Freezer Meal Mania

Just a few months ago my big sister was blessed with the arrival of her two (perfect) twin girls. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be an aunt twice over, and how much I immediately wished I lived closer to her. I bought a plane ticket to visit and I began planning out ways to be most helpful to a new mom. From 700 miles away freezer meals seemed to be the best way to leave lasting help and I knew it was time to scour Pinterest. I was overwhelmed with all the posts boasting freezer meals ease and affordability. However, I was disappointed to find that most of these miracle blog posts were nothing more than a handful of meals repeated or recipes that didn't sound delicious or nutritious. My goal was to leave as many actually enjoyable meals as possible when I left after my visit, and clearly it was going to take some planning. I started collecting a recipe here, a winner there, something that can be modified over here, and before I knew it I was ready to make a shopping list.

Now, part of the benefit of making mass meals from one shopping trip, and heavy planning, is the ability to shop sales and save money. Since I was traveling and on a limited time line I was worried the costs would be high. However, even with a local market strike, we managed to shop around and create 16 meals (each with a minimum of four servings) for just over $100. I couldn't believe my good shopping luck! The majority of recipes I made came from three websites, The Realistic Organizer, Ring Around the Rosies, and Loving My Nest. Thanks fellow bloggers!

16 Freezer Meals for $100

Prepared Freezer Meals

I read through countless recipes, considered taste, nutrition and the least amount of add ons at the time of cooking and created a 12 recipe list to send to my sister. From there, she picked 9 winners and we decided to double a few for a total of 16 meals. (The total also included chili that I set up in the crock pot before leaving, stay tuned for that delicious recipe. As well as chicken enchiladas and chicken pot pies. These two freezer recipes are in the Google Drive but are oven cooked once defrosted.) For your cooking convince I have created a sharable Google Drive folder with all the recipes I used and one combined shopping list. Click here for recipes and shopping list. 

Lessons Learned and Advice:

• Write recipes and instructions on gallon zip locks before filling them. I wrote instructions in black and additions at cook time in blue. 
• Most recipes should be served with rice and veggies, I bought a box of success rice bags and frozen vegetables for ease and convenience. 
• Unless you plan to make multiples (more than double) of the same recipes I do not recommend cutting meat and vegetables ahead of time like other sites do. I found it confusing; it added extra steps, dirtied dishes and challenged my ability to judge portion sizes. 
• If something seems off, try to fix it now. One meal I made seemed dry. I added an extra can of soup broth and it was well worth it. 
• Get low sodium when ever you can. If you're not careful these meals can be loaded with sodium which challenges health and taste. Try to find low sodium broths, beans and sauces. 
• Turn up the freezer! If you're really loading it down, like we did, you'll need it to be working over time. We turned the temperature way down to freeze everything in a safe, timely manner. 
• Because of the late summer timing of my visit I tried to avoid strictly winter recipes like stews and soups. If I were to make a round two I would use a lot of recipes from Loving My Nest. Jessica posts a lot of delicious stew and soup recipes and hope to refill the freezer with these on my next visit.