Home made frozen meals..

gottagetitoff11

Does anyone make their own frozen meals. Im wanting to start making my own and would like to see pics of how you store them and how long they keep.

Thanks

Kimo159

I don't have pics but all I do is make large batches of food when I make my dinner. As soon as I'm done eating I portion what I didn't eat into individual containers. I keep a couple in the fridge for lunches and the rest go in the freezer. It's just me and my boyfriend at home and I'll cook huge batches of food so there's lot left. I do this every time I make dinner (so 3-4x per week) When I don't have any refrigerated meals left then I'll go into the frozen meals. I usually try to eat my frozen meals within two weeks but I'd definitely found some a few months later and still ate them. The key is to put them in containers with as little extra space as possible. The less air there is left in the container the longer I've found the meals will keep for. Lots of extra space means it gets freezer burnt pretty quickly. I use ziplock small twist n loc containers as I've found them to be the perfect size (for me at least).

jwcsanders

I do freezer meals a lot. I prep my breakfast smoothies for the week, and also freeze entire meals. As long as you get most of the air out they should keep for a couple of months. I keep stuff like taco meat and cooked beans and chicken breasts in zip lock baggies. The rest I keep in the tin pans with good heave foil on top. The pans come in different sizes and shapes so I can eliminate as much air as possible. I also "flash freeze" my fresh veggies from my garden by putting them on a metal pan in slices then once they are frozen I transfer them to a ziplock baggie.

enterdanger

I make freezer meals for the family, not just me. I've got 3 kids ages 6,4, and 4 months and work full-time. So, if I don't have a game plan for dinner everything goes to hell. Containers for freezing really depend on what I'm making.

For cooked Ground Beef and chicken breasts I store them in zip lock bags with the weight on them for easy logging. These last a month or two.

For casseroles, I make them in disposable baking tins with the cardboard top cover. That way I can write instructions for reheating since hubs cooks them when he gets home from work and he's domestically challenged. I buy these at the dollar store. I use the recipe builder in MFP so I can just weigh my portion and move on. Again, I've reheated them at 3 months old and they were fine. Favorites in our house are things like ravioli lasagna, chicken, broccoli, rice, and shepherd's pie.

Burritos - Any leftover you have to use can potentially be a burrito. You can also make and freeze breakfast burritos. My kids love bean burritos and take them to school at least once a week. Just roll it up, wrap in parchment, and wrap in tin foil. Then I put them in a big ziploc bag. They last about 3 months in the freezer.

gottagetitoff11

How do you keep them so long. I made rice and froze in ziploc and freezer burnt in 1 week.

Thanks

shaumom

It helps to get material that protects against freezer burn, but that's sometimes a bit expensive. Freezer bags from ziplock will do better than regular ziplock bags, for example. Wrapping in a layer of wax paper and then tinfoil can help sometimes, too. But sometimes...it just doesn't keep well. Things with fats or oils tend to freeze and thaw better. Like, for example, rice with cheese melted throughout will often keep better than plain rice, or potatoes mashed with a fat will keep much better than plain potatoes, that sort of thing.

getupforchange

I mostly freeze chicken for the week. I weigh the chicken before I cook it and write the weight in grams on a freezer bag or a container, line them up in the same order as the pieces of chicken on the tray and that way I know the weight of each piece without having to mess about with cutting them all into the exact same size. When done I put the bags/containers in the freezer and pick one out to defrost in the fridge overnight, every night as I prepare a salad and/or cook quinoa or whatever I have with the chicken... then I take that into work for lunch and I log the weight that's marked on the bag/container that particular chicken came from. Hope that makes sense, haha.

Queenmunchy

Yes, I cook, portion and freeze.

dfwesq

I prepare batches of food and portion it out. If it doesn't seem like I'm going to eat it all within a week or so, I freeze a few portions. The foods I freeze all have a lot of moisture - soups, stews, and beans or braised meats with a sauce - so freezer burn isn't a problem.