once a month freezer cooking

CariH20 · August 2013

Has anyone tried this? Im hoping this type of plan would be beneficial in saving time and money and having to think about what's for dinner every night. If you have tried this or are currently cooking this way, can you let me know if you think it is successfull/unsuccessful? Any tips or suggestions I need to know? Any kitchen items you couldnt live without for this method? Thanks!!!

dizzycooks · August 2013

I do this. I don't plan out a month, but I cook 6-8 things in triple quantities and freeze them. Right now I have lasagna rolls, taco pie, white bean soup, oatmeal bars, zucchini bread and chicken brocolli casserole in the freezer. I plan on adding 6-8 more things before I return to work next month.

financialdiva · August 2013

Since I have a freezer full of breast milk I would have no room for something like this. So I do a modified version and just cook in large batches and freeze portions of it.

I have also started cooking meals the night before after the kids are in bed and just re-heat the next day. Maybe once a week I will do this. I also make something we can eat a couple times or repurpose meat for another meal later in the week ie- chicken. Grilled chicken one night, tacos another night.

kanga1622Wed220857 · August 2013

I find I do better with just the meat portion precooked. I always have ground beef cooked and frozen in half pound portions in my freezer. Plus I usually have taco meat, sloppy joes, pulled pork, poached chicken, and portioned ham slices. That makes it super easy to warm the meat while throwing together some quick sides.

Browned ground beef is great for throwing together a last minute casserole or lasagna. I can put together a casserole faster than the oven can preheat if the meat is already cooked. Plus it takes less time to cook since the entire casserole isn't frozen.

kanga1622Wed220857 · August 2013

At our grocery store, I get a discount for buying ground beef in 10 pound portions. That helps me keep the freezer full and it doesn't really take much more time to brown 10 pounds vs. 1 pound since I have 2 good size pans going at once.

kristinc01 · August 2013

I just looked into onceamonthmom.com. I'm planning on doing my first month of cooking at the end of the month. They charge $8 a month to get current recipes and shopping lists but if you go back 2 yrs in the archives you can get the recipes and shopping lists and preparation schedule for free (the free ones are what I'm going to attempt). The site seems worthwhile. You input the # of people you are cooking for and it adjusts the ingredient amounts for you and creates the shopping list based the the 12 or so recipes for the month. I also like that they have a list of the order to cook the food in on the day to be the most efficient. I'm a little worried because they say cooking day will be 8-12 hours and I'm not sure how to accomplish that with kids around. They have pretty extensive tips on accomplishing the cooking and lists of the needed kitchen items, so even if you don't want to use their sight you can read up on their prep suggestions.

Another thing that other posters mentioned - I brown ten lbs of hamburger at once and then freeze them in 1 lb bags so its pretty easy to throw together something that calls for browned hamburger.

CariH20 · August 2013

Im also considering the onceamonthmom.com site. It looks so intriguing.

rubber_chicken · August 2013

Do these actually taste good? I tried freezer cooking when I was pregnant, thinking we'd eat the meals while on maternity leave. I used a couple different freezer cookbooks from amazon. But we ended up throwing everything out, the casseroles were gross.

jwthoms1 · August 2013

The Pioneer Woman did a post on this about a week ago. There are lot of good recipes out there.

kristennd · August 2013

I've had good luck, cookbook-wise, with 'Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer' and 'Fix, Freeze, Feast,' The second one is a little weird in that the food is prepped but not entirely cooked. But it's still faster to get on the table than something from scratch and it means you have some fresh components.

I always get a cookbook from the library and try a couple recipes before actually buying.

Totally agree on the potatoes. Also, whole grain pasta turns to absolute mush. Some white flour kinds are fine, like egg noodles.

GreenMonkey1 · August 2013

Has anyone found a good resource for vegetarian freezer meals?

CariH20 · August 2013

GreenMonkey1 said:

Has anyone found a good resource for vegetarian freezer meals?

that onceamonthmom site has a vegetarian category.

Amores0121 · August 2013

So far I have only done spaghetti and chili for freezer meals. They tasted perfectly fine. Unfortunately I live in an apt and our freezer is small so freezing more than one or 2 things doesn't work. I currently have turkey burgers frozen. Not sure how those will taste.

JennaNAaron · August 2013

I've been using onceamonthmom.com for several months. I finally paid for a subscription. It's very time consuming as it generally takes one entire day for cooking. However it's really worth it. Generally I do the traditional menu or the diet menu. They also have 5 or 10 day mini menus and I've done those few times. That's good place to start if you haven't done it before. We usually end up liking 98% of what I make. There have been a few things I wouldn't make again, but only two things (in a year of doing it) that we actually tossed.

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