Freezer meal help?

wishiwaspreggo · January 2015

So now that it's down to crunch time (7 weeks until DD - ACK!!!!) I'm wanting to start fixing freezer meals to stock up for when I'm unable to cook. As much as I'd love for C to take care of the cooking, we'd be eating cereal, pasta, or toast for every meal. Unacceptable.

I admit, I'm really picky about freshness and variety. I have a hard time finishing leftovers (as does C) and I'm worried I'm going to screw things up by not packaging the food properly, thus causing freezer burn and general yuckiness that will prevent us from eating wholesome meals and ordering Pizza Hut instead.

My goal is to make several individual meals - enough for one of us so if I felt like eating enchiladas with Mexican rice, I could pull out my little foil dish and pop it in the oven. Then C could have lasagna if she wanted that instead. I bought a bunch of foil dishes with lids for this purpose. Is it doable though? Would precooked food like that keep in the freezer? I hope so because it would make committing to eating at home much easier if I had a variety of meals at my disposal and could eat what I wanted rather than carving out slice after slice of whatever casserole I thawed that week.

I got some tips from the Pioneer Woman... but I'd love to hear from other ladies here who have been successful with their freezer meals. What are your favorites, and how do you freeze them?

TIA!!!

mandi195 · January 2015

I do a lot of simple things. I will brown pounds and pounds of hamburger, and then package it in ziplock freezer baggies in portions of 1-1.5 lbs. Then they are already cooked and ready to go for tacos, spaghetti, or anything else we would use ground beef for. I also will cook a few packages of chicken, and then shred it, and package it into ziplock freezer baggies. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the full prepped meals, so I just do the most time consuming parts, and then dinner takes 15 minutes vs an hour.

Other things I'll prep are diced onion and peppers (for use in basically anything), twice baked potatoes, marinated chicken or steak, and soups or chili.

KT416 · January 2015

I've been experimenting with this the last few months in preparation for a big 'ol freezer day and have been finding and testing recipes that may freeze well (aka I make a lasagna for dinner and then make another one at the same time to freeze for later).

I think it depends what you are looking to do. I haven't found too many freezer crockpot bags meals on pinterest too appetizing and kind of bland (and I'm a bland eater, according to DH). I do like the taco soup crockpot recipe though, so I will be making a few bags of those on a freezer day and maybe a few other crockpot bags.

My freezer plan is a lot of spinach stuffed shells, lasagna, lasagna rolls, and ziti bakes and other casserole type things for the foil dishes. For the pasta dishes, I'm obviously cooking the shells and such, but I'm not cooking the entire meal and then freezing. I'm prepping and then will bake once I'm ready to eat it that night. I think it won't taste as good if you cook it all and then freeze it and maybe not keep as well. However, I think it depends what is it. I had a co-worker that makes huge batches of soup, and then would freeze a lot of it and would have it for lunch for weeks, and it was really good.

I'm also planning to have a lot of stuff on hand to make recipes easier and to make coming up with ideas easier. For example, I'll cut up peppers and onions for fajitas and freeze it, and then have less work when I want fajitas for dinner as well as ground beef bags for sloppy joes, beef stroganoff, etc. Same with other things like shredded chicken (I'll probably shred it in my crockpot with broth and then freeze some). I'll also have a lot of meatballs, tortellini, and other things on hand in my freex and quick dinners.

CoozieInMyPurse · January 2015

I'm concerned about this as well. We don't eat many casseroles or Italian, which seems to be the stuff that freezes well. I was eying some Amy's brand burritos at CostCo the other day. I may do a mix of self-prepped stuff and some store-bought freezer stuff. Anything freezer related will also require remembering to thaw stuff, which I'm not good at either.

Whitfry started a thread back in November about this. I can't believe I remember it. THere were some good tips.https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/12490814/freezer-meals.

I think I will end up doing personal pizzas, soup (although I'm not sure about eating it while holding baby, but I love soup), some stuffed shells or similar. I think DH wants to make chili, too. My plan is to use our vacuum sealer for the pizzas, put soup in ziplocs and use foil containers with lids that I then wrap in saran wrap for casserole type meals. My hope is that the meals will be eaten within 3-4 months of preparation that they won't get too freezer burned.

cinnamonlatte · January 2015

Last time I made a few, but wasn't that in to them. My MIL will be staying for a week or two, and will cook for us. After that my plan is to stock up on premade frozen stuff from Trader Joes. Not the healthiest, but better then fast food. Hopefully I will be up to cooking some quick meals after a few weeks.

mangomimosa · January 2015

I saw a post on FB where someone froze crockpot ingredients & made a month of dinners... It said this post inspired her: https://mixingwithmichelle.blogspot.com/2014/05/thm-crock-pot-cooking-menu-session-1.html?m=1

wishiwaspreggo · January 2015

Thanks ladies! I think my methods will work... I've been doing some research and the foil dishes I bought are good for freezing. My meals are going to include enchiladas with Mexican rice, chicken and dumplings, chili, crock pot mac n cheese, shredded beef and chicken, twice baked potatoes, calzones, lasagna, and premade burgers for an easy lunch.

Should be sufficient to get us through until I can cook again

JennyP0222 · January 2015

For things like enchiladas, do not cook them all the way through. Make your filling, roll up your enchiladas, sauce them, cheese them (or you could just add cheese day of before you throw in oven) but do not bake them at that point, freeze them. Then I typically will just stick straight into oven from freezer without thawing, adding 15-20 or so minutes to cooking time. I do a ton of freezing and do not experience freezer burn if I package them well. It might be overkill but I will: Use a foil pan with or without a laid, cover the tray in a layer of press and seal, then cover it again with a layer of foil, place the entire tray wrapped into a freezer bag. For a smaller sized foil tray, you could use a gallon freezer bag, for a larger tray a 2 gallon or jumbo bag works well. Then I just save and reuse the freezer bags so it is less waste (plus those things ain't cheap.)

jarrard1983 · January 2015

https://www.livingwellspendingless.com/2014/09/12/10-freezer-meals-in-one-hour-3-comfort-food-edition/

She has 3 editions of 10 freezer meals in one hour. They come with grocery lists and prep instructions to get them done fast.

graciest719 · January 2015

JennyP0222 said:
For things like enchiladas, do not cook them all the way through. Make your filling, roll up your enchiladas, sauce them, cheese them (or you could just add cheese day of before you throw in oven) but do not bake them at that point, freeze them. Then I typically will just stick straight into oven from freezer without thawing, adding 15-20 or so minutes to cooking time. I do a ton of freezing and do not experience freezer burn if I package them well. It might be overkill but I will: Use a foil pan with or without a laid, cover the tray in a layer of press and seal, then cover it again with a layer of foil, place the entire tray wrapped into a freezer bag. For a smaller sized foil tray, you could use a gallon freezer bag, for a larger tray a 2 gallon or jumbo bag works well. Then I just save and reuse the freezer bags so it is less waste (plus those things ain't cheap.)

I feel like you may have just saved my life. I love enchiladas, but every time I've tried to freeze them the tortillas turn to mush and the mouth feel makes me want to barf. I've been cooking them first. So hopefully if I freeze them before baking they will be edible. Thanks girl!

Lovebeingamomny · January 2015

I'm looking into all this too, but when I make a casserole that is enough for 2 pans, I don't bake the second one, I just freeze it and bake it when I want it. That's what I imagine I'll do with these casseroles.

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