Working Ahead - Hamburger Patties

Welcome to a new five week series entitled Working Ahead.  Each week I'll focus on one area where I do prep for a meal or meals in advance.  Most of what I prepare ahead of time goes into my tiny freezer, but some things are short term and go to the fridge for the next day.

My husband and I love to grill out during the summer months.  Heck, we've been known to grill out in February.  Unfortunately my 7 year old son, often does not enjoy foods prepared on the grill as much as we do.  I believe it's mostly because we usually fix steak or seafood.  He doesn't like seafood and often finds beef too tough for him to chew.

He will, however, eat a hamburger prepared on the grill, often with some homemade barbeque sauce.  To cut down on prep time, I take a pound of ground beef and make 4 hamburger patties ahead of time.  These are stored in a vintage Tupperware set that forms the patties with the aid of a little press.  The containers snap together one on top of another.  I then freeze the hamburger patties and can take one out of the freezer when needed.

If you don't have a handy-dandy little set like mine, you can form your patties then lay them out on a cookie sheet.  Place that in the freezer until the patties are frozen.  Then you can remove them from the cookie sheet, put them in a zipper bag and store them in the freezer until needed.

Find the whole "Working Ahead" series here.