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September 2011 Moms
NYChick
member
Meal Freezing: Container recs?
NYChick
member
I am going to try to get my a$$ in gear and freeze some meals for post-p this week.
Can anybody recommend a certain kind of container to freeze them in? Im thinking it would work best to make individual meals so that we can defrost them one at a time, as needed.
What are you guys using (those of you doing this)?
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Re: Meal Freezing: Container recs?
I haven't tried this yet, but I've heard this works well...
freeze the meals by lining the baking dish with foil (make sure there is plenty of extra foil past the edges to wrap over the top later), put the meal inside the foil, then freeze it as is, right in the dish (with the extra foil covering the top). Then, after an hour or so when it's hard enough, take it out of the baking dish, put it in a freezer bag, label the bag (with the contents, date and cooking instructions) and put the bag with the meal in it back in the freezer for long-term storage. This way you save freezer space and you don't lose the use of all your pans while they're sitting in the freezer. I've also heard those disposable foil pans work really well too. Good luck!
I have been a crazy lady cooking this week. For anything that had a marinade, was a crock pot meal, or soup I put in Ziploc freezer bags (so not eco-friendly, but I do plan on re-using them later on). For casseroles, lasagna, things that would be cooked in a glass dish in the oven, I lined my pyrex with foil. I put the food into the foil, covered it up by folding the foil over the top and froze it, in the glass, in the freezer. Once it was frozen, I took the foil "package" out of the dish and stuck it in a big Ziploc freezer bag. This way, when I go to cook my food, I just stick the foil package in the dish it fits into and cook...and all of my pyrex won't be stuck in the freezer until I use that particular meal.
Good luck!
PS - I also have a foodsaver - I wanted to be able to use this, but it made a super huge mess when I tried to suck the air out of bags of marinated food...messy, messy, messy!
I always thought the same thing too (cracking from changing pressure/structure) but on our glass storage-ware it says it's freezer compatible. Maybe it depends on the glassware?
I've also heard of freezing things in the pan then individually bagging them. I was considering this for some cheesy shells or homemade chicken fingers.
Oh! I use Reynolds Heavy Duty foil for this, too...might as well take the extra precaution to make sure your food stays yummy!
Why can't you use glass to freeze?
I bought a big old combo set of all different sizes of BPA free containers from Rubbermaid. I plan to do some freezer bags (for crockpot meals) and the rest in small single serve containers. I think it will make it more fun. If I want soup, and DH wants something else, we can do that. You know?
I have used this method and it works great! Just make sure you spray the foil heavily with non stick spray or you will have pieces of foil in your food.
Glass is fine to freeze things in. It can break if it changes temperature very quickly, so don't take it out of the freezer and immediately put it in a 400 degree oven.
This is what I was thinkign too.
According to this website, you need to make sure it's a freezer-safe glass container. It also gives a lot of other info.