Who’s ready to cook all day long for a month’s worth of freezer meals?
When you tell your family you’re having frozen dinner do they run the other way and only the dog looks happy? Maybe it’s time to introduce them and yourself to homemade Freezer meals. Cooking a month of meals for the freezer all in one day makes for a stress-free and often quick meal time for busy families.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I used to make a few month’s worth of freezer meals all in one day. Not having to cook for a month was heavenly and I didn’t miss working every day in the kitchen. It has been a few years since those cooking adventures, and I was itching to do it again. Having four children all in after-school dance and sports programs, life is very busy. There are some nights that we don’t get home to eat dinner together until around 7 or 8pm. Last week when I looked around the dinner table and saw everyone eating Cheerios for dinner I decided it was time to do some freezer cooking. 🙂
I know the idea of cooking a month of meals in one day seems impossible or crazy but it can be done. For those of you who don’t want to spend the whole day cooking here is a helpful hint: For Freezer cooking you can try to just double or triple your recipes all the time, eating the one you made for dinner and freezing the others for later. This way you are constantly building your meals.
The other option is you can put on the apron, roll up your sleeves, kiss the kids goodbye, and do freezer cooking all in one day like I did. To take the load off some people even create freezer meal groups with friends, making meals and meeting to swap freezer meals so everyone comes home with a variety of meals. This would be really fun , however I have never done it myself (hint to all my friends out there).
Having a stockpile of Freezer meals is invaluable especially when you get sick for a few days or weeks, have a baby, or just have a hard day and don’t feel like cooking.
The key to Freezer cooking is preparation. If you are prepared it can make all the difference in your busy day.
Cooking Freezer Meals in a Day Process
Step #1 – Go through what you already have. Time to use up some of the food you have on hand to save yourself money. Then you can go through all the sales ads for the week and find things that are on sale or seasonal. After taking those things into consideration make your list of meals you want to make. List them all out! On another sheet of paper list each ingredient you need for each of those meals x how many items.
Step #2 – Go shopping, get all your supplies. Here is my HUGE list of freezer cooking essentials.
Step #3 – Clean your kitchen, prepare your freezer (make room), make sure you have enough dishes & pots. I like having a couple sets of measuring spoons and cups on hand.
Step #4 – Decide on paper the order in which you will cook your meals. This will help you stay focused when you are doing a ton of things at the same time.
Step #5 – Clear your schedule for a day – then cook all day long!
Step #6 – Clean your kitchen – it will be a huge mess, so be prepared….(or better yet, make your spouse do it – it’s only fair…)
I have a regular freezer and a deep freezer. This smaller freezer only held about 30 meals and the other 20 are in my deep freezer.
Here are the FREEZER FRIENDLY meals I made and quantities:
- Honey Lime Chicken (3)
- Homemade Pot Pie (3)
- Fried Rice (5)
- Slow Cooker Broccoli Chicken Alfredo (3)
- Twice Baked Potatoes (3)
- Sweet & Sour Chicken (2)
- Honey Glazed Pork Chops (2)
- Chicken Parmesan Pesto Shells (3)
- Beef Barley Stew (3) – it’s all uncooked ingredients so I can toss into crock pot and cook all day.
- Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos (2)
- Cafe Rio Pulled Pork for Cafe Rio Salads (3) – recipe is in my cookbook!
- Homemade Hamburger Patties (3) – just mixed bread crumbs, Parmesan, garlic, and onion powder + 1 egg in large batch hamburger. Shaped into patties, layered between freezer paper.
- French Dip Sandwiches (2)
- Stirfry Meat, Veggies + Sauce (3) – I had a bag of stir fry veggies already. To a second bag added raw chicken in slices and a stirfry sauce.
- Chicken Enchiladas (3)
- Lasanga (3) – my own recipe!
- Pulled BBQ Pork for buns (2) – slow cooked pork roast, shred and add bottle of BBQ sauce
- Chimichangas (2) – shredded chicken, spanish rice and cheese added to large burrito, and folded. These are bagged up so they can be fried.
Grand Total = 50 Meals all cooked in one day
I also made homemade breakfast burritos – using hash browns, bacon, eggs and cheese. Those will be perfect for some quick breakfast meals.
Making a ton of freezer meals all in one day can be extremely rewarding and save you a lot of time.
P.S. I have tons of beginner information on getting started and even tips for advanced freezer meal cooking in my new cookbook called Seriously Good Freezer Meals. Please head on over and order yourself a copy! Inside there are menu plans and 150 of the BEST ever tasting freezer meals I’ve ever created. For reals.
And if you love freezer meals consider joining my private facebook group called THE FREEZER MEAL CLUB. I’d love to have you join us!
—> See MORE of my Freezer Meals recipes here.
And if you do happen to do your 50 freezer meals in a day cooking marathon, take some pictures and share them on instagram with me! Use hashtag #50freezermealsinaday and tag me @happymoneysaver. I absolutely LOVE to see you do your freezer meal cooking!
About Karrie
Food is my love language. But so is saving money. So I like to combine the two a lot and make thrifty make ahead and freeze meals to save time. Because life is busy, and freezer meals can come to the rescue for all of us. And yes, they actually CAN taste good. Read more...
Comments & Reviews
havee says
Nice recipes!
Caylin says
How much does all this normally cost you monthly?
Karrie says
It depends on what I already have in my cupboards, but usually around $300-$400. 🙂
Malisha Mishel says
It’s a great DIY idea! The foods are looking delicious! Hope I got it and will do perfectly like yours for my family! All of the members of my family love foods too much. To be honest, I’m not out of them! Will surely try most of your recipes. Wish me a good lich Karrie! 🙂
fresh chicken online lucknow says
I was wondering if you freeze veggies. It is cheaper to buy fresh veggies and I was going to cut them up and freeze them. Thank you..
