Imagine only walking into the kitchen to cook dinner once a month, yet being able to have a new and hardy meal every day. This does not include eating out or hiring your own personal chef to cook every other day either. Impossible, you might say. Very possible, and even more so, there are numerous people doing it all around the world. Meal preparation is an important factor when trying to plan for a family or a stressful month. The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to have great-tasting and healthy food on hand even when you don’t feel like cooking.

Freeze First – Combining all of the ingredients into a big pan and then freezing is a great way to have a home cooked meal on limited time. These meals can be prepared well in advance, taken out to thaw that morning. At dinnertime they can be easily slipped into the oven to cook through. This completely cuts out the prep time for that meal on that given day. Imagine getting home from work and pulling the bake set out of the refrigerator and popping it in the oven while you take off the day with a warm shower. By the time you are done, so is dinner.

This is a great way to get the home cooked taste without all of the work. By freezing first, the freshly cooked taste remains intact and nothing beats a good hearty meal to end the day. The only negative to this solution comes into play when the amount of cook time is greatly reduced. These meals still need to be cooked. The reheat in the microwave factor doesn’t apply.