The Ultimate Freezer Meal List

 

There hasn’t been a blog post in a little while because our sweet baby girl was born last week! Juliette Elizabeth Dieterich was born on October 26th at 6:57am weighing 7 lbs. 3 oz. and measuring 20 inches long. We are all doing well and smitten with our sweet new addition. Of course, adding a baby always adds a little bit of stress (and exhaustion) as the whole family finds a new balance, but I’m so glad that I don’t have to worry about dinners as additional stress for a few weeks since I made plenty of freezer meals while I was pregnant!

Before Lleyton was born, I did a LOT of freezer meals. I don’t think I cooked dinner for a month after he was born. Between our wonderful friends bringing meals, and the freezer meals I made, we were set. The problem was that everything I made was a freezer to crockpot meal, and not all of them were good. By the end of the month, we were sick of them. I also didn’t make anything for breakfast or snacks. Dinner is an important meal to plan for, but it’s not the only time of day that we need to eat! I want to share with you all the recipes that I have in my freezer, but first I want to share some tips before you make your own batch of freezer meals. Even if you aren’t pregnant, we all have busy nights and weeks and it’s good to have a few healthy options in the freezer to serve when you don’t have time to cook.

Freezer Meal Tips:

1. Plan for more than just dinner. Breakfast burritos, muffins, egg muffins, breakfast sandwiches, muffins, waffles, pancakes, and cookies are all great options to make for breakfast or snacks throughout the day.
2. Don’t plan to use just one appliance to cook the meals. Chances are, if all your meals are crock pot meals, you’ll be bored with them. Also, what if that appliance breaks? When Easton was born, our crock pot broke. One day, it just completely stopped working. Even though this doesn’t sound like a big deal, when I have a newborn strapped to me in a baby carrier, a toddler who wants my attention, and about 10 minutes to get dinner cooking, it can be a big deal. Thankfully Crock Pot has amazing customer service and my appliance was replaced and upgraded free of charge, but if we only had Crock Pot meals planned for the week, I would have had to redo my meal plan.
3. Only make meals that sound good to you. This may seem obvious, but no matter how much someone raves about a meal, if it doesn’t sound like something that you would enjoy, then don’t make it.
4. Consider when you’ll eat these meals. A lot of freezer meals are soups and stews because they are easy to prep, store, and cook. If you’re planning to eat these meals in the summer, you may want to choose things like enchiladas, meatballs, or meat that can be put into tacos, put on top of salads, etc.
5. Consider your space. The most space-saving options for meals are ones that can be put into gallon-sized freezer bags and frozen flat. Typically these are meals that will be cooked in your Crock Pot or Instant Pot. Items that need to be baked can be prepped in disposable aluminum pans or glass dishes if you have them. Think about the space you have before you make too many options for the oven because they do take up more space. Also on this point, don’t add water or broth to the meal before freezing. You can see in the pictures if the recipe needs water or broth added for cooking. There’s no need to add those liquids before freezing because they just take up space!

Freezer Meal Recipes:

And now for the list of recipes! Making freezer meals is a form of nesting for me, and I could go on and on cooking if we had the space for more meals! We will definitely be investing in a small deep freezer for the garage soon.

Breakfast/Snacks: 

