Make Ahead Meal Tutorial

Some of you may know that I am part of a "Make Ahead Meals" Group. Every 2 weeks 7-9 of us get together. Each of us make 7-9 of the same meal and when we get together, we exchange them for 7-9 different meals. So, this time, I made 8 BBQ Cups. I met with my group on Monday an I returned home with: Apple Chicken, Lemon Chicken, Pork Chops, Spicy Korean Pork, Enchiladas, Chicken Macaroni Bake, Mexican Chicken, and my BBQ Cups.

I love this dinner group. It means I spend about 3 hours every 2 weeks making multiples of my one meal and in return, all I have to do every night is to pull out of the freezer what I want to eat tomorrow. This has saved me so much time, energy, and money, it is fabulous!

Now, I am no Pioneer Woman, but I thought you might like a peek at the process. So, I documented the making of the BBQ Cups. Here is the Recipe:

BBQ Cups
1 lb hamburger (or ground turkey)
½ cup chopped onion
1 clove crushed garlic(optional)
½ cup BBQ sauce
½ cup shredded cheese
1pkg uncooked refrigerator biscuits (or make your own dough)
Cook meat with onion and garlic. Drain fat and add BBQ sauce. Press biscuit dough into 10 muffin cups. Spoon meat mix into cups and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.


My pan is only big enough to hold 5 pounds of meat, so here is 3 pounds of ground beef and 2 pounds ground turkey. Hey, I like to make healthy choices when I can! Also, there are onions and garlic in as well. It does take longer to thoroughly cook such a large quantity, so I like to stand there with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other.

Not! I have Delaney wanting to be a helper. So I gave her her very own biscuit to play with, and she requires constant monitoring.

Delaney took her biscuit and immediately went for the knife. While she did have a very good time, I wondered what this said about her psyche.

Now, moving on to how we make our dinner..... here we see our meat is all cooked and drained. 5 pounds makes a lot of fat! Once that's done, you add your BBQ sauce. I use whatever is on hand, but I prefer the stuff that says "honey" or "brown sugar", over the stuff that's hot or spicy. And I like a lot of BBQ sauce on my cups! I add more than the recipe calls for and mix it in nicely.

Then we move to the table and make our assembly line. If you are lucky, like me, you can have a passel of helpers too. First, you need to press your biscuits into the (greased) tins. Next, I scoop the meat on top.

Callie was a wonderful biscuit separator, but not so good at the pressing and spreading. She worked fast, too. I had a hard time keeping up with her. I put the meat on top of the biscuits and then passed them on to Marian for the cheese.

Marian loves sprinkling the cheese on top. She was quite generous, but she also enjoyed snacking on the pieced that dropped on the table. She was pretty methodical and took a while to complete her job. When she was done, they looked pretty good.

Here you can see the ones in process, and some finished trays. It was actually pretty quick. Once done, it is time to cover them with foil and label them.

Darn blogger! This picture was not rotated this direction when I uploaded it! Still, you can see: covered with heavy duty foil- I like to double cover sometimes. And the label is printed with the recipe, thawing and cooking directions, and my name & number in case anyone has questions about them. Packaging tape is the best for affixing the labels, and you have to put them on before you freeze them, otherwise they won't stick.

Now I take them all to the freezer in the garage and wait for exchange day! See, not to arduous, and the benefits are wonderful! Plus, now you can try out a new recipe tonight. Okay, not if you are in my family and grew up eating tasty BBQ Cups!