Over the weekend, I prepped six freezer meals in an hour. Here’s everything you need to do the same, including recipes, a grocery list, and my best freezer meal tips!
I didn’t plan on making any freezer meals this weekend, but I got a great deal on chicken and ground beef at Aldi, so I couldn’t resist. To keep things simple, I made two batches of three recipes that we planned to eat this week.
Here’s what I made…
- Two pans of brown sugar meatloaf
- Two pans of lasagna roll-ups
- Two bags of slow cooker ginger peach chicken
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE PRINTABLE RECIPES AND FULL GROCERY LIST
Since my meatloaf and chicken were frozen raw, they won’t taste like leftovers at all. And I’ve frozen my lasagna recipe many, many times and it tastes great.
If you read my recent blog posts about prepping my five favorite freezer meals and seven slow cooker freezer meals in an hour, you might be wondering what I do with all of these freezer meals.
This week, I skipped the freezer step for three of my meals and placed them directly into the refrigerator to eat for dinner over the next few days.
I’m saving the rest of my freezer meals to eat before and after we move next month. (I’m sure we’ll have a lot going on and dinner will be the last thing on my mind.) I also love having freezer meals ready to give to family members and friends. It seems like there is always someone who could use a homemade meal.
I have three young daughters, ages 4 and under, so I don’t have a lot of time to cook. I hustled in the kitchen yesterday and was able to prep all six meals in an hour, including clean-up!
The lasagna takes more time to prep than the recipes in my No Cook Freezer Meals cookbook, but I like having a mix of oven and slow cooker recipes in my freezer.
If you’re not in a rush, I would recommend taking 90 minutes to prep these recipes. Slow down, and enjoy the process!
Here are my freezer meal tips…
- Make the lasagna roll-ups first because they take the most time (about 35 minutes!).
- Assemble meatloaves. Cover with layers of plastic wrap and foil.
- Add all ingredients for ginger peach chicken to gallon-sized plastic freezer bags. Remove as much air as possible from bags and seal.
- Label all meals with “use by” date. (For meals stored in a standard freezer attached to a refrigerator, it will be 3 months from your prep day.)
- Freeze, and give yourself the rest of the day to relax (or, in my case, play with my kids!).
i’m going to have to try this! thank you!
You will love it! It’s so easy to do and saves tons of time in the long run!
Consequently mouth watering! That seems to be amazing.
What do you freeze your meals in?
I freeze slow cooker meals in gallon-sized plastic freezer bags and oven recipes in aluminum or glass casserole dishes.
where did you get those labels for the meals?
I designed them myself! 🙂 I sell them for .99 cents on this blog in my online “shop.”
Hey, love these! How do you decide your use by dates?
Just saw you said 3 months up top, is that standard for most freezer recipes, thanks so much for the great post!
Yes, for regular freezers that are attached to refrigerators! We normally can’t wait that long to eat ours, but I have some that I’ve saved much longer and were still good.
I am new to freezer meals…do you take it out to thaw at all? those that go into the oven? or I guess crockpot too??
It depends on the specific recipe, but as a general rule I thaw my crockpot meals in the refrigerator overnight and cook my oven meals straight from the freezer. Oven recipes take a long time to cook that way though, up to two hours sometimes, so you may want to thaw them too. I hope you give freezer cooking a try. It’s awesome!!