Freezer Meal Ideas

Athijade
Athijade Posts: 3,243 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Good morning all!

So I suffer from a few medical conditions that often make it hard for me to cook a fresh meal. Sometimes I need something that won't take a long time and little to no work. Lately that has meant me ordering in food WAY too often which has impacted my health along with my bank account. So I am trying to stop it!

Right now my freezer is full of random stuff so I am spending the next couple of weeks eating what it in there. I want to always keep space for boneless skinless chicken breasts and salmon because that is what I eat the most. However, I want to use the rest of the space for easy to make meals or prepared meals.

What I am asking for is any ideas for stuff that I can make ahead and can freeze. Or your favorite prepared items from the store that you like to keep on hand.

For example, I love Trader Joe's Chicken Pot Pies and these Chicken Skewers I get at Costco.

Replies

  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
    Right now, I have some quinoa 'n veggies in the freezer (pre-portioned servings of 1/3 of a cup - yea for silicone muffin molds - so my logging is easier).

    But you can ask the Great Wizard that is Google whether a dish is freezable. That way, you make what you already like to eat.

    Otherwise, I also recommend chili, stews, etc
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 8,956 Member
    Not necessarily in the freezer, but here's another vote for making large pots of stew, chili, spaghetti, stir fried chicken and vegetables, etc. Dedicate one day per week to cooking, and you can then nuke leftovers the rest of the week. That's what I did when I was young and working 12-16 hour days with weekends off, just mass-cook on Saturday, order pizza to relax while watching tv Sunday, then during weekdays I just pop leftovers into the microwave when I get home.
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    You may have some success looking for specifically "meal prep" recipes. If you can dedicate one day a week to batch cooking, maybe one or two days a month to BIG batch cooking, you'll fill your freezer in no time.

    I prep weekly lunches on Saturdays for myself and my husband - this weekend I'm making Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli. I pack our 2-cup glass lunch containers with a layer of mash on the bottom, topped with 2 beef patties (more like beef nuggets, they're about 160g each raw), about 1/4 cup of gravy, and about 1/3 cup of steamed broccoli (I do weigh it, just using volumetric for visualization purposes here).

    Cabbage rolls freeze well; I made a batch of those, packed them into individual servings, and froze them before we went out of town for a week. They thawed in the fridge and needed about 2 minutes in the microwave to reheat.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
    More technique than recipes, but I LOVE my silicon muffin pan to make pre-measured "freezer pucks".

    Typically, I'll make a veggie casserole or a crock pot of chili beans, stew, or soup on a weekend and then after it's cool (particularly a casserole) I'll scoop it into the silicon muffin pan and freeze. Next day, I put the recipe in MFP with a unique name ("Green Enchilada PK 06-21") and pop the "pucks" into a labelled freezer bag. Works for rice, quinoa, barley, and other grains, too.

    When I'm ready to eat, I pop out a puck or two and pop them in the microwave.

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