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You are here: Home / Tips & Tricks / Easy Freezer Meals

Easy Freezer Meals

03/17/20 | Tips & Tricks

A big round up of Easy Freezer Meals that you can make now and eat later. 

Hey, friends. I had some regular recipe posts scheduled to go up this week, but with everything that’s going on, I wanted to publish something a little more immediately useful today.

So I compiled a (long) list of my favorite make-ahead freezer meals with recipe notes to make those meals the best that they can be.

Recipes you can freeze are handy because they allow you to cook with fresh ingredients once and store/eat them for months. So if you’re say trying to limit the number of times you hit the grocery store right now, freezer meals have you covered.

Sausage pasta in bowls with text: Freezer Meals to Make Now and Eat Later

Freezing Tips

Freeze things flat when possible. It’s much easier to store and find space for foods that have been frozen flat since you can file them upright or stack them.

When using a freezer bag for storage, first freeze food in the bag on a flat surface like a cutting board or baking sheet. Once frozen solid, you can store it neatly away with your other frozen foods.

Don’t forget to label!! You think you’ll remember what you put in your freezer, but take it from someone who just last week poured frozen tomato soup over her tortellini thinking it was pasta sauce, you won’t. Use a sharpie or sharpie + a piece of painter’s/masking tape to label your food and never wonder what that bag of red stuff in your freezer is ever again.

On freezing potatoes and pasta in soups/stews: Potatoes and pasta are two ingredients you *can* freeze but you might not want to, as both degrade in quality once frozen and reheated. Potatoes tend to get a little mealy and pasta can become mushy.

If you don’t mind that (some people don’t!), you can freeze and reheat soup recipes that include these ingredients with zero recipe modifications. Just be sure to defrost your soup/stew in the fridge before reheating in the microwave because the amount of microwave time needed to reheat everything from frozen would reduce your potatoes/pasta to mush.

For best results when making soups and stews containing pasta and potatoes, just omit the pasta/potatoes during the initial cooking and then cook and add them to the reheated frozen recipe right before serving.

For example: my Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup calls for 4 ounces of pasta for 4 servings of soup.

  • I’d cook the soup without the pasta and freeze it either all together or in individual servings.
  • When ready to eat, if I froze the entire pot of soup, I’d defrost and reheat the soup, separately cook 4 ounces of pasta according to pasta package instructions, and add them to the reheated soup just before serving.
  • If I froze the soup in four individual portions, I’d defrost and reheat one serving of soup, cook just 1 ounce of pasta, and add it to the bowl just before serving.

The same goes for recipes with potatoes. To cook potatoes to add back into soups, start the potatoes in a pot of generously salted cold water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 to 20 minutes depending on potato size, or until potatoes are fork-tender. Drain and add to soup or stew.

See my post How to Freeze Soup for more tips and tricks. 

The Recipes

All the recipes I’ve included here are ones that I regularly cook and freeze myself. They freeze extremely well with minimal to no loss in quality.

Some of them can be cooked, frozen, and reheated with zero changes, and some of them need a couple tweaks for best results. For these recipes, I’ve included notes with best freezing practices.

Easy Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Total Recipe Time: 1 hour hour
Creamy Chicken Noodle soup from scratch (no condensed soup needed). Easy, warming, and delicious.
Click for the Recipe
Easy Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Easy Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup – I almost always have a couple servings of this soup in my freezer during the colder months of the year because it’s warming and comforting, but not too heavy. If you don’t like the texture of frozen and reheated pasta, follow my instructions above on omitting the noodles and cooking and adding them back in after reheating.

Simple Beef Stew
Total Recipe Time: 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes
This hearty Simple Beef Stew is made completely from scratch and is absolutely delicious, just like Mom used to make it.
Click for the Recipe
Simple beef stew in a white bowl.

Mom’s Sunday Simple Beef Stew – This is one of my favorite comfort food meals and a great way to use a chuck roast if you find one on sale. I don’t care for the texture of frozen potatoes in stew, so I recommend keeping a few potatoes on hand and following the instructions above for cooking potatoes separately when you’re ready to eat the frozen stew.

Easy Tomato Soup Recipe
Total Recipe Time: 27 minutes minutes
This easy tomato soup is the perfect quick and easy lunch or dinner. To make it, you just need one can of tomatoes, a handful of pantry staples, and less than half an hour.  
Click for the Recipe
Square photo of grilled cheese sandwich being dipped in Creamy Tomato Soup Recipe for Two.

Easy Tomato Soup Recipe for Two – This fantastically tangy soup can be frozen and reheated with zero recipe changes. However, the recipe’s written to make one huge serving or two smaller ones to go alongside a sandwich or bread, so you might want to double the recipe if you’re making it for freezing.

Easy Chicken Peasant Soup
Total Recipe Time: 35 minutes minutes
This homemade Chicken Peasant Soup is easy, fast, and delicious!
Click for the Recipe
This homemade Chicken Peasant Soup is easy, fast, and delicious!

Easy Chicken Peasant Soup – One of the OG Baking Mischief recipes and still one of my faves. This is another recipe where you’ll probably want to omit the potatoes and add them in after freezing and reheating.

