A couple of months ago, I started making freezer meals our go-to plan for dinner. Before that, getting dinner on the table used to be so tough. With all of our kids’ sports and other activities (for which I’m the main driver), plus all of the commitments that Mike and I have, our evenings are pretty full. We had lots of leftovers nights and fend-for-yourself nights. Having meals ready to go has really improved and simplified life.
As I mentioned in May’s Grocery Haul blog post, my plan for May was to stock our freezer with freezer meals for us to use on a regular basis. You asked what my freezer meal plan would be, so I’m detailing it here.
I assembled most of the freezer meals the evening after I went shopping. I had lots of help from the family, but it was a whirlwind (read: it was a mess), so I didn’t really take any (good) pictures. I’ll try to improve that in the future.
Freezer Meal Planning
Before going grocery shopping at the beginning of May, I went through everything in my the freezer side of my refrigerator (I wasn’t ambitious enough to attempt our two chest freezers in the garage). I made plans to use what I found as ingredients in my freezer meals (veggies, meat, etc) and by putting together little “kits” of items that went together.
For example, I found about 3 pizzas worth of homemade pizza dough, frozen mushrooms, peppers, pineapple, pepperoni, precooked chicken chunks, and precooked ground sausage. I put all of those items in a grocery bag, stuck it back in the freezer and wrote “pizza kit” down on my freezer meal inventory list.
Here are some of the kits I put together while organizing the freezer:
Pizza Kit
Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and Corn-on-the-Cob Kit
Chicken Noodle Soup Kit
Quiche Kit
Cherry Cobbler Kit x 2 (not a dinner 😆)
I looked through my favorite freezer meal book and chose the recipes I planned to make. I started with some favorites that we have previously tried and liked, including:
California Breakfast Casserole x 4
White Bean Chicken Chili x 4
Seriously Good Chili x 4
Creamy Cheesy Broccoli Soup x 4
I added a few new recipes from the same book, including:
Tempting Taco Pasta Shell Casserole x 4
Hash Brown Casserole x 4
Cauliflower Crave Soup x 2
I also wrote down a few favorites that we love that aren’t from the book, but are family favorites that freeze well.
My original hope was to make about 40 freezer meals, thinking that we would use about 20 per month. On days when I had time to make a non-freezer meal, I would, plus I knew there would be other gathering where we would eat with friends or at a church activity. I figured I wouldn’t get all 40 meals done in a day, but I wanted to see how many I could finish.
It turns out the deciding factor on how many freezer meals I could make wasn’t my time or energy, but freezer space! I ended up making everything except 3 of the recipes, but I still ended up with a total of 32 dinner freezer meals (including the “kits”). I figured I could make those other recipes later in the month (or next month) when I have freed up some freezer space.
For the spaghetti, I actually didn’t make anything, but I did buy 6 pounds of meatballs. Making the noodles and homemade sauce is not hard, so I’m still calling it a freezer meal for counting toward my total.
Beyond dinners
In addition to freezer meals, with the help of my older kids, I did some other meal prep for the month. It is so nice to start the month with food that is (nearly) ready to eat.
Rolls
I put my oldest in charge of making two double batches of Soft French Bread dough. We shaped into rolls, then froze the balls on baking sheets. Once they were frozen, we put them into bags of 20. When we want to have rolls along with one of our soups, we can just put the dough balls on to a baking sheet to thaw and rise.
Breakfast Burritos
My older kids love having breakfast burritos in the freezer as a grab-and-go breakfast. I use the recipe in Seriously Good Freezer Meals. I mixed up a 6 times batch of filling then put my second oldest in charge of making the burritos. We ended up with 70-some burritos for the freezer.
Yogurt
I made a gallon of yogurt the same night that I was making all of the freezer meals. We don’t put it in the freezer, but it is great to have on hand to eat with fruit and granola for easy breakfasts
Granola
I made a double batch of overnight granola the day after my freezer meals adventure. It will last about a week. And by last, I’m not talking about shelf life. It will last much longer than that in a sealed container. I’m talking about how long before my kids gobble it all up.
Here are some PAQs
Yep. Not a typo. That’s a “P” not an “F.” I’m calling these Potentially Asked Questions 😆
Won’t you get sick of those meals?
Maybe. But I think we’ll be just fine. If we eat 5 freezer meals per week and have 10 different freezer meal options, then we will repeat every two weeks. That’s not going to bother anyone around here. And, as always, if any kids don’t like what we are having, they are welcome to make themselves a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.
Do you reuse the foil pans for freezer meals?
Sometimes. If it’s easy to clean, then I love saving them to reuse for a future freezer meal. If it’s a tough clean (crusty burned on stuff in the pan wrinkles), then I don’t hesitate to throw it away. Remember, my whole object in making freezer meals is to save time!
Do you reuse the freezer bags?
Once upon a time, back when we were paying off six figures of student loan debt, I did. Mike will wash them out sometimes even now, but generally I just throw them away. I hate when a reused bag has a hole in it and ends up dripping when it thaws, so I prefer to use new bags each time. If we have washed freezer bags I will use them for something else, not freezer meals with liquid in them.
How about you?
Do you make freezer meals? What is your favorite?
Feel free to link and suggestions that our family might enjoy!