Whether you are preparing for maternity leave, building up a supply of meals for the next few months or aiming for convenience cooking, make-ahead freezer meals are the way to go!  There are two ways to go about making freezer meals: bulk cooking or integrated into your daily life.

Completely new to freezer meals?  Check out my review of freezer meals to see if they are going to be a good fit for you!

Let’s talk about integrating make-ahead freezer meals into your daily life (my favorite way to live!).

Are you super busy and hate cooking?  Me too!

Before I had kids, I could easily spend 5-10 hours preparing freezer meals (bulk cooking) in a super calm, organized, relaxed (wine-filled) fashion.  Now, with two under two, mealtime is freaking chaos! In order to keep doing freezer meals that we love, I have had to start making them part of our normal monthly meal plan.  Meaning, I have integrated them into my daily cooking throughout the month.

Pro-tip:  The trick to doing this seamlessly is to make double what the recipe calls for (if the recipe is for a single meal).  My favorite freezer meal cookbook often makes two meals in one batch anyways, but make sure to double check.

Integrating make-ahead freezer meals into your daily cooking is awesome because:

• One of the main reasons I love integrating the freezer meals into my monthly meal plan is, it is already part of my monthly grocery budget vs. the bulk freezer meals where I have to save separately for it.
• When these make-ahead freezer meals are integrated into part of your normal cooking routine, you can just designate 1-2 nights per week as freezer meal recipes (making double meals – same ingredients so no added effort or time).  You eat one of the meals for dinner that night, then freeze the other one! This adds up to 8 freezer meals per month you are stocking your freezer with.
• By doing this every month, there will be a constant rotation of freezer meals available.  If you do this, you will basically have the option for 8 days in any given month to be a complete slacker.  All you have to do on those days is pick out a meal and put it in the oven. Sounds nice, right?

How to execute make-ahead freezer meals integrated into your daily cooking:

Prepare for make-ahead freezer meals.

Let’s do a monthly meal plan as an example (this is what I do in my home because I hate grocery shopping so I go once a month and I am done).  Decide how many freezer meal days you are doing in your month and on what days.

Pro-tip:  Ex.  I am off on Tuesdays and Sundays so those are “crock-pot” days or other more involved recipes – I double the recipes if needed.  These are large meals that can be split and half can be frozen for later. I choose the days I know I will have the time to dedicate to cooking to do these on.

The first thing you need to do is pick out your recipes.  Let’s say you are doing 8 freezer meals this month so you need to pick 8 recipes.  My favorite cookbook is this one. I’m sure there are others out there, but we have our favorites from this book and so far, haven’t needed a different one.

Things to consider when picking out your make-ahead freezer meals:

• Think about the time of year (you probably don’t want chili in the middle of the summer).
• What do you and your family like to eat?
• What you are comfortable cooking?

Pro-tip:  I always highlight the recipes we are using, then we rate them after eating them so I don’t repeat making something that we didn’t really love.

The other thing I have found to be helpful (because I’m a clean freak) is to make copies of the recipes.  You could probably take pictures on your phone too instead of full paper copies. This will come in handy when it is time to prep everything so you can be hyper-organized (which I love!).

Organize your shopping list for make-ahead freezer meals.

Use our FREE Freezer Meal Grocery List Sheet to organize your shopping.  Sign up below to download instantly!

Once you download the Freezer Meal Grocery List Sheet, using it will completely simplify your shopping.  

• You will need to print off one sheet per recipe.
• At the top of the sheet write the recipe name.
• Then list all the ingredients/items needed in their appropriate category on the sheet.  
• There is also a spot to write what size baking/cooking container you need for that particular recipe.

This part isn’t overly complicated.  You will have your grocery list you are already making for the month so just add the ingredients you need for each meal you are doing.

What I have found works best for me is organizing my shopping list by category:

• Meat
• Cheese
• Breads/Pastas
• Vegetables
• Spices
• Canned goods
• Extras:  milk, butter, eggs (the usual extras you need)
• Containers (what size dishes are recommended for each meal)

Pro tip:  When you are integrating freezer meals into your daily life, you may not need to get lots of foil containers like you would have to if you were bulk cooking like 15 meals.  I find that I have enough extra casserole dishes and Ziploc containers to freeze my 8 meals a month without having to buy additional containers. Take stock of what you have before you purchase these items.

