***Give Away Alert! I will be giving away four copies of my freezer cooking cookbooks The What’s for Dinner Solution A winner everyday Tuesday through Friday. PLUS – a Freezer Cooking Prize Pack including The What’s for Dinner Solution and $25 Amazon Gift Card to buy all the Ziploc bags and 8×8 pans you need to get started! Just leave a comment on the blog sometime this week and I will pick four book winners and one grand prize winner – the more comments, the more chances to win! (One comment per person, per day, please!) ***
Over the next four days, I will be giving you step by step instructions on how to have great, tasty meals for you and your family, every night. To make sure you don’t miss a post, subscribe to the blog!
Wrapping it Up – Everything You Need to Know About Freezing Your Food
First – here is a quick list of things that could have problems freezing:
- Cake icing made with egg whites
- Cream filling and soft frostings
- Pies made with custard or cream fillings
- Cooked egg whites
- Fried foods
- Fruit jelly
- Soft cheese (unless mixed into a recipe)
- Mayonnaise (unless mixed into a recipe)
- Sour cream (unless mixed into a recipe)
- Potatoes (you can do potatoes, but it is a bit complicated for the blog and they can sometimes turn a weird color…)
Freezing your food falls into three different categories:
Soups, Stews, Chilli
Let the soup, stew or chili cool for a bit before pouring your portion into a labeled Ziploc bag and get out as much air as you can before speaking.. Bag again with the zipper part going the opposite way of the first bag.. Freeze lying down so it will lie as flat as possible. For soups, stews and chili, I put my bags on a large cookie sheet before freezing so that the bags will not sink down between the grates of the freezer, therefore making them hard to pry off once frozen.If you are making soups, stews or chili and want to freeze them in single serve portions, you can pour them into small plastic containers (Rubbermaid, Ziploc, etc.) leaving some room at the top for when the liquid freezes and expands. Let them cool down, cover with lids and freeze.
Just put the meat and the marinade in a Ziploc bag and then put that Ziploc bag in another Ziploc bag with the zipper part going the opposite way. Label your inner bag so the otter bag can be reused.
Casseroles
For casserole freezing, I have used the foil pans pictured below for years.
I think my addiction to foil cake pans started when I was doing our freezer cooking swap with a bunch of other girls (to find out more about our group, Six Chicks Freeze and Fix, check out the booklet on my Facebook Page.) We would each make our dinners at home, and then bring them to a predetermined location, and swap. We didn’t want the hassle of returning dishes, so the cake pans worked for our needs.
But it was a little silly that I was still doing it once I was only cooking for my family. Besides the cost, all I could picture was trees dying in the rain forest because of my wastefulness. (I don’t know why it would be trees dying, but I’m sure the trees would somehow be affected.)
So I finally broke down and bought a dozen of these inexpensive (OK, cheap,) steel pans from Target. Love ‘em.
Here are my instructions for packaging the casseroles:
- Spray the bottom of the serving pan with Pam or some other non-fat cooking spray
- Put your casserole in the pan
- Cover the casserole with foil
- Label the foil with the name and date of the casserole (I’ll tell you why this is bold in a second.)
- Slip into a Ziploc bag with the printing on the bag on the bottom
OK – so here is the money/environment tip of the day: If you label the foil instead of the Ziploc (which is just keeping your food from freezer burn and is not actually touching any food) you can reuse your Ziploc bag for protecting other meals. If you bag your food with a label on the foil, and you put the Ziploc imprint on the bottom of the casserole, you will clearly be able to see what is in your meal.
You see, those baggies are expensive, and it is my goal to make them last as long as possible!
If you don’t have all the pans that you need, here is a great suggestion from one of my commenters Deanna:
To save more $ may I suggest lining a casserole dish in aluminum foil and then preparing the meal in it. Freeze it, lift the meal out, wrap it again in foil, label and stick it in the freezer! When you go to cook it just unwrap the outer layer of foil, pop back in the original dish and cook. Makes clean up a breeze too!
For today’s free download, go to my Facebook Page this week (through September 1. 2013) and get our new Freezer Inventory Sheet.
Tell me below – do you have a favorite freezer trick? You could win a copy of The What’s for Dinner Solution or the grand prize of The What’s for Dinner Solution and a $25 Amazon Gift Card.
Want more freezer recipes? Did you know you can get a free ecopy of Six Chicks Freeze and Fix: How to Start a Freezer Meal Co-op just by liking my Facebook Page. Once you hit “Like” just go to the tabs and download the booklet. It’s that easy. Over 20 great family-pleasing recipes!
We’ll have a free freezer download every day this week. Stay tuned!
The pans are a great idea and once the cabinet starts filling up with them I know the freezer is getting empty and needs to be replenished.
Getting out as much air as possible seems to be the best trick with freezing food
Brilliant! Freeze soups, stews, etc on a cookie sheet! I already had one meal slip and freeze through the grates :-/
I make sure it is well wrapped in foil or ziplock!
I am so excited about this. I will start small until I get the gist of it, but I am sooo excited!!
I’ve been doubling my recipes on Monday and sticking the second in the freezer so we stay stocked!
I didn’t realize that about putting the aluminum pan in a baggie. My foil stuff always gets ice crystals in them, so maybe this will fix it.
My tip is to label in multiple places, like the side and the top. Sometimes when you freeze things, and move them around , you don’t see the original label.
Potatoes are easy-peasy to freeze. You just have to cook them first. If you freeze them raw, they will turn a purple-black. I will bake the whole bag, let them cool, then cube them. I will use the cubes in freezer breakfast burritos and freeze any extra.
