Care to share any easy food dishes (including soup) that you can freeze?

Do you want recipes or suggestions for things that freeze well?

If you like meatloaf, you can easily freeze it in small portions. Just find your favorite meatloaf recipe (I like the recipe on the Lipton Onion Soup mix) and shape it into several small meatloaves instead of one big one. They will cook faster than a large meatloaf, maybe in 20 or 30 minutes instead of an hour. For the more health-conscious, you can find a meatloaf recipe made with ground turkey.

If you have ramekins, you can make single-serving size chicken or turkey pot pies. Bake as usual, then freeze. Meatballs freeze well, and so does cooked chicken. You can cook and shred boneless chicken breast meat, then freeze it in small batches. Thaw and use to make soup, chicken salad, casseroles, or anything else calling for cooked chicken.

Let me know if you want specific recipes!

@JilltheTooth Both! :)

OK. It’ll take me awhile to put together a package for you, but I’ll start with a few tips. Invest in some short, square plastic containers (generic are cheaper and as good as Glad or Ziploc). They are perfect for single servings of lasagna. Other sizes, other shapes also a good idea for soup, meatloaf, mac n cheese. You can get ones that are sectioned for full on homemade TV dinner type things. I guess you probably know all this, huh. Rule of thumb, 2 cups for soup, one cup for spaghetti sauce. Is this too much stupid information? Have you done the “freeze enough food so I don’t have to cook for a month” thing before?

I freeze spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce and lasagna (all made from the same batch of tomato sauce), stew and Shepard’s pie. When I have a minute I’ll post the recipe for Shepard’s pie.

@JilltheTooth lurve you!

Thanks, everyone!

Here’s a good site in which vegetable soup, taco meat and turkey are discussed (with recipes and ideas for freezing) I think I read somewhere that soups containing milk or cream do not feeze well, because the texture changes so much. Also, I’ve read (just while doing research for this question) that pasta and rice in soups does not freeze well, and that you should add them after you warm up the broth to eat it. On the other hand barley does quite well.

You can also freeze most herbs. You will want to wash and dry them first, then chop finely and then mix with a little bit of olive oil (or you can chop and mix in your blender) then pour the mixture into ice cube trays and freeze. After the cubes are frozen, take them out and put the cubes into a freezer bag. Then you can just pop them out as you need them for soups, stews and pasta dishes. This is a good way to be able to use a bunch of herbs and not let them go to waste.

Here’s a yummy sounding recipe for home made tomato sauce that can be frozen. Or, if you don’t want to make your own sauce, you can buy a big jar of your favorite sauce at Costco, and pour it into individual freezer containers. Then you can pull some out to make pizza, and pasta.

I saw in one of my cooking magazines that you can freeze stuff in freezer bags flat in your freezer, so that they take up a lot less room (the bag will be flat and thin instead of some weird bulkier shape) and then you can store them stacked flat, upright in a plastic, open front file holder with little tabs sticking out so you can easily see that you’ve got soup, sauce, chile or whatever. Make sure you write on them with sharpie so you can easily tell what you’ve got.

I just found another site where the chef gives very good advice about which things will freeze well and which ones won’t here. She had some great ideas and techniques for freezing burritos, lasagne and a crock-pot style pulled burrito meat that sounded worthy.

Lasagna freezes well in single portions.

Cook a roast beef or boneless ham, then slice into thin slices, put several slices in baggies. They are great for sandwiches when thawed out in the microwave.

When I find chicken breasts on sale, I buy a lot. Like twelve or twenty at a time. I cook them, wrap individually and freeze.

—Heat a skillet to high
—Pour in a little oil and salt liberally
—Add minced garlic if you want
—Saute the chicken breasts
—A wire splatter guard on the top is helpful
—Cool cooked breasts on a plate
—Wrap individual pieces and freeze

Move pieces to the fridge to thaw a day before you want to eat them

enchiladas- make the to the point you have them rolled an in a pan; then freeze. When you go to cook them, take right from the freezer, pour room temp sauce over them and cook for an extra twenty minutes to thaw.

Hamburger and gravy freeze well, then you can take it out and pour it over mashed potatoes or rice! It doesn’t take a whole lot, cook hamburger with your fav. spices, fix packets of gravy in the same pan, and presto! It is one of my favorites….. Mmmmm, /drools

Loaf Bread freezes well and always taste fresh whin thawed.

Baked macaroni and cheese freezes well. I like to throw a lot of vegetables in mine – broccoli, endamame, peas and corn are good (I don’t mean use all of them in the same batch, though I guess you could). Regular mac-and-cheese probably also works, come to think of it. Nuke it and then throw some crunchy goodies on top when you’re ready to eat.