Foodie Friday: Five fav freezer-friendly beef recipes

I've been getting questions about freezer friendly recipes, so I thought I'd share some recipes here today! Our family loves beef-based soups, and the boys never fail to slurp these up. So that tends to be a regular on our menu, and I realize that we cook a fair bit of beef over in our home. Here are some of our favourite beef recipes to end the week (just click the name of each dish to go to the recipe):

:: Minestrone soup: We usually cook pasta separately, and add it to the soup to make it a full meal. I love that its full of veggies and beans, and it is great to have on a rainy night. It's relatively easy to whip up, and freezer friendly too (just freeze it without the pasta).

:: Beef stew: I love this version by Jamie Oliver, which is full of the goodness of butternut squash, and great on its own, with some rice, or with some bread. 

:: Asian beef stew: This stew with an Asian twist by Nigella Lawson is fantastic. It's great eaten with rice, or you could have some noodles drenched with the gravy and meat. As most stews go, both these recipes are freezer friendly. 

:: Pho: Hubby is a HUGE fan of pho, and he can never resist the lure of Vietnamese food when we are out (if you have not, check out Mrs Pho if you like Vietnamese food too). This recipe has become a firm favourite in our family, and I usually have small containers of the soup and meat sitting in my freezer for Lil J's lunches when we eat out (I usually cook for him due to his food allergies). 

:: Taiwanese beef noodle: When we were in Taiwan, the hubby ate this every.single.day. He claimed that each stall did their soup differently, and he never grew tired of eating this. So I tried cooking this and we've never looked back since. We find that the soup is great with Hibiscus noodle (you can buy this at the dried noodle section in NTUC), which is silky, with just enough bite to match the robustness of the soup. 

Since cooking this can be troublesome, I usually cheat by arranging my menu plan such that I cook pho the day before we have this. I would cook double the amount of beef soup for pho, and reserve the remaining soup and meat to cook the next day. Then to save time, I would use this leftover soup and meat as the beef broth and add the additional ingredients required in the Taiwanese beef soup. Also, instead of cooking the beef separately from the broth, I usually combine the two to save time. 

The boys LOVE this, and of course, so does the hubby. So even though this can be tedious, seeing how they slurp up their soup makes up for it. Oh, and again, this is freezer friendly so I usually prepare a big pot of this so that I can freeze portions for other meals!