Hi I'm Sharla with Freezer Meals 101 today we are going to be making some healthy
Freezer Meals. Now it's pretty close to the start of the new year and I don't know about you, but I
always get these goals at the beginning of every year that I'm gonna eat healthier, or I'm going to
move more or both um and last year I was actually able to keep to the move more one for the whole
year, so I hope to be able to keep that up uh they eat healthier I kind of go in waves,
but I really do love vegetables and so that helps me to eat healthy um some of my kids not so much
the fans of the vegetables so um I have to kind of have some balance with um eating or making
some food that they will like as well as um being sure to get as much healthy food in front of them
as possible, so they can make those healthier choices anyway we are going to make some really,
really great meals today uh none of them are really complicated I will say though with healthy
Freezer Meals it's going to take you a little bit longer because there are usually going to be some
more steps to your prep because you're usually getting a lot more vegetables ready than you would
in some of the less healthy Freezer Meals so one of the things I look for when it comes to healthy
Freezer Meals is colour when it's really colourful then I know that it's probably better for me,
so I really love it when I end up with a meal that has a whole bunch of colours and that's
like really nice and beautiful because then I feel like I'm feeding my family a lot healthier
so let's get started, and I'll show you what we're gonna make today this sausage sweet potato and
pepper sheet pan meal is so easy on the day of cooking you just dump everything from your
freezer bag onto a cookie sheet and dinner is ready after just a short time in the oven so um
first time I made this actually I wasn't convinced that it was going to be flavourful enough because
it doesn't have a whole lot of seasoning, but I was amazed, and we are putting it into our
regular rotation now because the flavour from the sausage just goes into everything else and this
is a super flavourful and healthy meal for your family, so we are just going to put in we've got
our sliced sausage in the bag already I had one of my daughters slice that when we were doing
our prep and put it right in the bag because it's the only recipe we're using the garlic sausage for
then we're going to add some cubed sweet potato some red and green peppers just rough chopped
and some rough chopped onion and then some salt pepper and Worcestershire sauce and seriously that
is it, and then you've got a healthy freezer meal all ready to go from freezer to the oven
this cilantro lime chicken is such a pretty recipe on the day that you cook this you can serve
it with flour tortillas with salsa sour cream guacamole you know all those kinds of fixings
it is just beautiful now we've got our chicken breasts in the bag we're adding a little bit of
olive oil some lime juice now I usually do freshly squeezed lime juice today we're just using it from
a container because I didn't have any limes some garlic a can of drink black beans a can of kernel
corn drained some purple onion chipotle spice salt and pepper now I do want to mention that you might
have noticed that I wiped the bag really well when I had a little spill there and that is because if
your bags go into the freezer, and they are wet they will stick together and that will be no fun
on the day that you go to take it out so make sure that your bags go into the freezer dry now
the exact amounts for everything are going to be down below in the description you can find
all the recipes there, so you don't have to be quickly writing things down while I talk
we have assembled this very very quickly we did have some of these things prepped ahead of time
but as you can see it looks gorgeous, and it is ready to go in the freezer and then
to be cooked in the slow cooker on the day that you want to make this
one thing that you want to be really sure of when you're making any kind of freezer meal is
that you take all the air that you can out of the bags before you seal them this is because when it
comes to freezer cooking air is the enemy that is what causes your freezer burns we want to avoid
that at all costs now some people like to stick a straw down and suck extra air out that way,
or you can use a vacuum sealer there's different ways that you can try to get the air out for me,
I've just found that as long as I take as much air out as I can squish it over to one side,
and then you know seal that little edge then I'm able to accomplish that pretty well
for our next meal we are putting together pesto chicken and vegetables this is so nice to have on
hand because you can either cook it in the slow cooker or you can make it as a sheet pan meal
and either way it's just superfast and easy for those busy weeknights I love that this one
includes your vegetables and your protein and that again it's super colourful,
so we're gonna do our chicken we've got four chicken breasts in here we're gonna do some pesto
sauce zucchini carrots uh corn chicken broth dry ranch seasoning and some frozen brussels sprouts
having healthy freezer meals completely ready to go in your freezer makes it so much more likely
that you're going to be able to stick to your plan for healthy eating having those meals ready
is going to make it so that no matter how crazy your day is or no matter what comes up you're not
going to really have any excuse there's no excuse to go through the drive-through or pick up pizza
on your way home because you know that you've got those meals, and they are easy to get on the table
be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're looking for more easy meals, and we have tons of
healthy stuff if you're looking for keto we've got a video on keto freezer meals because my husband
off and on goes keto we've also got meatless Monday meals vegetarian meals no matter what
kind of healthy you're looking for we've got it so be sure to check out our video archives here
on YouTube and subscribe for our future videos because I have a lot of great stuff in store for
you guys we're going to make a stir-fry pack I really like to have these on hand because they
cook up superfast normally this would be a shrimp stir-fry pack that's the recipe that I'm using,
but I'm not using shrimp today I just didn't buy any I forgot, so this is gonna be a vegetable
stir-fry pack which I also quite enjoy, so we're gonna have zucchini sugar snap peas carrots onions
uh baby corn I might throw some frozen peas in there because I sometimes do um if I have some
water chestnuts sometimes I throw those in there I don't have any today, so we're not doing that
uh the sauce is soy sauce oyster sauce orange juice rice wine vinegar, and then you can
either use brown sugar or a little bit of honey to sweeten it, so I'm not sure which we'll do today
uh then you're gonna do some freshly grated ginger or in our case we're using ginger paste
and garlic sesame oil, and we're also to add an orange pepper into here and um yeah that's going
to come together, so you might have noticed that we're using similar ingredients in more than one
recipe today and that is completely on purpose if you're gonna do prep you might as well prep
your carrots for multiple meals or your onions for multiple meals same with if you're going
to be buying canned corn for example or frozen corn it makes a lot more sense to buy multiples
because then you can take advantage of case lot sales, or you can buy multiples when you notice
that they're on sale if you know that they're in a lot of your freezer cooking recipes,
so this is a great way to save time and money is to choose recipes for this particular meal plan
that has that have like ingredients we're also using multiple recipes that have chicken
so all of that was by design I know that African Thai stew sounds like a strange mix, but this is a
really delicious recipe and our family's been making it for years in the large freezer bag we're
going to add onion diced sweet potato again we're using things that we used in another recipe which
um made our prep easier than garlic vegetable broth. Now I'm actually going to use chicken
broth today because I've got just exactly the right amount left after we used a little tiny
bit of chicken broth in another recipe here so if you wanted to make it vegetarian you use vegetable
broth, and then we're gonna do a can of diced chick or a can sorry I can't talk any more it's uh
we've been making Freezer Meals for a while anyway we're gonna do a can of diced tomatoes a can of
chickpeas not diced chickpeas just chickpeas some cumin curry powder fresh ginger coriander
chili powder pepper and lime juice and then on the day that you cook it near the end of cooking
you're going to add in some peanut butter dried cranberries and if you want you can top it with
cilantro this is a really tasty hearty meal and I will again have the recipe for you down below
thank you so much for joining me today as we went on this little adventure of assembling a
bunch of super healthy but super delicious Freezer Meals I will put a link right here
to one of our vegetarian freezer meal videos so if you want to check that out you can,
I wish you all the best of luck on your goals for this year including that healthy eating
one I hope you enjoy these amazing recipes when you make them at home happy cooking.