In this episode we welcome Elisa Giorgio of Meal Planning Blueprints. She’s a friend, an expert meal planner, teacher of the Capsule Pantry, and a whiz at freezing to reduce food waste, limit meal prep time, and pleasing picky eaters.
We dove in and asked her to explain her best practices when freezing foods. She explained the best ways to make your freezer space work for you and described putting all the raw ingredients for a meal in a ziplock style bag and freezing them all together. We discussed how to make a whole casserole style meal like a lasagna and freezing it, and then talked about freezing individual parts such as cooked taco meat, or chunks of bananas for smoothies.
Her best tips include keeping things simple, and suggested that freezing parts can be easiest for beginners. Elisa described the “make 2, freeze 1” approach to cooking, where you make two meals at once and freeze one of them.
Her best tips also included avoiding freezing dairy as it doesn’t tend to have a good texture afterward thawing and she shared how to avoid freezer burn; the thicker the plastic barrier, the better. Wrap foods in plastic and then again in either more wrapping or another container to best prevent freezer burn.
Elisa explained how to freeze “superhero” items to prevent mealtime crisis such as frozen breakfast items (Anna and I both never considered this) such as waffles, precooked sausage, etc.
Go to www.mealplanningblueprints.com/minimalist to learn more about Elisa and what she does, and follow her on Instagram here. She also offers a free training on her Capsule Pantry Method- sign up today!
