Batch Cooking and Baked Spaghetti

I love to fill my freezer with all sorts of goodies I can use to make easy meals. One of my favorite things to do is to precook things like chicken or ground beef to have them ready to add to a recipe.

Recently I was in the mood for some baked pasta. After a search, I found THIS RECIPE for Easy Baked Spaghetti and had to try it. I already had most of the items needed in my pantry. Since I was putting together a grocery order, it was easy to add the few items I needed.

I managed to pick up around 4 pounds of lean ground beef and rather than freeze most of it raw, I chose to cook it, package it, and tuck it into the freezer for later.

I tend to use what I call a basic seasoned ground beef, which means that I added chopped onion, garlic, salt and pepper to the meat as it cooked, then drain off any fat or liquid and separate into approximately 1 pound packages. This gets me a standard starting point for pretty much anything I would use the meat for later.

Once the meat was cooked, divvied up and set aside to cool, I used the remaining pound to dive into the Easy Baked Spaghetti recipe.

The recipe is easy to do but takes a bit of coordination and timing. I adjusted the additions (onion, seasoning, etc.) in the recipe because I had already used the same when I cooked the entire batch of ground beef. If I had thought about it sooner (!) I would have broken the spaghetti into smaller pieces before I cooked it.

I also bought pre-shredded cheeses which allowed me to have just what I needed without extra on hand.

This recipe makes a generous 9 x 13 pan of goodness. It is not soupy with extra sauce. I would add a nice side salad and some garlic toast to round out the meal.

As for that extra ground beef, I have three 1 pound packages in the freezer ready to be used in chili, tacos or another pasta bake. All I will have to do is let it defrost and go from there.

Happy Cooking!