Anonymous wrote:Go to Let's Dish

Not if you enjoy food.

A few words of caution. Label everything with what it is and the date. You will think "oh I will remember what this is" but with a bit of frost, everything begins to look the same. And you will stumble across something from the back that you will have no idea how long it has been there. You can just use a marker an masking tape.

1. Chili - turkey or beef.

2. If you have time to cook it, its best to make things like lasanga and stuffed shells and freeze uncooked. Take out of freezer the night before and put in fridge. But this does require time to preheat oven and bake. But this doesn't help if you what you need are meals ready quickly after you get home (I used this when I was home earlier but wanted to spend time with my son versus in the kitchen).

2. Not a complete meal, but I cut up chicken into stir-fry pieces, and pull out and put in fridge the night before. Then I can do an easy stirfry (I also have a rice cooker with a timer).

3. Pizza sauce. Not really needed if you don't make homemade sauce. But I like homemade better for pizzas. So I make and freeze in portions. Pari with pillsbury dough, trader joes dough,etc.

Anyone have a good recipe for chicken parm that freezes well?

Beans and curries. Also soup.

PP here again. Another idea is no-cook pasta sauces. I have a book of the same name. The sauces are all very quick and easy to prepare. You can easily do the prep work the night before and just cook the pasta when you get in.

You can make stir fries in advance, sort of.

I make a few sauces at the weekend. Chop and slice meat or tofu, bag and freeze. I either use my rice cooker or use frozen rice. Sometimes I make noodles which take about 10 minutes. I also make sure I have veggies chopped and ready to go, or use a combination of frozen veg and fresh pre-cut.

Summer meals for me are usually either fish or chicken filets, which are quick to cook, along with steamed veg and herb butters (frozen) and some kind of starch (maybe rice, microwaved white or sweet potatoes or nice bread).

Taco filling -- I boil boneless chicken breasts (about 1-1.5 lbs) for 15-20 minutes and then shred. Mix it with 1 can (14 oz) petite diced tomatoes (drained), 2 small cans green chiles (about 7 oz), chile powder, cumin, salt, garlic etc to taste. You can freeze this in baggies or tupperware in meal-size portions and use it for taco or enchilada filling. Tacos would be a quicker mid-week meal as you don't need to bake it. I also add sour cream to thicken it a bit, but right before serving, I don't like to freeze the chicken with the sour cream in it.

Go to Let's Dish

I saute several pounds of ground beef/crumbled Italian sausage with chopped onions and mushrooms on the weekend. Freeze in Hefty One Zip bags.

Place chops and chicken pieces in marinade in Hefty One Zip bags, freeze, thaw in fridge 2 days before needed.

Rice dishes also - Spanish rice, biryani, fried rice.

Spanakopita
Taco filling/chili--to make it lighter than a wintertime chilli, serve with lettuce, toms, cheese, tacos & s/cream

I also keep ingredient sources that can be thrown together for quick meals in the freezer. Goat cheese freezes well, is low fat, and gets added to make a quick creamy pasta sauce. Frozen corn. Frozen peas.

Not for the freezer, but I wash and tear and dry a week's worth of lettuce and other greens on the weekend. Put it in a produce bag in the fridge with a paper towel inside. I also chop up vegetables and store in a tupperware, so I can throw a handful onto the pre-washed lettuce and voila - salad. For some reason the salad is the most time-consuming part of my meal prep.

Any kind of soup/stew but don't include pasta as it will sop up all the liquid and get soggy. So minestrone without pasta (add in when you reheat), chili, beef stew, etc. Also pasta casseroles like baked ziti or lasagna. Did one with chicken/pesto that worked pretty well.

Would like some ideas for freezer meals that are NOT soup/stew/casseroles as that's all I can think of for myself and I can't imagine wanting to eat such hearty food all throughout the spring/summer.

Trying to start planning ahead for meals and I would like to start making some meals on weekends and freezing them to use/defrost through the weeks. Any suggestions for easy meals that you can make ahead and that freeze well?