Many of my dinner meals take longer to clean up than to prepare. Here’s another meal, spaghetti and meatballs, I’m able to prepare in 15 minutes. How do I do this? Freezer cooking. I’ve made the meatballs in eight batches, baked, cooled and frozen them in one dozen packages.

I also double the quantity of pasta every time I boil a pot of water. I use a large stock pot and boil two 1-pound packages at once. We have enough pasta for at least two other meals. After the noodles have cooled in the colander, I place them in freezer bags. The next time we want pasta, it takes one-fourth the amount of time to reheat the pasta. I place mine in a microwave safe bowl and microwave thawed pasta for 5 minutes. Alternately, you could drop the cooked pasta in boiling water for a few minutes to reheat.

My marinara is either store-bought or frozen in batches. I add the thawed frozen meatballs to the sauce and bring to a simmer on the stove. While it’s heating, I prepare a salad and fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting down to a hot meal that looks like it might have taken forty-five minutes to an hour to prepare, especially if the meatballs were prepared from scratch.

The bread sticks were baked and frozen in batches from olive oil artisan dough. I thaw and reheat these as well.

You can duplicate a freezer meal at home for company or deliver to someone in need. Dinner can be in the fridge thawing if you plan ahead by freezer cooking. Have you considered a 15-minute meal lately?