Making Our Groceries Go Further - Freezing Meats & Bread

 

With prices on the rise and the shelves looking pretty thin on any given day it makes a lot of sense to implement a few things to make what we have stretch further.  I've already told you how we are making soup once a week, not only as a budget stretcher, but to also use up odds and ends to keep food waste at a minimum.

 

There are still some deals to be had
Scoop them up whenever you find them

I've recently had some good luck at the stores with the sales and markdowns in my last two shopping trips.  Two 3# packages of ground beef, a ten pack of boneless pork chops, a package of smoked sausages as well as four packages of marked down steaks and a package of pork chunks.  It was a really nice and very affordable addition to our meat supply.  I also picked up a few marked down bread products.  Now my goal is to make as many meals as possible out of all of it.

 

Half priced steaks that I used for two separate meals

To begin with, I took the packages of ground beef and cut each one into four equal portions, wrapping them in plastic and then placing the packages all together inside a larger Ziploc bag.  Instead of using a full pound of meat in my recipes I will only use three quarters of a pound, which will make last longer.  I doubt we'll even notice.

 

Next I wrapped up the pork chops in individual meal portions, two each, and placed those packages into a larger Ziploc bag.

 

These were on sale plus I had store coupons for additional money off

Because I am the only one who likes rye bread and I won't eat the entire loaf before it would go bad I divided it into smaller packages as well.  I placed four slices of bread into a freezer bag and did the same thing with a twelve count package of English muffins placing five each into a freezer bag.  I put all of these individual packages into a larger Ziploc bag too.

 

3 pounds of ground beef divided into four parts
We'll just use less meat in our recipes

Double bagging protects the meat & helps prevent freezer burn

Double bagging everything helps keep it fresher and better ward off freezer burn.  It also has the added benefit of helping me keep things better organized.  Once I had it all portioned out, wrapped and into the larger Ziploc bags I got everything into the chest freezer in our garage.  I'm excited about all of the wonderful meals I will be making with all of this food.

 

Bread & english muffins divided up and double bagged for the freezer

What are some things you are doing to combat the rising meat prices right now?