13 freezer meals you’ll actually be excited to eat!
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I have just about 2 months left until this sweet baby in my belly makes us a family (or party) of 5. And one of the best things that I have found to prepare for the baby ahead of time is to make lots and lots of food.
It’s usually right around this point in my pregnancy when I start planning which freezer meals I want to put together and stock our freezer with. AND it also just happens to be fall, which is prime crock pot season, so of course there are some crock pot meals on this list as well.
Now if I’m being honest, even though I always make at least 15-20 meals before each baby for my freezer, I have not necessarily loved all the meals, and have left a couple in there far too long in avoidance.
So this time around I was bound and determined to come up with a list of meals that I would look forward to eating, thus not to waste any. So this is my list of meals that I’ve come up with that I actually WANT to eat each and every one of them.
Freezer cooking tips:
- Take a day and invite some friends over for a freezer meal party! Put on some good tunes, pour some wine (for the non pregnant friends :-p), and bag some freezer meals.
- Keep the meals “zero waste” friendly with some reusable gallon silicone freezer bags , and glass jars for soups. Yes, you can freeze in glass jars, just make sure that you leave space at the top of the jar to allow for expansion. You can also use glass pyrex dishes for casseroles and all that jazz.
- If some of these meals don’t float your boat, don’t make them! Keep your freezer meals to meals you KNOW that you’ll love so that when it’s going to be a hard day, or you know you’ll be too tired to cook, you can excitedly pull something out that you look forward to eating. Now is not the time to get fancy with your freezer meals.
- Double up each of these recipes and you have 26 freezer meals!
Soups
- Chicken soup– Cook chicken soup, half of it for dinner tonight, and put the rest of it in your freezer container. I truly believe that soup gets better with time. When you are ready to eat it, take it out to thaw and then heat up on stove.
- White bean, potato, sausage and kale soup. This is probably my most favorite soup on the planet. I would cook a big batch and freeze the rest…even though it would be super hard to not just eat the whole thing.
- Sausage spinach tomato soup – this looks amazing and even though I haven’t tried it, I love every single ingredient in it and can’t imagine for one second it would taste anything but amazing.
- Chili– brown the meat first and then throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker with browned meat. Freeze leftovers. Thaw and heat on stove when ready to eat.
Roasts
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have been questing for far too long to get the “perfect” pot roast in my slow cooker. Why can’t I make just one tender pot roast? These recipes are classic, and are fool proof enough, even for me :-p
Put the raw ingredients in a freezer bag to freeze for another day, or put the ingredients directly into the crockpot for dinner that night.
Pasta
- Spaghetti sauce – cook your favorite sauce and freeze in glass jars to heat up when you need a quick and delicious meal.
- Lasagna – everyone has their favorite lasagna recipe, right? Cook and freeze in pyrex pans. Thaw and pop in oven at when ready to eat.
And more…
- Shepard pie– Try this recipe, or make your own favorite shepard pie recipe and freeze in pyrex dishes.
- Chicken and broccoli– I recently made this recipe in my crock pot and my literal only regret was that I did not double the recipe. It was so delicious. I would assemble the chicken and marinade (raw) in the silicone freezer bag, and keep the broccoli separate to add when the recipe says to incorporate the broccoli. Quickly cook up some rice to put the chicken and broccoli over.
- Salsa verde chicken– this is impossibly easy to make, and goes really well over a big entree salad, or even over rice.
- Frozen homemade pizzas– This is the pizza dough recipe I use in my bread maker. I would make the dough, and then freeze them in the reusable freezer bags . Once the dough is made, cooking pizza is a super quick meal.
What are some of your favorite freezer meals? Could you share a link to a recipe in the comments below?
