what's your favorite freezer meal?

[gghmommy]

I made some from pinterest before baby was born and am looking for round 2! would love for you to include link/recipe and if you altered it in any way, how you prefer to store freezer meals, any tips for the newbie! thanks

So far, my favorite is chicken pot pie - can't find the link~ will edit later as the babe is ready to eat yet again!

Here's the recipe, I can't find the link, but this is saved on the computer. It's for 3 pies and I use my own cream of substutute and frozen peas and it's great. If it's still a little frozen, it just takes longer to bake and I leave foil on top loosely until the last 15 or so minutes.

Chicken Pot Pies:
• Preheat Oven to 400 degrees
• Wash & Trim ALL the Chicken Breasts. Put (6) Breasts in a pot of water on the stove and cook on med-medhigh heat for about 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Put all other uncooked chicken in the fridge until later.
• While the Chicken is cooking…Wash and set aside (3) of the potatoes. Next, chop vegetables for chicken pot pie: (3) Onions, (6) Carrots, (6) Celery Stalks and (3) Small Potatoes. Put aside 1/8 cup chopped onion for another recipe. Melt (4) tablespoons butter in large sauce pot and add all chopped vegetables EXCEPT potatoes.
Chicken Pot Pie all wrapped up
• While the veggies are sautéing, shred the cooked chicken breast with two forks and set aside. Add Chicken Broth (42oz) & diced Potato to pot with sautéed veggies after about 5 minutes and let simmer over med-med high heat until reduced by half.
• Remove pre-made pie crust from fridge. It will need to sit for (10) minutes before placing in round foil pans.
• After the Chicken Broth has reduced by half with the veggies- stir in shredded chicken, 3 cans peas and 3 cans cream of chicken.
• Line each of the (3) foil round pans with a pie crust. Evenly distribute chicken/veg mixture into each pie pan. Top each with remaining pie crust. Pinch sides of each together using your fingers or a fork. Cut 2-3 vents in the top using a sharp knife. WRAP WELL with plastic wrap. Using a permanent market- write on each one “Chicken Pot Pie, the date and 350 degrees 45 minutes” *or until golden and bubbly. Place in Freezer.

[lilysmom2011]

Any kind of soup or chili freezes well. I bought a lot of chicken breasts when they were on sale. I made up freezer bags of different slow cooker bags that were ready to be dumped into the slow cooker for quick and easy dinners (eg. Chicken cacciatore). I also marinated some of the breasts for easy chicken dinners. I also bought some steak and cut it into strips for stir fry. I marinated and froze them too.

[mama_to_DJM]

One of my absolute favorites is Taco Stuffed Pasta Shells. I have made them many times, and they're great both fresh and after freezing. This link has all my instructions & comments on it.

[MDever]

subbing

[mebl0901]

I've done lots of soups and chilis like a previous poster stated. Family favorites are taco soup, vegetable beef, and lentil sausage. Those all freeze well. My in-laws do some really good lasagna that freezes well. They make huge batches and send us a few. It's also nice to make up a batch of spaghetti sauce and seperate into portions and freeze them. Just thaw, heat, and cook noodles and supper's ready. Chicken spaghetti freezes well. I've done several different pasta dishes that way as well as rice dishes. I haven't done it but I would think that a spin on stuffed peppers would be good - instead of stuffing the peppers, just chop the bell pepper and mix in with everything else and then thaw, heat, and serve.

Are you on pinterest? There are TONS of ideas there.

HTH!

[Kshoo Design]

Soups and any chicken meals

[Mama*Kim]

We seem to have the most success freezing ingredients, sauces and soups rather than whole meals and casseroles. We never seem to eat the frozen meals/casseroles. I like to stock up on meats when I get good deals (sales, bulk, clearance, etc). For chicken, I either cut it up and add a marinade, so that it self marinades while it thaws, or I boil and shred it. Either way reduces prep time a ton. If I find a good deal on ground meats, I make small meatloafs (freeze it raw, it will bake fine from frozen), meatballs, or just brown and freeze. I make things like spaghetti sauce in huge batches and freeze in smaller portions. I can generally whip out a quick spaghetti and meatballs dinner in the time it takes to boil noodles using stuff from the freezer that's all homemade.

The other thing I've found about stocking up and portioning meats is that we eat less in a sitting. For example, ground beef or turkey at the store I shop at is packaged with 1.25lbs. When I portion it, I only put about .75lbs in a package. We end up eating less meat which is good for DH's high cholesterol, saves money, and encourages me to bulk meals up with more veggies.

[Hungry Caterpillar]

Originally Posted by Mama*Kim We seem to have the most success freezing ingredients, sauces and soups rather than whole meals and casseroles. We never seem to eat the frozen meals/casseroles. I like to stock up on meats when I get good deals (sales, bulk, clearance, etc). For chicken, I either cut it up and add a marinade, so that it self marinades while it thaws, or I boil and shred it. Either way reduces prep time a ton. If I find a good deal on ground meats, I make small meatloafs (freeze it raw, it will bake fine from frozen), meatballs, or just brown and freeze. I make things like spaghetti sauce in huge batches and freeze in smaller portions. I can generally whip out a quick spaghetti and meatballs dinner in the time it takes to boil noodles using stuff from the freezer that's all homemade. The other thing I've found about stocking up and portioning meats is that we eat less in a sitting. For example, ground beef or turkey at the store I shop at is packaged with 1.25lbs. When I portion it, I only put about .75lbs in a package. We end up eating less meat which is good for DH's high cholesterol, saves money, and encourages me to bulk meals up with more veggies.

Shannon, how do you freeze the meat? Do you vaccuum pack? I have a freezer burn problem with both raw and cooked/drained ground meat.

[Mama*Kim]

When freezing with marinades, the liquid of the marinade coats the meat and minimizes freezer burn. For cooked meats, I spread them on a sheet pan and put them in the deep freezer to freeze very quickly. Then they get broken apart and split into bags, I squeeze out as much air as possible. I store multiple small bags inside one large bag to insulate it more and keep all the packages together. Raw meats can be "ice glazed" to minimize freezer burn. I rarely do this, but its pretty effective. Put the unwrapped raw meats in a deep freezer for a few hours so the outside is iced up, dunk the individual pieces into cold water (or spritz with a spray bottle of water) and freeze again. This will cause a layer of ice on the outside of the meat that will reduce freezer burn. Then I package everything up. I usually only do this if I buy a ton of something and won't likely use it in the next few months.

[Palooka]

It's not a whole meal, but I make several mini-meatloaves, cook and freeze them. This is my favorite meatloaf recipe, because it uses dried fruit and fruit preserves for sweetness instead of ketchup.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/fo...ed-Fruit-15538

When I bake these I skip the glazing step so they don't stick to the freezer bag, and instead I mix a little apricot and mustard to coat the loaves when I'm ready reheat in the oven.