Tracy Kelton says
I’m not sure if someone else has already asked, there are a lot of comments. Curious though Amor how much your grocery bill is when you take on an endeavor like this?
Ima says
Hi, thank you for sharing. I learned how to meal prep when I had a chef for housemate in my college days. That helped me a lot since I was cooking for 1. He taught me how to portion out my food and freeze them. Before I met him, I used to invite my friends or gave away some of my food since it’s impossible to finish 8-10 servings on my own within a few days. I’m Indonesian and my parents are both Chinese. Both cuisine recipes always produce a lot of servings that’s impossible to scale down considering its lengthy process (Indonesian being the longest). So I used to make beef rendang (Indonesian curry), Chinese braise pork belly and soto ayam (Indonesian chicken soup) 2 weeks before exam week. That way I only need to cook rice every other day and pull out which dish I wanna eat that day and simply nuke it in the microwave & add veggies. My American roommate used to just top a portion of beef rendang w/ hot rice and took it to work for her lunch. She said the flavors of the curry sauce seeped into the rice as it thaw.
I’d try some of your recipes since they look interesting and tasty. My son is super picky. Maybe he’d like the breakfast burrito.
Carolyn says
God bless you! I’ve been furloughed for a month and am dreading going back to work, I’m so tired and I’m gone from home for at least ten and a half hours a day.
If I make these homemade freezer meals before returning to work I will be so much less stressed! Thank You!
Mel says
How do you freeze the sweet and sour chicken recipe? Sorry for sounding a bit silly but I really appreciate it when you put the how to freeze steps on your recipes for the really un-initiated
Karrie says
I place the sauce in one bag and the pre cooked chicken in another bag and seal them together. 🙂
ainemistig says
Just officially became the Mom of four, and it’s been hectic. I’d heard about doing the make-ahead freezer meals, we finally have a deep freezer, and thought it might be a good solution for us. Trying to find recipes, I stumbled upon your page and was delighted to find that you started doing this for the exact same reasons I’m looking into it! Seriously, we’ve done cereal for dinner too, I thought we were the only ones! (Granted, my husband passed on his LOVE of cereal to the kids, so there’s never been a complaint, but stiiill not something I want to make routine).
Thank you for taking the time to blog all about it! I’m looking forward to utilizing your site to try out the freezer meals for us. Congratulations on your book!
ainemistig says
PS: I forgot to add that I really enjoy cooking, getting to spend one entire day cooking with someone watching the kids sounds like a treat right now! Especially knowing that the one day will yield sooo many meals, as opposed to just one holiday meal like at Thanksgiving. Thank you again, I’m happy to have found this page!
Johnkbliss says
Heyy!!!
These are great idea on saving meal time.
I have in the past made meals and froze them for a later date (Chili, Cabbage Rolls, Baked Beans )
Your recipes have put a whole new spin on frozen t.v. dinners. Thank you.
Can’t wait to get started on making your menu.
But its very certain to set the freezer at proper temperature..
I have an upright freezer and I thinks its best to store frozen food in it…
Thank you so much
for the share
shirley says
I’ve been doing this for a few years now. Love the fact that I can grab one from the freezer and take it to work for lunch. And the good thing about this idea is the meals are all calorie counted by bye to weight watchers expensive meals. Also add some more frozen vegetables which don’t have any extra calories. On the plus side you know what’s gone into the meal. Have fun and enjoy
Jennifer says
I didn’t see in the instructions where you should also have a bottle of wine on hand for the cook! 😉
Suzanne says
Good idea except for the aluminum foil containers. When you heat aluminum, flakes of it come off in your food. I’m trying to eliminate it from my home.
kelly says
Hi, i just came across this website as i was looking to save money after losing my job, a few years ago when we were living off benefits we were lucky enough to find a vacuum sealer cheap in a local supermarket, i must say its been a god send, buying in bulk can be a bit of an outlay but i did that with sacks of potatoes and cheese, flour and baking products are normally fairly cheap because you don’t need to buy the best brands as they are all as good as the rest so i started making bread, cupcakes and muffins for the kids can also be frozen, beware of freezing mature cheddar cheese as it can be quite crumbly as it comes, once frozen and thawed it can be a total nightmare to work with and there’s no chance of getting nice clean slices from it but grated is fine.
i am definitely going to try doing this all again, i never thought you could cook so much in a day but with plenty of planning and organising anything is possible right?
Sarah says
love the cinnamon rolls for my daughter, The enchiladas I do ‘lasagna style’. I add rice, beans, and layer the meat, cheese, sauce and tortillas.
Bri says
I am going to try this next month! I’m going to order a ton of chicken from Zaycon and stop by Costco for everything else. And I’m going to cook. And then I’ll have a summer break too!
Trudy says
wow, that’s inspiring!
Kristen Doucet says
Just seeing you sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade in your hand makes me want to do freezer meals LOL. I need some down time.
Debbie says
I’m excited to try your recipes. One little mention about chicken cordon Bleu, chicken fried steaks…my local meat shop sells these and several other items individually for a fraction of the cost to make them. All fresh ingredients and no fillers/junk in them. I love having those readily available without all the mess it entails. These are restaurant grade/quality foods. Soooooo good too!
Chrystle says
Can I use a vacuum sealer as opposed to Ziploc bags? Will this help keep the food longer in the freezer by chance?