How to go about precooking meals for the month? (ingredients, lasagne, freezing)

[Pearl14256]

Do any of you pre cook all your meals for the month and freeze them? How do you go about doing it?

[Fontucky]

Not entire meals, but when I make stews, soups, meat sauce and chili I make 10 quarts at a time and freeze most of it in containers that are usually ~4 servings in size.

[carlitasway]

I've tried that. I did it in a day. I think I made maybe 2 weeks instead of a month's worth of food, though. Google OAMC and a lot of info will come up. I just figured out my recipes, did the grocery shop, got home, threw on some angry music to make me work fast and got cooking. I froze in freezer safe containers, freezer ziplock bags and food saver bags. Dress comfortably because you'll be cooking all day. Funny thing is that after all that cooking, I wasn't hungry for a couple of days but everyone else had meals ready to heat and eat. I may start that again since my family is still eating meat and I am not. Don't forget to date and label what you cook because after stuff freezes it kind of all looks the same.

[findinghope]

same with me, i only make and freeze sauces, soups, stews and chili. everything else takes just a few minutes to make on the same day. i DO freeze lasagne sometimes, just cause its a big pan and we wont eat the whole thing right away but dont want to eat it all week.

this is why i always loved the show 30 minute meals--it really is possible.

[Debsi]

Me too - I only freeze the things that I think are naturals for freezing well - soups, stews, chili, spaghetti gravy...

I do buy larger packs of meat when they're on sale and freeze the meat raw in meal sized packs though.

[Gue]

I try to double the recipes. But I've never had enough to last a month.

[Jaxson]

I've done this in the past with friends it makes the task of cooking all day much faster and more fun. We all bought our ingredients for dishes then planned on tripling it. At the end of the day we divided all that was cooked by 3. We all made 5 casserole/lasagna type dishes tripled then made a vat full of veggie soup, one with chili, one with ham & beans and one with 5 whole chickens making broth. Picked off the chicken from the bones we all then had cooked chicken for salads, casseroles or chicken & noodles.

It worked best when we bought those throw away foil pans then you don't have all your baking dishes in the freezer full of food. We put plastic wrap on top of the cooled food then slid container and all into a gallon ziplock bag.

[Inthesierras]

I do a little bit of freezer meals. I make burritos for my kids and freeze them. I also make alot of soup, some I freeze and some I can. Chili is another freezer meal that is easy to make alot of at one time.

There is some great info on freezer cooking here:
How I Plan My Freezer Cooking Day + Free Planning Worksheets! :: Money Saving Mom℠

Bulk And Freezer Cooking