Shows

Those bags of ready to heat frozen meals in your grocery store isles are not that hard to recreate at home. The key is to keep it simple and with not too many ingredients.

Meal prep definitely takes some time and work, but the reward is those busy nights when you need to make a quick meal but not willing to sacrifice healthy, delicious and homemade meals. Once you have your ingredients frozen, all you have to do is to pop the meals your Ziploc® Brand Vacuum Sealer bags and seal. 

Short cut noodles and pasta work best. Only partially cook the noodles and pasta. Cook 1 pound of pasta and drain. Separate in two halves and spread each half on cookie sheets and freeze for about 1 hour before vacuum sealing. 

To make the best ready-to-heat meals, you need to freeze the ingredients individually before placing them in one vacuumed sealed bag. This prevents all the ingredients freezing together in one big ice block. 

Next time you’re in your local grocery store, wander through the frozen vegetable aisle and pick some up for your next meal prep recipe. This work is already done for you!

But for seasonal veggies that aren’t readily available or ones that just aren’t there like leeks, bok choy or others, all you have to do is to rinse and dry the vegetables then spread on a cookie sheet for at least one hour until frozen. 

Ice cube trays are a lot more versatile than you thought! Take your jarred or homemade sauces, homemade stocks and broths, even soy sauce and olive oil and freeze in trays. Then, pop them in your ready-to-heat meal bags for an all-in-one meal package. 

Shrimp freeze and cook so easily and quickly that they are perfect for ready-to-heat meals. Chicken is also perfect for freezing. Cook it about ¾ of the way, slice and freeze on a cookie sheet. Then, place in your Ziploc® Brand Vacuum Sealer bags along with your choice of veggies, add your sauce and oil and seal.