Freeze-dried ground beef, chicken, and sausage. I'll be going over the advantages of cooking with all three, and how to use them in your next meal!
You may be able to relate when I say that I don't enjoy being in the kitchen any longer than I have to. That being said however, I want to feed my family meals that are filling and nutritionally dense, which often necessitates more preparation. I'm not keen on feeding my family "quick" meals like mac-and-cheese, pizza, pasta, or hot dogs very often because those meals by themselves offer very little nutritional value. (If those are some of your go to's, no judgments! I know what its like being a busy mom. We are all just trying our best). There are many advantages when it comes to cooking with freeze dried meats. Food preparation is much shorter when you don't have to worry about thawing, cutting, marinading, disinfecting and so forth.
Another perk that this meat offers is an outstanding shelf life. Unopened, this meat will last 25 years in your pantry. (No more crowded freezer). Even after opening, a can of Thrive Life freeze-dried meat will last one year before it expires!
It comes pre-cooked and pre-cut, so you don't have to worry about sanitizing your kitchen after cooking. It is also easy to calculate how much meat to use. If your recipe calls for one cup of chicken, simply use one cup of Thrive Life chicken.
Below I will go into more detail about how to cook with these meats and some different recipes that you can try.
Freeze-Dried Grilled Chicken
With the Thrive Life chicken dices, I was able to make the most delicious chicken and gnocchi soup. This Olive Garden knock-off recipe was made so easy when I substituted the cubed chicken breast that the recipe called for with 2 cups of freeze-dried chicken.
Typically when cooking with freeze-dried food, it is standard to soak it for a couple of minutes to reconstitute. For this reason, it is recommended that the chicken dices soak in warm water for 15-20 minutes. Because I was making a soup, I skipped the soaking process and just added the chicken still freeze-dried and it turned out great.
One last note: Thrive Life has three freeze-dried chicken options. Diced, grilled diced and sliced.
Freeze-Dried Sausage Crumbles
With the Thrive Life sausage crumbles, I made a childhood favorite of mine -- biscuits and gravy. For this recipe, I added 3/4 cup of warm water to every 1 cup of sausage. I let that sit for ten minutes, and then after stirring it, waited five more minutes. After it was tender, I added it to my breakfast skillet for some white gravy. I love that I didn't have to think about thawing the sausage overnight, or worry that the sausage was under cooked before I made my gravy.
For the sausage gravy I used a generic white gravy recipe from memory, but for those of you interested I added:
1/4 cup of Thrive Life gluten free flour
2 1/2 cups of milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
One important note for this recipe is that I made it entirely gluten free to accommodate family dietary restrictions. If you are interested to find the flour I used, you can find it here. I highly recommend!
Freeze-Dried Ground Beef
I just cannot express enough how perfect this ground beef was for tacos! I didn't have to worry about defrosting or thawing the beef, and I didn't have questionable juices all over my kitchen at the end. Similar to the sausage, I soaked 1 cup of ground beef in 1/2 cup of warm water for 15 minutes. Once they were tender, I threw them in a frying pan for my taco's.
One more note: Thrive Life has beef that comes in two forms, ground or diced.
If you tried one of these freeze-dried meats I would love to hear about which was your favorite in the comments! You may also want to check out other protein products that Thrive Life has to offer!
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