Easy Healthy Homemade Frozen Dinners

ithink2020

I just created a blog post on how to make Easy Healthy Homemade Frozen Dinners! I wanted to share it with you guys here.

A while ago I came across a way to make your own Frozen Dinners! This really appealed to me, because frozen dinners from the store have some drawbacks:

Not Big Enough – Most “healthy” or “Diet” frozen meals are tiny and do not fill me up. But the “Regular” ones are filled with Fat.

Not Enough Veggies – Most frozen meals contain very small amounts of vegetables. When trying to eat the recommended 5-11 serving of vegetables and fruits a day, these meals do not contain enough.

High In Sodium - If you are trying to watch your sodium intake, having 700-1,800 mg of sodium from one of these meals is a good chunk of the recommended max of 2,300 mg per day.
By making your own Frozen meals, you can control the portion size to fit your own dietary needs. Also, you can really cut down the amount of sodium, while still have a convenient frozen meal.

So, what do you need?

First you need to get some Steamer Bags. Glad and Ziploc are a couple of the name brands, but I hear some stores are now carrying “Store Band” bags as well. These can be found near the sandwich bags at your local grocery store. I prefer the Ziploc brand.


How to Make them:

To make one individual meal, take a portion of Protein (3-4 oz of Chicken, Pork, Lean Beef or Fish). Marinade and/or season with your desired seasonings. Place the portion of Protein into a Steamer Bag. Now add 2-3 cups of your favorite veggies to the bag. Optionally, you can add a bag of 60-90 Second Ready rice to the bag as well. Seal up the bag and toss it in the Freezer. You can spend 20 minutes over the weekend and make up enough for the whole week.

When it comes time to eat, take the bag out of the freezer and microwave your meal for 5-7 minutes, depending on your microwave and your portion size. I suggest starting out with 5 minutes then check the protein. If it isn’t cooked, you can seal the bag back up, and nuke for another 30 sec. Repeat until you everything is cooked to your liking. Then note this time for the next time you make this meal.

NOTE: If you use liquids (sauce, etc.) for flavoring in the bag, try to keep the bag up right until frozen, so that the liquids does not leak out of the vents in the steamer bags.


Have I tried this?

Yes! I normally take these for lunch everyday. I take a frozen chicken breast and 2 cups of veggies (I like the Cali blend from Hy-Vee - broccoli, carrots and Cauliflower) put them in a steam bagand add a dash of olive oil and some seasoning in it. To mix it up, I use different seasonings and spices. Some that I use are Cookie's, Lawry's, McCormick's "Kicken' Chicken", etc Basically what ever sounds good at the time. Since I use a whole chicken breast, it takes 7 minutes to cook in my microwave.


What if I want to know the Nutritional Facts of the meal?

Knowing the nutritional facts of the food you eat is very important to any Healthy Lifestyle. To figure out the nutritional facts, will take a little work. First, you can read all the labels of the items you use, the add up all the numbers to come up with the Facts of the meal. However, this can take some time.

I personally prefer just entering in the individual items into MyFitnessPal. By entering the ingredients for my Chicken and Veggies meal I make (this does not include the little bit of seasoning I use), MFP calculated that the nutritional facts for one serving (one bag):

463 Cals
55 Grams of Protein
10 Grams of Carbs
20 Grams of Fat

NOTE: 119 cals & 14 grams of fat come from the olive oil. You could leave that out and save the cals and fat if need be. However, I feel you need some healthy fat in your diet, so that is why I add it.

If you do not use MFP, you could use a Recipe Calculator, like the one found at http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp.


I hope these tips were helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Let me know what you think!

Matt

---

Friend me here on MFP: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ithink2020
Follow me on Twitter: @MatthewASchmitt
My Blog: http://ithink2020.blogspot.com/

ithink2020

I was reviewing forum rules and seems they do not like people posting links to blog posts. As such, I've posted the information here. I want everyone to know about it, but also want to be inline with the forum rules. I just will there was a way on here to edit test so that it looks a lot better.

mandikaye

This is an interesting concept, but I'm unsure of the execution. I don't really want to eat chicken that was fully cooked in the microwave. How does that taste? I haven't tried it, but I have visions in my head that aren't good.

What I've been doing (and it has worked well for me so far) is spending one whole day cooking/preparing freezer meals in individual sized portions that will get me through most of the month.

Things like a healthy chili, mini meatloaves, shredded chicken, quinoa stuffed peppers, etc. It's all ready to go in my freezer and I just have to either reheat, or minimally cook portions for 1. Add a large salad for the side and bam, done.

spoiledpuppies

While not as healthy as homemade, I've really taken to buying the healthier/natural versions or brands of frozen low-cal meals (usually 250-300 calories) and pairing them with a whole steamable bag of fresh or frozen veggies like broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, etc. Total calories end up at 350-400 for a very large serving by volume--and super easy!

ithink2020

This is an interesting concept, but I'm unsure of the execution. I don't really want to eat chicken that was fully cooked in the microwave. How does that taste? I haven't tried it, but I have visions in my head that aren't good.

The chicken is cooked perfectly! Not chewy and is really juicey. The steamer bag cooks the food by steaming, is it is in a cooking in a very moist environment. At first I added about a TBSP of liquid (water, wine, marinaded, etc.), but now I don't bother. The chicken comes out better than any frozen dinner I've had from the store bought frozen dinner.

Oh and by the way, I HATE dry, rubbery food. So if that was an issue, I would NOT be doing or recommending this!

Matt

Marianna05

im thinking of trying this! would be easier for my husband to grab and go as well..thank you!! quick question..are you putting your protein in the bag raw?

mandikaye

And it doesn't overcook the vegetables to leave it in as long as you need to cook the meat?

ithink2020

im thinking of trying this! would be easier for my husband to grab and go as well..thank you!! quick question..are you putting your protein in the bag raw?

I put the protein in uncooked.

I'm normally put in uncooked Frozen Chicken Breast. I've used uncooked fresh chicken breast before, but frozen is usually a little cheaper where I shop. However, I make these on the weekend, then put them in the freezer. So by the time I cook them for lunch, everything in the bag is frozen.

ithink2020

And it doesn't overcook the vegetables to leave it in as long as you need to cook the meat?

Not that I have noticed, but tenderness is subjective...so you might try it and see how it turns out.

ithink2020

I can not find a way to post a picture on here... So, this link will take you to a photo of my lunch today. It was made using this method. I hope you can see how moist the chicken is. And the Veggies were not over cooked.

https://plus.google.com/109766340180373620292/posts/Tq6ncQvw4wz

Matt

Marianna05

Thank you Matt!! Definately going to plan this for lunches/dinner next week!

ithink2020

Thank you Matt!! Definately going to plan this for lunches/dinner next week!

You're welcome

Sommer523

Thanks for sharing....love the idea.

avskk

Great idea. I'm a little skeptical about fully cooking meat from frozen in the microwave, but the photo you posted looks good and the process is appealing. Tomorrow's shopping/prep day for me -- I'm going to give it a try.