Over the weekend, on the Simply Frugal Facebook page, I was talking about trying to get dinner time under control around these parts. Between waking up at 4am on workdays, working at the golf course all day, coming home to work on Simply Frugal, and trying to be in bed by 8pm, I was having troubles with finding energy or the time to make a decent dinner! (I really do love my life despite my whining! :)) I thought a freezer cooking day would be a great start to get things under control.
I asked the wonderful readers of the Simply Frugal Facebook page for some of their favourite meals to freeze. As usual, they did not disappoint! Armed with all the suggestions, I set to making a list of meals that I could do in an afternoon. I mainly concentrated on coming up with the main course (meat dishes) as I find it easy to whip up a salad, cut up some vegetables or put on some rice to go along with the protein part of dinner.
My Mom came over to help me kicking and screaming happily, which was, I think, a large part of me feeling so successful at the end!
Here are the recipes we made yesterday:
- Chicken Satay x2
- Peanutty Asian Wraps x1
- Meatballs (about 4 meals)
- Teriyaki Chicken x1
- Cheesy Beef & Rice x2
- Freezer Mashed Potatoes (obviously not a main dish)
- Mesquite Chicken Pasta x1
- Gyoza (actually bought from Costco, but I divided them into three bags for appy nights)
Here’s how I made these into freezer meals:
- The Chicken Satay: I (my mom) cut up chicken into 1 inch(ish) chunks. I placed a bunch of chicken into a freezer bag, then poured the sauce over top. (I also used chicken instead of pork)
- Peanutty Asian Wraps: Cooked the turkey, added carrots, then added all the sauce ingredients while still cooking. Once finished cooking, I placed into a freezer bag.
- Meatballs: Put all the ingredients into my Kitchenaid mixer. My Mom polled them into balls, then placed on a cookie sheet for freezing. (I’ll later put them into freezer bags)
- Teriyaki chicken: Cut 3 chicken breast in half, then placed them into a freezer bag. Poured the sauce ingredients over top, omitting the corn starch
- Cheesy Beef and Rice: I followed the steps in the recipe
- Freezer mashed potatoes: I followed the steps in the recipe
- Mesquite Chicken Pasta: For this I only added the mesquite marinade and some ground pepper to a freezer bag with cut up chicken. I’ll add the cream, bacon, pasta and other ingredients when I cook it up.
Here are some tips I discovered that made the afternoon a breeze:
- Start with a clean kitchen
- Start cooking the things that will be the most time consuming. For me it was the ground beef, ground turkey and brown rice. I found I was excited to get going at first then started to wear down at the end and was glad to have only chicken and sauces to cut and create.
- Have a sink full of soapy water to wash dishes as you go along.
- Have a helper! My Mom was an absolutely amazing asset. As I cooked, she washed dishes. As I made sauces, she cut chicken. I must add, it was great to spend the time with her and have some fun conversations!
- Have enough freezer bags/freezer pans on hand. I did, so no last minute trips to the store!
- Only make 1 of each meal if you’ve never tried the recipe before. You don’t want to have some meals sitting in your freezer for ever because you weren’t impressed with the first one. I doubled up on the recipes I knew we loved and would use quickly.
- Label your meals with the date, the meal name, and cooking instructions.
- Try to freeze your bagged meals flat. My Mom suggested I lay the bagged meals on a cookie sheet so they lay flat. Once they’re frozen, I can stack them easily so they take up less space!
Here are some pictures of all the dishes we prepared:
All the chicken meals and the Gyozas Cheesy Beef & Rice and a package of plain ground beef to throw into sauces Freezer mashed potatoes Meatballs! The ground turkey and carrots and sauce for Peanutty Asian lettuce wrapsFinally, here’s the cost break down for everything I bought:
Chicken: $16 (not on sale…expensive, included 9 chicken breasts)
Ground beef: $8 (not on sale, again expensive)
Ground turkey: $5 (not on sale)
Mesquite marinade: $3.60 (not on sale)
Cream cheese: $2.48
Sour cream: $2.19
Everything else I had on hand, so the costs for those ingredients were very minimal.
