Stocking a freezer-tips welcomed.

hollydays

Just bought a larger freezer,upright,just the 2 of us.Going to be stocking it up soon and want to be as efficient as possible.Dont buy much convenience food,eat lots of chicken ,fish and some meat,lots of fresh fruit and veg.Love cooking from scratch.Where can i buy chicken ,fish cheapest at the moment,anyone know any offers? Any tips on what to keep in a freezer, or any websites that advise,or any pointers to recipes to freeze.Also know someone with a costco card-is it worth it for bulk meat and poultry purchases?Just scanning the aldi netto tips now.

moggins

Holly I use my local market, where I can half fill my freezer with meat for £50, that generally lasts us about 3 months, there is also a stall there that sells sacks of onions, root veg etc for a couple of quid a sack. Hunt around and see if you can find something like that near you. Even if you have to travel a few miles the savings can be phenomenal.

liz.._4

a lot depends on your lifestyle, I can't always get out to the shops because of kids/shifts etc so I make space for milk and bread. I bulik buy bogof deals (got some lovely sirloin steak in lidl for £2.29 for 2 on saturday) If I see any reduced items because of nearing sell by date I'll snap it all up! My freezer saves me a mint!

wigginsmum

I've compared Costco, Lidl, Sainsburys and Asda on chicken - and Lidl is currently the cheapest at £1.77/kg for whole chicken. Can't comment on fish, I'm afraid.

Costco is currently more expensive on beef than Sainsburys but cheaper on most pork and lamb.

hollydays

Thanks-after reading the lidl thread just went there armed with a list-think i am now converted.Mainly use freezer so i never run out of essentials.I too freeze milk ,bread cheese,bacon ham-not sure about the ham though!.Going to start some batch cooking soon and freeze.

liz.._4

hollydays wrote:

Thanks-after reading the lidl thread just went there armed with a list-think i am now converted.Mainly use freezer so i never run out of essentials.I too freeze milk ,bread cheese,bacon ham-not sure about the ham though!.Going to start some batch cooking soon and freeze.

I'm a convert to lidl too! I freeze bacon, not sure about ham, I would probably cook it with pasta or the like before I eat it tho'

Old_Joe

Please tell me, as an old codger I've always been under the impression that if cheese is frozen, it crumbles/falls to pieces when thawed. Is this then a falacy?

Zed42

Well, you may be an old codger ..... but I tend to find cheese loses it's texture and goes crumbly when I freeze it ... so I guess I must be an ol' codger too

freyasmum

Hiya....

New here, but I thought I'd throw in my tuppence worth...

If you have a costcutter near you, they sell bacon (albeit misshapes, but sorting it through is half the fun!) for £1/kg. smoked or unsmoked. there are usuallyloads of lovely big bits that you could have on a roll or sandwich or smaller bits that you could throw into soup, etc...

Linzi x

sugaJen

I go to the butchers (in the market in town) late in the day-not too late as there is never much choice left- get loads of freebies, even better on a saturday as they need to shift it all (closed sunday)

gemmaj

OldJoe - I freeze grated cheese and use it in cooking. Never tried eating it as-is after freezing, but it does just fine for cooking with.
Freezing cheese means I can buy it at end-of-sell-by-date, grate large amounts en-masse and its always ready to be slung over a pasta bake! Money, time and washing-up saving!