Menus4Mums is all about helping families put tasty, quality food on the table whilst keeping an eye on the grocery bill, so naturally we are firm advocates of frozen food. That’s why we recently took a good look round the frozen food aisles of some of our local supermarkets to find out what new products were available.

What struck us straight away was the helpful increase in frozen foods for those on “alternative diets”, as the supermarkets seem to like to phrase it. Along with all the usual frozen meats, fish, vegetables and desserts, it is now possible to find a variety of gluten-free, vegetarian and halal foods.

Gluten-free

We know from first-hand experience how difficult it can be when a family member is diagnosed as gluten-intolerant. Suddenly you realise how much food we eat that normally contains gluten. Normal bread, pizza and pasta is obviously out-of-bounds, but then you realise that other every-day products, such as fish fingers and Yorkshire puddings, are also on the banned list. That’s why the expansion of frozen gluten-free products will be so welcome. We found gluten-free garlic bread, shortcrust pastry, Yorkshire puds, salami pizza and bread rolls at our usual medium-sized supermarket. And as they are all frozen, you can just take out what you need – for just one person if necessary.

Vegetarian Foods

Vegetarian food is less of a newcomer than gluten-free, so it was less of a surprise to find quite a wide range of ready meals and other processed foods in the frozen aisles. As you might expect from Menus4Mums, we generally prefer to cook largely from scratch, so the ready meals weren’t really our bag, although we do think they would come in useful as a standby if you were vegetarian. We thought the vegetarian sausages and burgers would be great if hosting a BBQ with veggie guests, and some of the other products, eg Quorn mince, would come into their own if having vegetarian guests to stay.

Halal products

The availability of frozen halal products depends to a large extent on where you live. Not only that but, we found that one supermarket had a tiny selection of halal products, whilst another one 3 miles down the road had an impressive variety. This included: seekh kebabs, halal chicken burgers, and lamb sausages.

However, as we like to cook our own food, our eyes were drawn less by the halal sausages and more by some of the authentic Asian ingredients we found in the frozen food aisle. We loved the packs of bhindi (often known as okra), and paneer, and the bags of coriander leaves, ginger and garlic offered real value for money. Why not check them out and make your own Indian feast, with kulfi ice cream to finish it off?

Menus4Mums helps busy parents ditch the takeaways and ready meals and serve up tasty, healthy food for their families, saving them time and money in the kitchen. Find out more at www.menus4mums.co.uk and download a FREE one week sample meal plan.