I have always thought freezer meals were a brilliant way to stay on top of meal planning – healthy, quick meals all ready to throw into my crockpot? Yes please! Now that I am nearing my third trimester with Baby #1, I want to make life a little easier in the weeks leading up to and following baby’s arrival. My mom and brother also wanted in, so my mom came up for the weekend.
Keep reading for more details and free master grocery list!
We decided what meals we wanted to use, multiplied the ingredients by the number of meals we were making (in this case, 9 of each meal), and created a master list.
We went shopping Friday night at Aldis and Sam’s Club and only had to go to a third grocery store because Aldis had run out of a few things. Because of our master list, we were in and out in a couple of hours!
(Ground beef was killer, because we didn’t find a decent sale. BUT we still came in right at our budget!)
When divided out, we each spent $102.06 for 18 meals that feed at least 4.
When we brought the groceries in, we organized them into stations in my teeny tiny kitchen (which actually had plenty of room for this!).
On Saturday morning, we prepped veggies and decided what general order we wanted to make the meals. We started with the meat that required no prep, then moved to the cooked meat (shredded chicken and browned meat).
Then, we got to it!
First, we labled the zip loc baggies with the meal, the cook time and any last minute additions.
As somone labeled, another person gathered ingredients and took off can lids.
Then, we would dump in the first ingredient and roll the tops of the bags to keep them standing up. In went the rest of the ingredients, with the meat last.
Once filled, we sealed the bags and folded them in half so that they would freeze in a way that wouldn’t take up as much space!
Below are the meals we made (I couldn’t find the original recipes, but I know they are all on my Freezer/Bulk Cooking board on Pinterest!) We changed these based on what we had available/what we liked (for example, we don’t love onions and mom hates garlic).
Southwest Burritos
Spaghetti Sauce
Mexican Chili
Beef Stew
Enchiladas
Pineapple Salsa Chicken
Next time we will:
…stick with one type of meat – all browned, all cooked chicken, all raw chicken, etc. It ended up being too much! We still got it done, but it took longer because of all the different types.
…probably cook in mom’s kitchen! Mine is small, and it worked but we would have been able to multi-task better with more space.
…definitely shop one day and cook the next, just like this time. It would have been exhausting all at once.
…locate an electric can opener…so.many.cans.
If you’re interested in the recipes we used, as well as our master list, feel free to download this Excel Doc. The master list is for making 9 of each recipe, and you can always adjust as both the original recipes and the recipes x9 are included.
Have you ever done a big batch of freezer meals?
What tips do you have for me for this month’s round of freezer meals??
Emily Harris says
Um. This is kind of amazing… !!!
Anna says
I need to do another! 🙂 Glad you were inspired!