Quick, Easy and Cheap Freezer Meal!

.Here is another delish freezer recipe called Teriyaki Chicken. When I get chicken on sale, this is always a must for our freezer meals! You might not have all the ingredients at first, but you'll quickly realize like I did how low cost they are as well as how long they last (unless, of course, you make many freezer meals in a row!) This has now become a basic in our household along with the Sweet and Sour Chicken recipe I posted in the past. It actually came out of the Once-A-Month Cooking book that I told you about when I talked about freezer cooking.....we love this recipe but for economical reasons I have changed it a little to suit our large family. If your family prefers whole boneless skinless breasts to eat, then leaving the recipe as is will probably suit you just fine.

I have found that cutting the chicken up in small to medium pieces and putting it into recipes makes more bang for the buck around here. So, instead of leaving the breasts whole, I cut them up raw and put them in the bags (or if I'm rushed on time, I put the whole breasts in the bag and freeze it and cut it when it's defrosting...which by the way, is sometimes easier because the chicken is easier to cut half frozen). After defrosting, I get my wok out and cook the meat in the marinade in the bottom of the wok and then add 1 or 2 bags of stir fry vegetables depending on how much I want the meat to stretch, economically speaking, of course! Seriously though, most high food budgets are due to too much meat intake so whenever possible, I try to cut down how much meat the recipe calls for to see if the taste as well as the health(enough iron) factor remains. So with a pound of meat and, most of the time, two bags of stir-fry veggies, we can have a very healthy meal served over brown rice that lasts for two nights.
Just so you know, I am very big into making large quantities of food so we have leftovers! The idea of cooking every night is just exhausting! And by the way, on those nights I am not into doing the stir fry thing, I cook the chicken in the marinade as the recipe calls for and then cut up and serve over rice (I have tried cutting it before cooking but it seems to get too much marinade and has a very strong flavor) and that is an economical tasty winner as well. So any way you choose to go about it, this is one of those recipes you will learn to love for the simplicity of preparation......there is nothing like walking into the kitchen and knowing that 45 minutes later you can serve your family a wholesome meal that is easy on the pocketbook.

Teriyaki Chicken

1/2 cup soy sauce (I use low sodium)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbs. red wine vinegar
2 tsp. vegetable oil or sesame oil
1 small minced garlic (I do more but we LOVE garlic!)
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Mix all ingredients except chicken in small bowl and pour into 1 gallon bag with chicken. Freeze.
When preparing to serve, thaw chicken in fridge. Pour chicken in marinade into a baking dish and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes. Serve over rice or Chinese noodles