It always sounds like such a good idea to make freezer meals, right? Everyone makes it sounds so easy when they say things like,
“Oh, just double it up the next time you make lasagna and save the extra one in the freezer!”
But what about meals other than the obvious; lasagna, soup, etc.?
Can you freeze ALL the meals?
Can you freeze your favorite casserole? Your favorite sheet pan meal?
And if the answer is yes, then… how? Do you just wrap up the ingredients and throw them in the freezer? Do you cook it first?
Once you start getting down to the nitty gritty, freezing meals beings up a lot more questions than it answers.
So today, I’m sharing with you a handful of my best freezer meal tips. These are the tips that WILL help you figure out if you really can freeze that casserole, or if it’s worth it to freeze something before it’s cooked or after it’s cooked.
- Break it down into components
I call this tip my “DIY Meal Kit” tip, and here’s why: you know those delivery meal kit services, like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh? They deliver “dinner” to your door, but they send you juuuuuust the ingredients you’ll need to cook the accompanying recipes cards- no more, no less. Sometimes, they even prep the ingredient for you too. They’ll send chopped carrots or squeezed lemon juice instead of a whole carrot and a lemon.
Guess what? You can do the same in your own kitchen! Here’s how:
Take your favorite dinner, break it down into its prepped parts, and freeze the prepped parts separately, together, instead of a fully prepared meal.
My favorite way to “show” how this works is by using a chicken enchilada recipe as an example. Chicken enchiladas are delicious, right? Once prepared, they actually do freeze pretty well. But to make this chicken enchilada into a DIY Meal Kit, you first break it down into the components of the recipe:
- Shredded chicken and other fillings, like black beans
- Tortillas
- Enchilada sauce
- Shredded cheese
Instead of preparing a whole pan of chicken enchiladas, wrapping the pan, and freezing it, I recommend storing the components as a DIY Meal Kit. It’ll freeze better, it’ll thaw faster, you can pull from the prepared storage containers beforehand if you find yourself stuck without, say, cheese for another recipe, and it saves more space in the freezer. Plus, DIY Meal Kits make for great “oh crap, what are we gonna eat tonight!?” backup meals.
Related Post: Here’s What You Need to Know About Batch Cooking Sheet Pan Meals
- Don’t freeze high moisture foods
This is the golden rule of freezer prep. High moisture foods include ingredients that have a moisture content that means once they’ve been frozen and thawed, they’re a soggy, tasteless mess. Think: lettuce, cucumbers, mushrooms.
If you DO want to freeze high moisture foods, think of how you can reduce the amount of liquid in them before they hit the freezer. Moisture can be drawn out from the ingredients in two ways: by cooking, or by exposing the ingredient to air so it dries out.
For example, say you want to freeze some cucumbers that are starting to go bad. By slicing the cucumber in half and scooping out the seeds, you reduce the amount of moisture from the cucumber, making slices of cucumber easier to freeze and still retain flavor once it’s been thawed.
Here’s how:
- First, scoop out the inside seeds with a spoon
- Then, slice the remaining cuke into slices about 1/2 inch thick.
- Lay the cucumber slices on a sheet pan and freeze til solid
- Once solid, transfer the slices to a freezer-safe baggie for space saving.
Frozen cucumber slices are rockin’ in cocktails or a water bottle when it’s hot outside — and you’ve just saved yourself from tossing soft cukes in the trash.
- Plan ahead by considering the final cooking method
One of my favorite “tricks” in meal prepping for the Instant Pot or slow cooker is to prep and freeze meals in round containers.
Oftentimes, you’ll see recommendations for prepped meals going into freezer-safe sealed reusable or disposable bags, or even disposable tins or resealable containers of any size.
But think about the thawing and process of getting those prepped and frozen meals into a slow cooker or Instant Pot. If the meal is frozen in any shape other than something round, you’ll have to thaw the meal first, then transfer it to the slow cooker or Instant Pot- which takes time. And we’re prepping stuff ahead of time in order to save time, right!?
By planning ahead and using round containers to freeze, if you know you’ll be moving this prepped meal into an Instant Pot or slow cooker to finish cooking, you’re saving Future You just a little more time in the kitchen. And when you’re busy, even saving 15 minutes to mostly thaw a prepped meal can feel like you’re saving twice as much time.
And those are my three favorite tips. I hope these help you feel a little more confident when you’re rocking freezer meal prep in your kitchen; now get out there and prep some freezer meals!
Ruthy Kirwan is a recipe tester, developer, and cooking instructor living in New York City.
In 2016, Ruthy created the website ‘Percolate Kitchen’ to be a digital kitchen resource for busy people. Sharing simple and quick recipes, how-to’s and guides, and meal prep for the everday family, she has built a loyal following of busy parents who want calmer weeknights. Her weekly newsletter is full of actionable tips, recipes, foodie links from around the web, kitchen ‘hacks’ and more.
You can find out more at percolatekitchen.com
