By Holly Sosa
This post was sponsored by ALDI as part of Influencer Activation for Influence Central.
Last year, I discovered freezer meals and I’ve never been the same since. My friend, Billynda and I got together one afternoon and whipped up several meals for our families in one afternoon. It gives me such sweet satisfaction having any number of meals in my freezer for emergencies, families in need, or for days when I’m feeling extra lazy. After our cooking session last year, I was full steam ahead crazy freezer meal lady and bought a chest freezer to start storing a stockpile of meals. Billynda came over this week (she’s brilliant for planning out our meals and mapping ahead of time what we need to prepare, making shopping lists, and finding tasty recipes) and we started phase one of our summer freezer meals (well, she did; I was out of sorts and forgot to prepare, but I did my meals later in the week after visiting ALDI). I’m really excited to start sharing some of these easy freezer meal recipes with you all and to jump start those of you who may be new to the freezer meal concept, I thought we’d start off with something slow, cheap, and easy: Freezer Friendly Garlic Bread.
Freezer Friendly Garlic Bread starts off with a couple of loaves of French bread (or any loaf you prefer, really). I picked up these two lovelies at ALDI while I was exploring. Is there a more beautiful sight than carbs? I’m not sure there is.
Next you’ll create your garlic spread mixture by mincing up some garlic. Alternately, you can use the already minced stuff that comes in a jar, which is what I did.
In a small bowl add the garlic, some butter (Countryside Creamery Butter from ALDI was only $2.09!), a bit of olive oil, a dash of salt, and some parsley.
Mix it all together until it’s well combined.
Take your loaves of bread and slice them in half length-wise. And then slice each half in half once again, width-wise.
Using a spatula, spread the butter mixture over each piece of bread.
Once each piece of bread is coated with plenty of garlic butter, place them on a cookie sheet and stick them in the freezer for several minutes to allow the butter to harden up.
Remove the bread from the freezer and sandwich the pieces of bread back together.
Wrap each half loaf with cling wrap and then with tinfoil.
Store two halves in one gallon freezer bags that you’ve written cooking instructions on and store them in your freezer for up to three months.
Freezer meals not only give me peace of mind knowing dinner is taken care of on any given day, but they’re also one of my favorite ways to save money. And when I shop for my freezer meal supplies at ALDI, I save an absurd amount of money. For this week’s ground beef meals, I paid less for extra lean ground beef than I ever have, even at bulk stores. Ninety percent of the groceries ALDI sells are their own ALDI-exclusive brands, which are regularly tested to make sure they taste just as good, if not better, than the national brand. Butter is one of the number one items I stock up on when freezer meal shopping. It tastes great and costs half of what I pay in discount big box stores. Check out my last post to find out what I paid for this incredible ALDI haul of fresh veggies, extra lean ground beef, and more. This Freezer Garlic Bread cost only $2.08 per loaf when all was said and done. Am I the only person who gets weirdly excited about that? Combining the wallet-friendly method of freezer meals with the budget saving prices at ALDI, there’s no question that it’s my number one choice freezer meal supplies and stockpiling.
- one loaf French bread
- one stick butter, room temperature (soft)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- ΒΌ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- In a small bowl, combine butter, olive oil, garlic, salt, and parsley.
- Slice bread in half, long-ways and then each half down the middle.
- Spread garlic butter over each quarter and place on a cookie sheet.
- Place cookie sheet in freezer until butter hardens.
- Sandwich quarters back together to make half-loaves.
- Wrap each half in cling wrap and then in tinfoil.
- Store two halves in a gallon zip closure bag and write baking instructions on outside.
- To cook from frozen, preheat oven to 400F and remove loaves from bag.
- Unwrap and place on cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until edges have toasted to brown.
ALDI has opened 25 new Southern California stores this year. Be sure to follow the ALDI Facebook page for more information on grand openings and all the latest updates.
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