freezer meals..

[Peterpanflight]

Anyone have any good recipes that are good to freeze? I am interested in starting bulk cooking and don't have any good recipes that are good for freezing.

[sherriepaul]

Lasagna, don't cook before you freeze, and meatballs, always freeze well! Cook your ground beef and then freeze in individual packets. Banana bread, zucchini bread, and I also freeze my chocolate zucchini cake!

[NewDVCowner]

There's a great cookbook called 'Don't Panic. Dinner's in the Freezer' that has a lot of make ahead recipies that freeze well with instructions on what to do to cook them day of. And if you do a google search for once a month cooking you'll find some menu suggestions for frozen meals.

[Dulcee]

With my schedule this semester it became a necessity for me to prep weekly meals. I get home at 7pm and my FI needs to be out the door for his shift at 8pm and we both value eating together. So I cook all day sunday for M-F. Some of our favorites..

Chicken enchiladas - Make the filling, roll, top with sauce and cheese, freeze unbaked.

Soups freeze well. I make and freeze chicken soup, tortilla soup, minestrones... I just boil pasta separately if we're planning on adding it in. Chili also freezes really well.

Eggplant parm - Prep, don't bake, freeze. Chicken parm works well like this also

Potpies - We do traditional chicken ones, also a awesome sausage kale and cauliflower one. Either way I just add the pastry on right before baking.

Beef stroganoff - again, make your pasta the day of

Baked ziti - with or without sausage or meatballs. We also like it with spinach and whole grain pasta for a healthier alternative.

Sloppy joes - I grind my own meat at home so I tend to do 50/50 beef to veg (carrots, zuchinni, mushrooms, onions, peppers, whatever else I have on hand). Cook fully and freeze.

Pulled pork and pulled chicken - Make each, mx with sauce and freeze. Defrosts and reheats really well.

If your doing large quantities I highly suggest freezing in plastic bags. This way you can flatten and stack things. It works fantastically for lots of these. Also for freezing casseroles, line your baking dish with foil, make your dish and freeze. The next day lift the whole foil wrapped package out of the dish. I label with the dish it fits so I'm not guessing the night it needs to be baked. This way my dish is free to be used for other things and isn't tied up in the freeze.

[Janmac]

This is more along the lines of ingredients for quick meals, but it comes from cooking extra for one meal. I like to have cooked meats in the freezer, like shredded pork, beef or chicken/turkey. And cubed mostly rare beef too. These are usually left over from roasts, turkey, whole chickens, which I shred or dice and freeze while cleaning up the kitchen after supper. I also get the sausage in rolls (like Jimmy Dean) and cook that up and freeze it. When I cook rice, I cook extra and put that in the freezer in flat zip lock bags, too.

I use zip lock bags, and make sure the bag and contents are flat when going in the freezer. Easier to get some of the contents out, if necessary. Comes in handy when making something quickly, like enchiladas, or soups, or burritos, quesadillas. Meat pies. One dish noodle salads. Chinese food. Those days when I don't feel like doing much for supper or when a visiting grandkid has a request.

Also have bags of diced peppers and bags of onions in the freezer, too. Also frozen flat. DH likes to get some of the sausage, peppers and onions to go with eggs for a quick breakfast burrito.

I also have the lasagne and enchiladas in the freezer, but started having the frozen ready to use ingredients when we wanted something else, quickly, for supper other than what was prepared ahead.

Jan

[Kairi_7378]

On the weekends, I like to make soups or stews in the crockpot. Then, I cool the food and am able to have two quarts of dinner in the freezer.

[TheDuckRocks]

Dream Dinners has a dandy cookbook that I purchased through Amazon. I also have Dinners in the Freezer and Fix, Freeze, Eat.

[ChipDale2708]

Paula Deen has a great recipe for a crustless spinach quiche that we love. We cut it into portions and freeze it. For quick dinner it microwaves quickly and just fix a side salad. Got us through all of the Friday's of lent! (I'm not a seafood fan)

[whit112harris]

Soups are great to freeze - they come out of the freezer tasting better than before because all of the flavors meld together. I also have a beans recipe that freezes great.

I always freeze meatballs and Italian meals for late nights with the family. During baseball season, we used to come home very late. I'm older now and my children are grown but freezer meals helped me feed my children throughout their childhood.

You can freeze all kinds of things - chicken spaghetti, really any casserole. When in doubt, try it and see how it comes out.

[scooterca42]

Soups, stews and chili are no-brainers, they're good and fast and with a salad and bread they're filling dinners. Don't neglect the fowl side, though! A roasted chicken or turkey, sliced up and wrapped up or tucked into re-heatable glass containers will freeze well.