Is your refrigerator full of groceries yet you hear the same old words in your home week after week; “there’s nothing to eat, let’s go out for dinner.” If this is your weekly dilemma why not make the most of weekly sales and make it easier at dinnertime.  Whether you are a shift worker, stay at home dad, on a maternity leave , living on a budget or working a busy full time career, everyone eats so smart meal time strategies work for everyone.

Let’s begin with the staple of many meals, the protein.

When you scour the flyers & find a great value-pack offering of your favourite cut of meat, it’s a great idea to stock up with two or three packages. Being a smart shopper is knowing how to buy and how to prep it when you arrive back home. This is the key to your success at dinner time.

Pork chops, chicken thighs, chicken breasts, pork tenderloin, flank steak, whatever your preference let’s begin with the meat on sale.   Freezing that well priced meat in bulk can be frustrating when it hasn’t been prepared for portion control & seasonings.  Why not give this concept a try.  Once you arrive home, all you need are:

•  Ziploc Freezer Bags (large)
• Orange Juice
• Crushed garlic (bottle or fresh)
• Soy Sauce (low sodium is a great option)
• Minced Ginger (fresh grated or bottle)
• Sesame oil

This is a delicious staple marinade perfectly simple for freezing your meats in portion packs.  When you arrive home from the grocery store or butcher here are a few simple steps to portion control & freezing your protein.  Let’s use chicken thighs for example.  In a value pack of chicken thighs you may get 16 thighs.  For many, that will offer four meals.   Here’s how simple freezing and marinating can be.

Take out 4 freezer bags, open and with a fork, place 4 thighs in each bag.

Next add your ingredients into a bowl & mix.

• ½ cup orange juice
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Pour the mixture over the chicken, equally into the four bags, removing as much air as possible from the bag. Zip and massage the chicken.  Now you are ready to freeze. Use a Sharpie Permanent Marker to write the date and meat type on each bag.  Freeze flat into your freezer one, on top of the other.  Ta da, you did it!

Next time you are thinking about whats for dinner, you can easily pull out a bag of delicious already marinated meat and leave in the refrigerator for the day to defrost.  When you arrive home you can cook in your preferred method (Instant Pot, BBQ, oven, pan fry).  If you prefer to use a Crockpot, you will place the frozen meat pack into your crockpot in the morning, place 1.5 additional cups of broth or water into the Crockpot and leave on low heat for 6 – 8 hours.   When you arrive home, mix in 1 tsp of corn starch to create a thickness to your Crockpot sauce.

This delicious marinade recipe will work for whatever meat you stock up on.

Serve your scrumptious seasoned & marinated protein over rice, pasta, couscous, or quinoa. You will feel like dinner time hero and no one needs to know how simple that was!