Should you freeze food uncooked or cooked?

These are such good ideas! Thank you very much!

PPs - care to share the recipes for the french toast casserole and chicken corn chowder?

We love preparing and freezing a French toast casserole for breakfast. Defrost the day before. Bake for an hour the morning of. First person up can just throw it in the oven.

Honestly my DH and I freeze absolutely everything. We never have that icky freezer burn taste that I remember as a kid. I think freezers have gotten a lot better. We freeze a lot in glass cookware and a lot in plastic baggies (not even the freezer baggies, jut the regular kind works great).

I always have soup in the freezer. Butternut squash and chicken corn chowder are our favorites.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, PPs! Another question: have you ever baked holiday cookies and then froze them so you have dessert ready too? Do you just bake, cool, and then throw in ziploc bag and then freeze? I need to get much more freezer-smart! TIA!

Yes. Cupcakes and brownie bites freeze well too.

NP here, I have frozen cookie dough, not already-baked cookies, and it works really well.
Make a batch of cookie dough and portion it out (I use silpats) and stick it in the freezer. When the little balls are frozen solid, pop them all in a big ziploc bag with baking instructions.
OR, for sugar/roll-out cookies, I just freeze a big ol' hunk of dough. Defrost in the fridge, then roll out and bake as normal.
Benefits and drawbacks for both. You can always pull out a couple of each kind of cookie for nightly dessert-baking (thus, mom can have chocolate chip and FIL can have GF peanut butter... or whatever).
If there are kids of a reasonable age, rolling out and decorating cookies can be a fun activity... and with the dough pre-made most of the mess/cleanup is eliminated.

Thank you, PPs! Another question: have you ever baked holiday cookies and then froze them so you have dessert ready too? Do you just bake, cool, and then throw in ziploc bag and then freeze? I need to get much more freezer-smart! TIA!

Go to allrecipes.com

Type in Make-ahead

I line dish with foil and bake dish and then let cool overnight. I then put entire thing (dish + foil + cooked meal) into freezer. Once solid (I usually wait until next night) I pull out the foil + cooked meal and pop into a zip loc.

When you want to reheat, it fits into pan and you stick into oven.

Lasagne is a natural for what you want, and you can do different variations, so there are different "flavors". There is a great roasted vegetable lasagne that tastes nothing like the meal + red sauce lasagne. And I've made an onion, fontina, and parsley lasagne that has very different tastes too.

Another dish that reheats really well is enchiladas.

If your family likes meatloaf, that's a thought?

Finally, I love my crock pot. You can do soups and come home to a lovely smelling house, beef brisket, pulled pork, chili. If you selected the recipes ahead, you could buy the cuts of meat, mark them, and pull them out the day before slow cooking them.

Pulled meat of any kind--I have houseguests right now, and have a slow-cooked buffalo roast with veggies in my freezer, that I will serve on top of cheesy polenta.

Chicken cacciatore. Serve with finish-in-the-oven bread (the kind in the packet that you finish baking at home) and a green salad.

Anything you'll reheat on top of the stove can go in ziploc (takes up less space in your freezer).

if you freeze a casserole, let it cool to room temperature b/f putting it in the freezer

Real Simple had some good recipe for freeze/make ahead meals

We are hosting both sets of parents and siblings at our house for a week (!!!!) during the holidays. Please share ideas for dinners I can cook and freeze ahead of time (I was thinking a baked ziti, lasagne, etc.). Also, please recommend the best storage containers for freezing a few weeks in advance (aluminum foil dishes and alum foil to cover?) - I know I should know this, but I want to be as prepared as possible with good/fresh dinners for when the whole crew arrives! Thanks!