If I need multiples of certain items, I just put tally marks next to them for easy organization of my list.

After you have your list, then you should check the inventory you already have at home.  Maybe you already have 1 lb. of ground turkey left in your freezer, so instead of 5 lbs., you can just get 4 lbs.  After checking what you have at home, this will be your final shopping list.

Shopping for make-ahead freezer meals.

Ugh, I hate grocery shopping!  But, it must be done.

I do 95% of my grocery shopping at Aldi.  They are super inexpensive, but you do have to bag your own groceries, and they don’t have some of the less common ingredients or the foil baking containers.  I finish up my list either at Walmart or Target pending on what else I need and if there are any good deals going on.

Pro tip:  I always use the iBotta app when shopping at Target or Walmart (it can’t be used at Aldi which really bums me out).  I just find the coupons for the products I purchased, take a picture of my receipt and voila! Cashback!  You can get started by signing up here and get a $10 bonus just for signing up!  This is the only kind of “couponing”  I do.

Cooking the make-ahead freezer meals.

This is the fabulous part.  You already have your meal plan for the month written out, so just follow it.  On the day you are making a double batch of something, let it cool and get ready to freeze it!

Just like that you have made dinner for your family on that night, and made enough to provide a dinner on another night!

The most efficient way to cook your meals (and my favorite OCD way) is to set out the cooking container with all the ingredients and recipe for that particular meal.  Setting out all the ingredients will be super easy for you because you can just work off of your Freezer Meal Grocery List sheets.

Download these Freezer Meal Grocery List sheets instantly by signing up below.  Trust me, they will make your life so much easier!

Packaging your make-ahead freezer meals.

• First, put on a layer of saran wrap.  I have found the saran wrap doesn’t stick to the foil containers, so I end up wrapping the saran wrap all the way around so it can stick back to itself.  I do not use the plastic lids that come with some of the containers because they don’t prevent freezer burn and they make the containers taller, taking up more room than they need to in my freezer.
• Second, put on a layer of aluminum foil (this does not need to be wrapped all the way around).

Pro tip:  When you pull out your freezer meals to thaw and use, you can use this top foil layer to cover the meal again if you don’t eat it all and need to keep it refrigerated.  So don’t crumple up the foil when you are using your freezer meals, it can be used again!

• Then I make a label for the meal.  When I first started I bought white labels from Target.  They worked well, but I found I could just use paper I had at home and tape it on.  Do what you want, just make sure the meal is labeled.

What goes on the label?

(I recommend using these labels).

• Name of the meal
• Date made
• Cooking instructions (typically thaw the night before, set out for 30 minutes prior to baking, bake @ 350 F for 45 min.)
• How many servings (this is helpful for those surprise visitors)
• How long it can be frozen for (this is based on the ingredients ie. dairy, etc.)

Living the make-ahead freezer meals life!

Over the next few months, you can use your freezer meals however you want.

• You could not schedule any of the freezer meals as part of your monthly meal plan to have them as a backup for days you have a meal scheduled but don’t feel like cooking.
• You could schedule them on days you know will be super busy or days of the week someone works late,
• or that Friday night when you are typically inclined to order pizza.

Use them however you need to for your lifestyle.  The awesome part is, you will have them available to save you so much time.  Another bonus is if you need to really cut back your grocery budget one month, you can fully rely on freezer meals to provide a week or more of meals that are already paid for!

I cannot say enough good things about freezer meals.  These things have changed my life for the better and I know they will change yours too.  I was intimidated at first (thinking about bulk cooking), but then I realized I can just do a meal integrated into my daily life.  It doesn’t have to be a big ordeal or project that takes up tons of time.

If these meals are incorporated into every month, you will always have wiggle room with your planning, budget, and schedule.  What more could you want?!

Try this out and let me know how it goes!

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