• Egg sausage casseroles from The Pioneer Woman. These look and smell amazing! The recipe says that it makes 18, but mine made 24. I may need a new muffin tin, but be aware that these did stick a little bit for me so make sure you don’t overfill the pan and use nonstick cooking spray.
• Banana almond butter muffins by me! This is one of the most popular recipes on the blog and with good reason. Naturally sweetened, made with Greek yogurt instead of butter, and using whole wheat flour and oats, you’re looking at a healthy breakfast or snack anytime during the day or middle of the night. They freeze really well and won’t last long.
• Multigrain waffles from Sprouted Kitchen. Whether you enjoy these for breakfast or as an afternoon snack spread with your favorite nut butter, they are delicious. Freeze them with wax paper in between the waffles so they don’t stick.
• Pancakes. My favorite recipe for pancakes is the vegan multigrain pancakes from The First Mess cookbook. But this recipe also looks great! Like with the waffles, freeze with wax paper in between them.
• Cookies. Everyone should have cookies in their freezer. I like to keep the dough for these chocolate chip cookies from Hip Foodie Mom in my freezer at all times. That way I can bake a cookie or two whenever I want one! If you plan on nursing, or just don’t want to share cookies, my favorite lactation cookies are from How Sweet Eats. I freeze these after baking them, but you can always freeze the dough by itself too.
• Breakfast burritos and/or sandwiches. I don’t have a recipe written down for these, but they are so easy! For the burritos, I scramble 18 eggs, brown 2 lbs. of sausage, and mix it with 2 cups of shredded Mexican cheese blend. I distribute it between 12-14 tortillas, wrap them up in foil, and pop in the freezer. For the breakfast sandwiches, I use English muffins, eggs, bacon or ham, and a slice of cheese. I crack the eggs into a large muffin tin and bake them until cooked. They’re the perfect size circle to put on an English muffin. If you’re using bacon, you’ll need to cook it before putting it on the sandwich. If you’re using ham you can just add a slice or two. Wrap in foil, and freeze. Both the burritos and sandwiches can be removed from the foil and thawed in the microwave.

Dinner: 

• Freezer meals from Pinch of Yum. Lindsey Ostrom is one of my favorite food bloggers and this freezer meal list is a great place to start for dinners. I made the beef stew, wild rice soup, sweet potato peanut stew, detox lentil soup, and chicken meatballs, but they all look fantastic!
• Chicken and white bean enchiladas from Skinnytaste. These may be my favorite enchiladas ever! I have all of the Skinnytaste cookbooks and also love the recipes from her blog. I made these in a disposable aluminum pan for easy cleanup, covered them with a double layer of plastic wrap and then aluminum foil to prevent freezer burn.
• Buffalo chicken chili from How Sweet Eats. This recipe had a lot of ingredients to stuff into a gallon-sized bag! But it was the one recipe that Kevin requested as a freezer meal and I was happy to oblige.
• Chicken and dumplings from At Home with Natalie. This has always been one of our favorite recipes. Freeze it without the biscuits and add those just before cooking!
• Healthy zuppa Toscana from 40 Aprons. A friend recommended this recipe to me recently and it’s a great recipe. Dairy doesn’t always freeze well, but because this soup has both the option of using raw cashews or coconut milk you don’t have to worry about that! I freeze it without the broth or kale and add those in when I’m cooking it.
• Tomato and squash soup from Molly Yeh’s cookbook, Molly on the Range. In this post I’ve tried to share mostly recipes that can be found online instead of in cookbooks so you can reference them easily, but this soup is just too good not to share. I love the addition of butternut squash and the boys devoured it the first time I made it.
• Sweet and sour meatballs from Moms on Timeout. Meatballs are one of my favorite freezer meals. This sweet and sour version is a fun twist on the traditional meatballs and marinara.
• Chicken tetrazzini from The Pioneer Woman. The Pioneer Woman’s recipes make enormous casseroles and aren’t exactly healthy, but the are cozy and indulgent and delicous. We love this recipe!
• Baked ziti from The Pioneer Woman. This is the best baked ziti recipe I’ve ever had. As in the recipe above, it makes a large batch. But it’s delicous and great with a green salad!
• Minestrone Soup from Hip Foodie Mom. There are a lot of different minestrone options out there, but Hip Foodie Mom has never failed me. We love this recipe!

And there you have it! There are so many options out there for freezer meals, but I feel good about the mix of breakfast and dinner recipes we have. I’m also glad we have a variety of meals that go into the Crock Pot or Instant Pot, oven, or are completely cooked and just need to thaw. Of course, any of the dinner meals can also become lunch or you can serve leftovers for lunch. Once we get our deep freezer, I plan to keep a few dinner options in the freezer at all times. Kids get sick, parents have long days, and there are days where I just don’t feel like cooking (yes, it even happens to food bloggers). Take advantage of the time you have when you have it to whip up meals to make life easier!