Cut down on the stress of preparing meals for supper by making and freezing food.
Here is how you can make and use chicken in different ways by just adding a sauce or a few ingredients:
Freezing tips: Cook an extra chicken or chicken portions next time you cook. Let the chicken cool completely, remove the bones, shred the chicken coarsely and freeze in portions. Cooked, deboned, shredded chicken can be frozen for up to three months.
Defrost and use for:
1 Pasta dishes – add your favourite pasta sauce to the chicken, heat and mix with cooked pasta.
2 Pies – Fry an onion, garlic and mushrooms and add the cooked chicken and a little stock. Thicken with a little cornflour and spoon into a pie dish. Cover the chicken mixture with flaky pastry and bake in the oven until golden brown and done.
3 Chicken sandwiches – spoil your family with sandwiches made using chicken, mayonnaise and cheese or any other fillings. Grill the sandwiches until the chicken is hot and the cheese has melted.
General tips
Don’t cook only to freeze; double or triple a recipe and serve one meal immediately. Let the rest cool, divide it into portions and freeze.
Frozen food needs a little more seasoning (spices, salt, pepper etc) because the flavour tends to weaken after defrosting.
Make sure the cooked, prepared food has cooled completely before freezing it.
Defrost frozen food overnight in the fridge for use the next day.
Don’t freeze potato, egg custard or large pieces of meat.
Freeze food in airtight containers or freezer bowls or wrap it well in aluminium foil and/or clingwrap.
Mark the bowl/bag with the date that the food was frozen.
