Freezer Meals- Well Worth the Work

One of the best things I ended up doing in preparation for having new baby, was preparing freezer meals!  It was exhausting and time consuming, especially since I had to do the majority of the work after Theo went to bed (9pm-midnight) and it required buying and hauling and preparing a lot of food at 37 weeks pregnant, but it was worth it. 

I found a bunch of recipes online or ones that I had already and made a large spreadsheet of the meals I wanted to prepare.  (Get ready folks, this involves lots of lists and spreadsheets...I know, I know...)  I listed the main meal, sides, source of the recipe, ingredients that I needed to buy fresh or add at preparation, and a prepared column.  I ended up coming up with about 45 meals (only prepped about 20, and that was plenty for now).

Then I chose a handful of meals and made my shopping list.  I also printed all the recipes from online so that my mom would have them on hand since she'd be helping make the meals for the first three weeks.  I made sure when I went shopping to buy lots of freezer bags and storage containers (although I had most of these already).  I did two large shopping trips and had two or three preparation days.  I organized the meal preparation by meals with similar ingredients, so I'd only have to chop lots of vegetables on one day, and another night I pre-cooked several dishes likes soups and meats.  Some meals were as simple as mixing up a marinade and throwing in the meat and sealing the bag.  It was nice to have the empty deep freezer for all of these prepared meals.  I can definitely see myself doing this again in the future, because it was so nice and easy.  I left a list of the meals that were prepared on the refrigerator and Mason was able to just pull something out of the freezer in the morning or day before so it would defrost, and there was less brain work and preparation involved.  I thought the meals would go quickly, but with leftovers, a few nights eating out, a few nights of scrambling for anything available, other nights of just making something simple (like spaghetti) we still have some meals to pull from the freezer.  

Below is a list of what I ended up preparing in advance.  I'm including some links to meals that we found really good, but let me know if you want any additional recipes. Oh yeah- several of these were crockpot meals- even better...defrost and throw in the crockpot...dinner done!

Smoothie Packets
Beef Brisket
Pork Tenderloin
Steak with "Best Steak Marinade"
Peanut Chicken
Asian Pepper Steak
Chicken Fajitas
Honey Rosemary Chicken
Korean Beef
Ranch Tacos
Chicken Tacos
Spaghetti Meat Sauce
Tortellini Soup
Lasagna Soup
Buffalo Chicken Sliders
Italian Chicken
Mesquite Chicken
Herb Marinated Chicken
Ribs

There were other recipes I'd have ingredients on hand for, just by stocking up on a little extra meat, cheese, and pasta.  Yum!  Happy eating.  :) 

Copycat Noodles and Company Macaroni


WW Cheddar Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta