 These are the top 10 things that I keep in my freezer at all times. So it's summer, now is the time to go through your freezer to see what is actually in there. What can you get rid of to make room for things that you're actually going to use? The number one thing that I keep in my freezer is cookie dough. Now before you go on judging me, please note I am a mom of five with a newborn. Sometimes I just need a cookie. So literally you can use almost any kind of cookie dough. So this is our putting cookies. I'll put the link down below for you. You're going to roll it into a ball and then line them up onto a cookie sheet. All right. Once you have all your dough into balls, we're going to stick it right into the freezer. Once they are done freezing, pull them out. It's kind of like you call it flash freezing. You're going to take your cookie dough balls and then put them into your freezer bag. Just make sure that it's labeled. Then when it comes time to cook your cookie dough, you don't have to cook all of them. You can cook one at a time or two at a time. It doesn't really matter. All you're going to do is just add a minute or more onto your cooking time. Just keep an eye on them. Make sure they don't burn. Make sure they're cooked. Now these cook at 350 degrees for eight to 10 minutes. We're going to do the 10 minutes just to make sure they're cooked. Okay. So I ended up cooking these ones for about 12 minutes. This is perfect. The next one is freezer rice. Now if you've never frozen your rice before, you're missing out. So I love to cook my rice in an instant pot. So right now I'm going to measure out four cups of rice. And for each cup of rice, you need one and a fourth cups of liquid. So I'm just using water today. So because I have four cups of rice, I'm going to use five cups of liquid. We're going to cook the rice for seven minutes. Then when it's done, we're going to let it cool and put it right into the freezer bag. I'm using three different bags today. We're going to put a few cups in each one because that's about what my family will eat. You don't have to make this much. Even if you have one cup, it will still cook for seven minutes. You just want to remember to label your bags, whatever you're freezing, make sure you label it. All right, the third thing that I'm making is peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Now, I know what you're thinking, that is a weird one, but I'll be honest with you, my summers are crazy. And when I have like a swimming day or something like that, it's so easy to just pull your sandwiches already made out of the freezer. It makes lunchtime just a lot easier. All right, my secret to this is just make sure you put peanut butter on both sides. It makes it so your sandwich won't get so soggy. Then of course, a generous amount of jam. Okay, now you have two options. You can put your sandwich in individual baggies and put them in a Ziploc bag and freeze them. Or if you know you're going somewhere, I just like to put them all in a freezer bag. I like to label it, of course, and then just stick this whole thing in the freezer. So number four is shredded chicken. I swear, I use shredded chicken all week long. So I love when I have a recipe where I need chicken, I make a ton of chicken, shred it all up, put it in some freezer bags. It will make your life a lot easier, I promise. So I love to use my Instant Pot to cook my chicken. You can boil it however you like to cook it. That's fine, but I love the Instant Pot. So this is a six quart Instant Pot. I'm going to add three pounds of chicken into here. Now when I make chicken, I usually just add about one cup of water. I don't add any seasonings right now because you can always add that later. Because if I need it for different things, I don't want to add like taco seasoning and that's the only chicken I have. So with your Instant Pot, put your lid on. If you have a little knob, make sure it's on ceiling, not venting. Because it's frozen, we're going to do pressure cook and we're going to 25 minutes. Now whether you do one piece of chicken or like you saw like seven pieces of chicken because it's frozen, I suggest just doing it 25 minutes, no matter how many you have in there. All right, once it's done, you can go ahead and push the button or release all the pressure. My chicken is cooked all the way. So you're going to take it out of the Instant Pot, shred it all up, then just leave it here to cool. Now because there was just three pounds here, I'm going to put a pound and a half into each freezer bag. Now when you're done, you just stick it in the freezer and when you're ready to use it, you pull it out. I like to pull it out the night before, but if you're last minute, you can always dump it onto a plate and put it on the microwave for a little bit. Number five is breakfast recipes. Now I love having breakfast when it's in the freezer. You just pull it out, microwave it. You're good to go. So you're not slaving every morning making breakfast. Now some of my favorites to make are the breakfast burritos and just plain old pancakes. I like to first label my bags and I make all kinds of different burritos today is our ham cheese, hash browns and eggs. All right, my secret with making burritos is to have an assembly line. So I'm going to start with my tortilla. I cooked up some eggs here. The nice thing with this is you can make however many or as few as you want. So there are seven eggs here. Then I have one package of hash browns that I cooked up. Just add a little bit of hash browns. I love just these already cut pieces of ham and then a little bit of cheese on top. I'm not going to do any sauce because all of my family is different. They like different sauces. I'm going to roll into sides. Ooh, it's a tight fit. That's okay. Then I'll just put it into the bottom of my freezer bag. Then when it's time to cook them, you're just going to pull it out. I like to wrap it into a paper towel. It just keeps a little more moist and put it on a plate and we'll cook it for about a minute. Now you're just going to take your cooked pancakes and put them right into a freezer meal bag. Now you want to make sure that your freezer meal is labeled. When it's time to cook it, you're going to open it up. You're going to take your frozen pancake, put it on the plate. I cook it for about 30 seconds to a minute. So depending on how many you want, just cook till they're all the way heated through. This is also great if you have a lot of leftover pancakes. You just stick the leftovers into the freezer too. Number six is spinach. Now, if you're like me, I always have great intentions of eating all the spinach for the week. Let's be honest, it doesn't happen. So instead of throwing it out before it goes bad, I like to put it into freezer bags. Now you can either do individual ones for smoothies. So I like to do little Ziploc ones. Please note those aren't freezer sandwich bags. So make sure that you use it within a week or two. You don't want to have freezer burn spinach. Or if you have a lot of spinach and you're going to use it for soup or big smoothies, you can always use the freezer gallon size bags. Those will last about three months. Now, number seven, just like the chicken, I always love to have some ground beef on hand in individual bags in my freezer. Now there are different ways that you can cook this. You can do it normally on the skillet, but I love to do frozen ground beef in the Instant Pot. It is so fast and easy and you can cook it from frozen. First thing you're going to do is pour about a cup, cup and a half of water. It doesn't matter. You just need water in the bottom. Next, we're going to add a trivet. Then you're going to take your ground beef, make sure you take the plastic off and you're just going to put it right on top. So in this Instant Pot, I am actually cooking three pounds of frozen beef. I'm going to put your lid on. If you have a little knob, make sure it's on sealing. Make sure you push pressure cook on any of your Instant Pot's pressure cooker manual. Now we're going to go up to 25 minutes. Now this one I have to push start, but on most of them, you don't have to. If you have never done this before, make sure your pressure is released so you can open up your lid. You can see your meat is cooked. Now the easiest thing I found is to take your big chunk of meat, literally like a meatloaf, and you're just going to put it in a bowl because we've got to crumble this thing up. Now I just want to show you real quick, all the grease goes to the bottom of the Instant Pot. I usually have to rinse my meat really good because we get sick with the grease. So I love cooking ground beef this way. Then I'm just going to use my handy dandy chopster and chop it all up. Now please don't eat me alive. I know there's no seasoning in the beef, but sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do with the beef. So I don't season it until it's time to use it. I'm just going to take about a third of the beef and just put it into three different bags. So each bag will be about a pound. Then when you're all done, throw them into the freezer. When you're ready to use it, you can thaw them out pretty easily. Number eight is berries. I love berries when they're in season and when they're super cheap. So if you can get a ton for a great price, freezing them is the best way to go. All right, so we're going to do strawberries today. I like to make these in a smoothie, so I'm going to cut off the green, then I'm going to go over to a cookie sheet and just stick them upside down. We're going to fast-freeze these dudes. Once they're all frozen, you're just going to stick them into the bottom of a freezer bag. Now if you have a smaller freezer bag, that'd probably be ideal, but this will work. Now please note when your strawberries thaw, they will be a little bit soggy. So these types of strawberries are perfect for smoothies, pies, ice cream toppings, all kinds of good stuff. Number nine is dairy products. Now I know you've probably heard that it's hard to freeze dairy products, but these ones that I'm going to show you free so easily. The first one is butter. Now I just throw it in the freezer just like this. You really can't tell the difference if it's been frozen or not. So if you're going to freeze something, butter is the thing to freeze. Now if the expiration date is getting close to cream cheese, I love to throw these in the freezer too. Now it gets a little bit more soggy, I guess the word is, when you're thawing it out, but you really can't tell that much of a difference. So if you're going to put it in soup or something like that, the freezer is the way to go. Next up is sour cream. Now you do have a little bit more liquid once it's all done thawing. That's right, just mix it in. You really won't be able to tell very much at all. Now cottage cheese is the same as sour cream. There's going to be a little bit more liquid, but once you kind of stir it around, you won't really be able to tell that it's ever been frozen. And of course the last thing to keep into your freezer is freezer mills. Now not just any type of freezer mill. I love when I have a freezer mill ready to go, so that means that I have the main freezer mill and all the things that go with it are in the freezer. All you have to do is pull them out and cook. So for example, these are our freezer mill hoagies. So I have some meatballs that I'm going to put in the freezer bag, and then I have your favorite marinara or spaghetti sauce. We're just going to pour in here about a cup, cup and a half. And that is it. That's all we're going to do with the freezer bag part. Now when it's time to cook these things, we're going to cook them in the instant pot for about seven minutes. You can also do it on your stove top until the meatballs are heated through. We're going to stick the hoagies also in the freezer, so I can just pull those out when I'm cooking this. And then on our hoagies, we're going to have provolone cheese too, so we can have a delicious meatball sub all ready to go when it's time for dinner. Quick note, if you're cooking this in your instant pot, you will need to add a half a cup of water before you start cooking it. Now when it comes to freezer mills, if you need a little bit more help making them, we actually have a freezer mill guide. We teach you how to make them. You get a bunch of freezer mills that we walk you through step by step, plus you get my list of 100 top things to freeze. Or if you're a pro at freezer mills, we actually have a freezer mill membership where you'll get 10 new freezer mills every single month along with the shopping list. So if you're interested in that, I'll put a link down below for those in the description. All right, guys, have fun with your freezer mills. I'll see you next time.