Total: under $40 for the main part of 11 meals. Not bad!
The gyozas from Costco were $6 (and something) and I didn’t include them into the total cost.
Have you ever done any freezer cooking? Have you got any tips to share? I hope this post will help out a bit. I’ve got to say this was my first time really doing some freezer cooking!
this is a very old post, but i have a question about the teriyaki chicken. You said you omit the cornstarch if you are going to do it as a freezer meal. Do you not add it the day of cooking at all? Doesn’t that change the taste of the recipe a bit? I am assuming it used to thicken the sauce a bit correct?
make the most of the ‘sunday dinner’ – go big and stretch it to 2-3 meals. For example – Roast Beef do the biggest one your budget & time allow for, cook, slice, eat – yum. Slice up the whole thing, make lots of gravy, put the extra slices in meals portions for a quick cook night and cover with gravy. Also we make again as much veggies as possible, so we can turn the carrots and potatoes in awesome roast veggie soup by just adding chicken broth and pureeing, great flavour from the roasting, plus it can be frozen. Sometimes I use some of the roast beef and veggies and make a stew for the freezer, dump it all in a big ziplock bag or a crockpot shaped container with some broth and freeze, super easy. We do roast one week and then switch to chicken for the next, for chicken we usually roast 2 chickens to get leftovers, sandwichs for lunch during the week, some soup veggie with or with out chicken and sometime chicken pot pie. We have teens so they can plow through chicken. In the summer the we switch to grilled veggies with couscus for lunch cold salads, the chicken and beef leftovers get used in salads, fahita etc.
THANK YOU!!! I have been looking for creative and easy freezer meals!
I absolutely adore this website!
My question is do you cook the chicken before freezing it?
Hi Amber, no, I don’t cook the chicken before I freeze it. Makes it a breeze to prepare!
Cool! How can I get those recipes? Is this what you were emailing people? I didn’t get a chance to email you , would you mind?? Thanks!
I have done freezer meals before and it is the greatest thing. This Saturday I am hosting The Big Cook at my house there are 8 of us and we decided to choose two recipes and we are making enough for 8 meals so we will all be going home with lots of great freezer meals. We are all busy moms so it is going to be great!!! I find it helpful as I have a very busy family with 4 kids!!!
This posts give me inspiration to make more freezer meals. I did it before I had my daughter, but I haven’t done it since and I really really should start again! It would make life so much easier after a long day at work.
Good Job!! I found that I could do sporadic freezer meals as I went along with my meal planning. Meaning I would make big batches of supper items and freeze those as well. For example, Make a huge batch of cabbage rolls and freeze the extras. Make a big pot of spaghetti sauce, divide in half and make chili from the one half and freeze for another meal. I did the same for beef stew. Frying extra ground beef to defrost for meals is a great idea as well..there are so many options to make from it enchiladas, taco night, shepherd’s pie, beef noodle casserole.
Love to see posts like this, and I enjoy your blog!
In the winter one day a month making soup, chili etc and freezing them in individual plastic containers so we have lunches ready at hand.
I also used to buy the individual tin foil with cardboard lids and make a few casseroles and divide them amongst the individual servings and freeze.
My favorite thing to do is just cook a couple of warehouse packs of ground beef (with onions, garlic etc) and freeze in about 375g portions. Then when I want to make tacos, shepherds pie, meat sauce, sloppy joes, chili etc etc, half the work is done. I do a lot of freezer cooking since there is only my daughter and I in our family.
Good for you!! I’ve always wanted to do this but I hate cooking, so the thought of cooking ALL DAY just doesn’t help! lol!! I do cook 98% from scratch, so it’s not that I can’t… It’s just doing it. 😉
This is inspiring! Thank you 🙂