meat-and-potatoes meals–or extra elaborate dinners which may require journeys to specialty markets for substances?
Work out the small print: Determine the variety of meals you’re going to commerce. You possibly can begin by everybody cooking one meal for every individual, and enhance to 2 if that’s doable.
Speak to your fellow swappers about preferences and any particular dietary wants. Any allergy symptoms, intolerances, or different different dietary restrictions? Any substances households don’t like? Are natural substances essential to group members?
Determine on recipes: Plan for quite a lot of meals and a stability between dinners like soups, casseroles, primary dish meats, and meatless recipes. It’d go with out saying, however keep away from making an attempt a model new recipe for the swap. Check it at house first to verify it really works and tastes good.
Set a swap date: We met each six weeks, which gave sufficient time for everybody to make use of their meals between swaps and never get a backlog of things of their freezer.
![](https://www.realmomnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/IP-Spaghetti-Sauce-Square.jpeg)
Make & pack your swap meals
Don’t neglect about your self: Once you’re cooking recipes for swap members, be sure you make sufficient for your loved ones too!
Pack them up: We packaged our meals in disposables like a freezer bag (pressed flat, to save lots of area) for dishes like soups and spaghetti sauce. Disposable baking trays are perfect for lasagna, casseroles, and enchiladas. However your group might additionally spend money on reusable containers (glass or plastic) for the swap, or you possibly can return containers to one another each month.
For disposable packaging, write the date and cooking/reheating directions proper on the bag or foil with a Sharpie. Or you possibly can hold a bunch Google Doc or different digital file to share, so you possibly can at all times entry the directions.
Add up your prices: Calculate how a lot cash you spent in your meals, together with the portion you made in your personal freezer. Embody any cash spent on objects like freezer luggage or containers. We didn’t depend some issues, like a couple of teaspoons of salt, drizzle of oil, or a pair cloves of garlic. However take into account including a small quantity (like $1.00) to your complete when you use numerous your spices, as an example.
![](https://www.realmomnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/pot-pies.jpeg)
Alternate freezer meals
Use a cooler: On the day of the swap, deliver your meals packed in a cooler or insulated bag in order that they keep chilly and frozen.
Settle up: Convey a tally of how a lot you spent in your meals. Evaluate prices and discover the typical (obtain this free cost sheet for a how-to), then settle up so it’s even–money, Venmo, no matter is best for the group.
Preserve observe: It’s useful to designate somebody within the group to be a form of “membership supervisor” and hold a document (paper or digital) of the completely different meals made, which of them had been hits/misses, and the typical price per meal. When the group is stumped on what to make for the approaching month, you possibly can look again and see what went over particularly properly.
Plan for subsequent time: Set a date for the following swap and determine which recipes you’ll make.
Take your meals house and get organized: Listed below are my finest tips for organizing a bottom drawer freezer and organizing a chest freezer. And right here’s a free freezer inventory printable you should use to maintain observe of your stash.
Meal swap group suggestions for fulfillment
- Be sincere. If a swap meal wasn’t a success, be certain it’s not repeated once more.
- Preserve your inventory of swap group provides separate. If the group pays in your field of freezer luggage, as an example, solely use them for group meals.
- Be versatile. The purpose of the group is to be a assist, not a stress. So if anyone wants an additional few days to get their meals collectively, roll with it. If the group desires to go on hiatus through the holidays or different busy instances, take a break and resume later.
- Be in contact with members’ wants. For instance, one individual in our group wished much less meals and one other wished extra, so we made modifications accordingly.
- Suppose exterior the casserole: You don’t have to provide your complete meal. Making a key meal part is useful too, comparable to taco meat, spaghetti sauce, or grilled hen strips–which can be utilized in every kind of various methods. Here are some ideas for this kind of batch cooking.
![](https://www.realmomnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/Burritos.jpg)
Freezer meal concepts
These had been a few of our favourite meals from the freezer meal swap group, plus extra concepts:
Soups
- Lentil soup (recipes makes two batches)
- Rooster taco soup
- Chicken chili
- Italian wedding ceremony soup
- Butternut squash soup
- Beef stew
Casseroles
- Rooster Tetrazzini
- Lasagna
- Enchiladas
- Rooster pot pie
Meats
- Marinated pork tenderloin
- Pulled pork
- Sloppy Joes
- Meatballs
- Taco meat (recipes makes 4 batches)
- Marinated hen for the grill
- Cooked, shredded hen
- Marinated steak or chicken kebabs
- Filling for Baked Turkey Tacos
Miscellaneous
For extra meal swap concepts, take a look at my publish 30 Healthy Freezer Meals and the cookbook Fix, Freeze, Feast.
I’m a participant within the Amazon Providers LLC Associates Program, an affiliate promoting program designed to offer a way for me to earn charges by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated websites.