For those of you freezing meals ahead of time, what is your favorite or simplest? Any links to recipes are appreciated. Going to attempt to get my act together.
This was the best thing I did for when DD was born! I don't have links, but the recipes I froze last time are:
chicken enchiladas - if you cook the chicken in a crock pot all day it'll shred itself
chili - I made corn muffins from a box to go with it that night
lasagna - you can either cook it all the way through and then freeze or leave that last step until you want to eat it, I've seen both ways
meatballs - either make into sandwiches or boil pasta the night you're going to eat them
I've found a few new ones for this time around that include chicken mac & cheese, Mexican quinoa, beef stew (and make mashed potatoes that night), and homemade calzones which are a hit in our house. I always try to add extra protein (chicken, black beans, quinoa) to receipes if they're lacking to get the most filling meal I can because eating can take a back seat to sleeping those first few weeks and you need to eat! If you google make ahead freezer meals you'll get tons of receipes and tips on how to freeze and reheat everything.
I made lasanga, meatballs, chicken enchiladas, and chili like the pp. I also did some shortcut prep like making and freezing spaghetti sauce with the browned ground beef (lots of ways that you can use it), taco meat (both ground turkey and ground beef), chicken pot pies, banana muffins, and stocked up on frozen waffles, garlic bread, frozen vegetables (in the steam bags-seriously no work at all to have a side dish!) and the pre-marinated chicken breasts from sam's club (you could make your own of these as well!)
@ladylisalt, there are a lot of great blogs and websites that have freezer meal ideas. Some of the ones I've used or want to test out (a lot of them are slow cooker meals) are linked below:
Basic stirfry meat & veggies (all you have to make is the rice) Can find simple & complex recipies all over google. I cut/preped/froze lots of fresh local veggies to pull out and cook with chicken. Pre-made bannanna bread & zucchini bread (you can make them muffins as well) froze them. Turkey burger spagetti sauce, (you only have to make your noodles) Pita pizzas are one of my favorites you get the whole wheat pita pread and a jar of pizza sauce, add whatever toppings you like and freeze two per (large freezer bag divided by wax paper) much healthier option than little tonys pizzas... also having the stock up on smoothie ingredients can make a delicious substution meals when your really busy you can even go as far as to divide them into individual packets making no prep for you. Buy some extra bread and meat rice granola cliff bars ect and just make sure your pantry is nice and stocked up so you can avoid the store for a few weeks! Congrats your almost done yay!
I found a treasure trove of freezer crockpot meals on Pinterest. You buy a bunch of stuff, chop it up, throw it in a freezer bag and you're done until you want it. I did nothing but crock pot meals for about a month - it saved so much time and they were yummy!
Re: favorite meals to freeze
This was the best thing I did for when DD was born! I don't have links, but the recipes I froze last time are:
chicken enchiladas - if you cook the chicken in a crock pot all day it'll shred itself
chili - I made corn muffins from a box to go with it that night
lasagna - you can either cook it all the way through and then freeze or leave that last step until you want to eat it, I've seen both ways
meatballs - either make into sandwiches or boil pasta the night you're going to eat them
I've found a few new ones for this time around that include chicken mac & cheese, Mexican quinoa, beef stew (and make mashed potatoes that night), and homemade calzones which are a hit in our house. I always try to add extra protein (chicken, black beans, quinoa) to receipes if they're lacking to get the most filling meal I can because eating can take a back seat to sleeping those first few weeks and you need to eat! If you google make ahead freezer meals you'll get tons of receipes and tips on how to freeze and reheat everything.
https://bakedinthesouth.com/category/freezer-meals/
https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2013/08/50-easy-freezer-meals.html
https://onceamonthmeals.com/101-freezable-slow-cooker-recipes/
https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/07/freezer-cooking/
If you're interested, I also have a blog post on freezer cooking when I first tried it out: https://redpoppypinkpeony.blogspot.com/2013/07/brr-its-cold-in-here.html.
I found a treasure trove of freezer crockpot meals on Pinterest. You buy a bunch of stuff, chop it up, throw it in a freezer bag and you're done until you want it. I did nothing but crock pot meals for about a month - it saved so much time and they were yummy!
There are great recipes on
TheSweatyBetties.com
Baked-inthesouth.BlogSpot.com
melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com
I used a lot of recipes from this site: https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2013/08/50-easy-freezer-meals.html
My favorites were the White Chicken Enchilada Casserole and the Stuffed Mexican Shells.