Why not make getting organised a social get-together and hold a freezer-meal cooking party?
You can catch up with friends, get organised, stick to your healthy eating plan (and portion control), save some cash AND have more fun.
You’ll create a lot more meals than you would on your own and only have one major clean up. That’s serious winning!
Here’s how it works: invite your mates over to prep and cook a stack of meals together, then divvy them up so you take each meal home, ready to freeze. Chopping onions, dicing veggies and measuring and mixing are way more fun when you share the load!
The 12WBT Guide to Hosting a Freezer-Meal Party
Step 1: Invite Your Friends
Get in contact with like-minded mates, choose a day and time and start prepping! Decide how long you want to cook for – if you only have a couple of hours aim for four dishes, but if you’ve got longer go for six or more!
You’ll have to multiply the quantities of each dish by the number of people. So if there’s five of you cooking, then each recipe needs to be multiplied by five so you can all take home a full dish of each recipe.
Step 2: Choose Your Recipes
The 12WBT Indian Chickpea Soup
Check for food allergies or serious dislikes (but remember it’s always good to try new things) then ask your friends to suggest a couple of favourite healthy dishes.
The catch? All dishes have to be able to be frozen and reheated – so choose options like soups and casseroles. Try a mix of vegie and non-vegie dishes! Lots of 12WBT recipes are freezable like the Spicy Vegetable & Quinoa Soup, Spaghetti & Meatballs (make the meatballs to freeze then cook the spaghetti when you’re ready to serve) and Indian Chickpea Soup.
Step 3: Gather the Ingredients
You can do this a couple of ways. Either assign certain ingredients for each guest to bring, or one of you shops for all ingredients and you split the costs. We’d suggest the latter option because bulk buying means bigger savings across the board, especially if you go to a farmer’s market.
Don’t forget to add freezer bags or plastic containers to the shopping list – or ask guests to bring their own to take the meals home. Also ask them to bring knives and chopping boards so everyone’s set up.
Step 4: Set the Mood and Have Fun!
On cook-up day, get your partner to take the kids to the park or the movies, crank some tunes and put out a few healthy snacks to keep you all going. It’s meant to be fun, so make sure you fit in some gossip and laughs over the chopping of the onions!
Once the dishes are made, pack them up, date them and label with reheating instructions then stock those freezers.
You could make it a standing cook club event – just like a book club – every fortnight or month on a Sunday afternoon and rotate who hosts the party.
Cook with your Friends using our Time Saver Recipes!
At 12WBT we’re all about making your kitchen time simple, and enjoyable. So we’ve been working flat out to bring you a brand new Meal Plan! It’s called Time Saver and does just that – saves you time!
It’s perfect for people who would rather have a mini cook-up, making their dinner and next day’s lunch at the same time, meaning less time in the kitchen and more time for other priorities!
Eating nutritious meals is essential for good health. If you want access to over 600 recipes (lots of which are freezable!) join 12WBT today and cook up a storm!