You can freeze mashed potatoes, boiled, whatever. I’ve frozen whole baked potatoes before, which makes for easy meals later. You do have to be sure to fully heat the potato though, if its tough or rubbery, you’ve not heated long enough.
I have a couple of books about freezer cooking, but just needed inspiration to begin. Reading these posts and comments are very encouraging. My tip: don’t forget to write a date on the label of the items so you can rotate things.
Being a single when I freeze my meals I do portion control so I can just pull out what I need for the meal that way I don’t have to worry about trying to eat it all up before it spoils.
If you don’t print and use the freezer inventory sheet above (love it!) make sure you put newest items in the bottom or back of the freezer – so you can do first in first out. I’ve found some older freezer meals in the bottom of my chest freezer that I had forgotten about because I put other new items on top of it.
My best tip is buy a huge roll of butcher paper at Sam’s club to package up your food. Cheaper then foil!
My tip is to not let my husband know what I’m making or he ends up eating some of it & then there’s not that much left to freeze!
I love the tip with the pans from Target.
I make freezer lunches in similar ways. Four children plus one husband take their lunches to school every day! I use lots of “serving savers” and mason jars to freeze in. 🙂
I buy foil pans at Sam’s. Much more cost effective, especially for my family of six! I always write in Sharpie on the foil I cover the top with, that way the meal could be for my family or to bless another 😉
potatoes are easy-peasy to freeze! They just have to be cooked first. Yes, if you freeze raw potatoes, they turn a funny purple-black. I did try it.
I have frozen mashed potatoes, baked whole potatoes, cubed potatoes (from whole baked), boiled cubed potatoes.
The method I like best is to bake all the potatoes in the bag at once (grill, oven), then cut them into cubes to freeze. You have to be sure to *fully* reheat before eating, otherwise the texture will be a bit odd (if its a bit tough or rubbery, you need to heat longer, same for refrigerated leftover baked potatoes). I’ve not tried mashing the cubed potatoes after freezing, but I suspect that if you dumped them into cold water and heated just to boiling, that might work just fine.
I use the cubed potatoes in soup and in freezer breakfast burritos.
These are great ideas. Thank you.
BTW, I freeze PB and Js for my kids for their lunches; it takes seconds to grab and go and then they do not need a ice pack in their lunches. 🙂
I freeze soup in individual portion sized containers for lunches.
I am very new at freezer cooking. My first try was enchiladas, they turned out great! I cooked the filling as usual and stuffed tortillas just like normal. When they were cooled enough I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them on a cookie sheet to freeze before throwing them in a bag. When I was ready to eat them I just added a can of enchilada sauce and cheese. Put it in the oven and ta-da…. Tasted like I just spent an hour in the kitchen cooking. I love all of your posts. Great encouragement to those of us who are very new at this! I love how detailed you are in most of your posts! Thank you for sharing!
I’m really enjoying your series on freezer cooking because I have only recently begun to think about this idea. I really want to try it. My best tip is to keep an accurate inventory. There is nothing more discouraging than finding something you invested time and energy in preparing at the bottom of the freezer with 2 years of freezer burn on it…or to plan tonight’s meal around that yummy baked ziti in the freezer only to find out at 5:30 pm that there’s no more ziti in the freezer.
Thanks for sharing all of this! I was blessed by having a Mom and 2 Grandmothers who taught me many things about freezer and canning cooking to get ready for winter times! Thank you for these beautiful reminders in my life and for the freshness of sharing these ideas!
My tip is to make one portion of the recipe and eat it. Better to know that you like the meal that you plan to make and freeze than to have a freezer full of food your family will not eat.
These are such great suggestions! I can’t wait to hear other comments as well. I would love to try more freezer cooking!
I love the pans from Target!! I always feel a little bad wasting the aluminum pans. I am headed out this weekend. I always write in sharpie on the baggies, it comes off with a swipe of nail polish remover.
I love keeping a binder with specific details about each menu I use and what worked and what I could do better. For example, for those months that I know we will be especially busy, I focus on more slow-cooker recipes (which are also usually really easy assembly for cooking day). We have a small group of ladies that get together about once every 6 weeks to cook together (6-8 meals). This is a fun time to try out new recipes and to fellowship together.
This sounds great…its new to me but considering our schedule this would be great to try. So, you label your various ingredients in labelled plastic bags including complete meals that need to be defrosted and baked as well as soup ingredients. It would also simplify things when I need to take a meal. Thanks for these pics…very helpful!
One on your “doesn’t freeze very well” list is pies made with custard or cream fillings. My mom always got around that by freezing pie crusts so that a good bit of the work could still be done in advance. She would make her pie crust as usual…prick the bottom of the crust a few times with a fork so it didn’t puff up (using pie weights would work too)…bake it long enough to set…and, once cooled, put the pie plate into a Ziploc bag and into the freezer.
You are so right Ellen – all the work is in the crust! Great tip!
Mom was a rock star in the kitchen. Her pies for the church bake sale were sold before they arrived at church. She was a housewife wannabe. She stayed home until my brother and I were both in school full days, but then had to work full time outside the home as well. Her heart always remained at home and I’ve found that I inherited that from her.
I miss her every day.
What a sweet tribute. I can only hope that someday my kids will feel the same about me.
I am unbelievably shocked to see my comment be the first one! Great tips Kathi. My tip to share is not necessarily new information but adds to what you’ve already said. Portion control can be a hard thing for me. So pint size bags are a great way for me to portion out some meals that can be reheated as portions. Also, freezing items in pint size bags for use in preparing other meals later really helps- like when I only really need a cup of pumpkin as apposed to a whole quart.