if you do freezer cooking chances are pretty good that you have forgotten to take a meal out of the freezer before you left for work or school. And forgetting to do that can derail your entire meal plans because for many of these there’s not enough time to quickly defrost them before dinner time.
Here are a few different ways that you can try to remind yourself to take the freezer meal out of the freezer before you leave for work.
Have the special hook that you put your keys on that is magnetized to the front of your freezer. If you are forced to go to the freezer in order to leave the house because you need your keys, this can be a really good way to remember that you were needing to take something out of the freezer when you grab your keys. Some people recommend actually putting the keys right in the freezer, but with key fobs I don’t like to do this because I’m always concerned about the longevity of the battery in the key fob if I do that, not to mention that sometimes your key fob won’t work if it is too cold.
Set a reminder in your calendar to take the meal out of the freezer. I tried to do this so the timing of it doesn’t line up with when I’m putting my makeup on or getting in the shower. Instead I’ll try to set it so that it’s in the last 10 to 15 minutes before I leave the house, when I’m doing things like making lunch or making coffee or doing a check of my email that has arrived overnight.
And there’s also the tried-and-true method of putting a sticky note on the door to the house to remind you to do it, but the only downside to this is sometimes you get so used to there always being as some kind of note on the door that you tend to just not even realize that it’s there.
I always do try to have a couple of meals in the freezer that require little-to-no defrosting before they get cooked, whether it’s a batch of hamburgers or meat for chicken tacos or something that super simple but that doesn’t require me to defrost it in the fridge either overnight or during the day before I cook it
Hopefully some of these tricks will help you ensure that you do actually get your freezer meal out of the freezer before you leave the house for the day.