Quick Creamy Sausage Pasta
Total Recipe Time: 30 minutes minutes
This irresistible Creamy Sausage Pasta comes together super quickly, with just a handful of ingredients and zero cutting or chopping required.
Click for the Recipe
Creamy Sausage Pasta
Quick Creamy Sausage Pasta – Another of my favorite freezer staples. Just make a big batch of the sauce, and when you’re ready to eat it, all you have to do is cook 2 to 3 ounces of pasta per serving and enjoy!

Easy Pork Ragu
Total Recipe Time: 4 hours hours
This Easy Pork Ragu is incredibly meaty red sauce that’s tangy, a little garlicky, and just a tiny bit sweet. Spoon it over a big pile of noodles, and it’s the perfect comfort food.
Click for the Recipe
Pork Ragu
Easy Pork Ragu – This is a super handy sauce to have stashed in your freezer. The flavors only get better with reheating and who wouldn’t want to be able to whip out a beautiful braised ragu as a quick weeknight meal?

Easy Beef Stroganoff
Total Recipe Time: 40 minutes minutes
This easy Beef Stroganoff recipe is made with tender top sirloin, onions, garlic, and mushrooms simmered in a rich sour cream sauce and served over egg noodles. It's quick to make, delicious, and the ultimate comfort food.
Click for the Recipe
Photo of Easy Beef Stroganoff over egg noodles on a plate.
Easy Beef Stroganoff – This is my #1 favorite food, so I always freeze at least half of it when I make it so that I don’t eat nothing but stroganoff for four days in a row (college me could and did). I do find that the texture of the mushrooms degrades slightly, but not enough to mind. Freeze the sauce and all you have to do is cook up some egg noodles when you’re ready to eat.

Slow Cooker Tri-Tip Sandwiches
Total Recipe Time: 4 hours hours 10 minutes minutes
Slow Cooker Tri-Tip Sandwiches are my favorite way to enjoy summer BBQ without having to actually barbecue anything!
Click for the Recipe
Slow cooker tri-tip sandwich on a white plate.
Slow Cooker Tri-Tip Sandwiches – I’m usually not a fan of freezing sandwiches, but the ingredients for these tri-tip sandwiches freeze wonderfully. Freeze the shredded tri-tip and bread separately and then reheat and assemble the sandwiches when you’re ready to eat them.

Easy Beef Pasties
Total Recipe Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes
These easy beef pasties (beef hand pies) are made with a buttery, flaky buttermilk pie crust wrapped around a savory mixture of beef, carrots, potatoes, and onions in a quick homemade gravy. 
Click for the Recipe
Beef pasty broken open on a white plate.
Easy Beef Pasties – Frozen pasties are an excellent portable lunch option or easy dinner. You don’t even need to defrost them. Just microwave frozen pasties for 2 to 4 minutes and they come out steaming and perfect.

Also, don’t worry about the potatoes in this recipe. Since they’re small and wrapped in flakey pie crust, any texture change won’t be noticeable.

Carnitas Enchiladas (Pork Enchiladas)
Total Recipe Time: 1 hour hour
Carnitas Enchiladas (AKA Pulled Pork Enchiladas) are a delicious alternative way to eat enchiladas. Rich, crispy carnitas are wrapped in tortillas and covered with a tangy homemade enchilada sauce and plenty of cheese. This recipe makes ten enchiladas which can be baked all at once or frozen in batches for smaller households.
Click for the Recipe
Square picture of carnitas enchiladas with pulled pork, sour cream, and pico de gallo.
Carnitas Enchiladas (Pork Enchiladas) – I specifically designed this recipe to be freezer-friendly, and it has extensive freezer instructions in the recipe card. You can freeze an entire 9×13-inch tray of enchiladas or smaller batches for individual/dinner-for-two servings.

Easy Carnitas Recipe
Total Recipe Time: 3 hours hours 45 minutes minutes
This Easy Carnitas Recipe makes amazing carnitas: rich, tender shredded pork with crispy, crunchy edges, perfect for tacos, burritos, or just eating by the forkful. Post includes step-by-step instructions and everything you ever wanted to know about making carnitas.
Click for the Recipe
Photo of easy carnitas on a plate with limes.
Easy Carnitas Recipe – I love having carnitas in the freezer because you can do almost anything with this meat. Eat it plain, throw it in a quesadilla, tacos, on a salad, make a burrito bowl. The possibilities are pretty much endless.

Easy Naan Pizza With Make-ahead Freezer Instructions
Total Recipe Time: 50 minutes minutes
Naan Pizza is the perfect no-fuss meal for busy weeknights. It’s reliable, easy, and so good.
Click for the Recipe
Naan Pizza
Easy Naan Pizza With Make-ahead Freezer Instructions – Pizza in general freezes and reheats really well, and these cute little pizzas are no different. Make a big batch of them and enjoy the comfort that comes with knowing there’s a pizza party waiting in your freezer whenever you need it. 😉

The Very Best Crispy Waffles
Total Recipe Time: 55 minutes minutes
If you’re a fan of crispy waffles, these are the best waffles in existence. They come out beautifully golden with a crispy, crunchy exterior and light and fluffy insides every time.
Click for the Recipe
Crispy Waffles for Two
The Very Best Crispy Waffles (for Two) Last but not least, perfect for breakfast for dinner nights, these waffles freeze incredibly well with no modifications needed. Just follow the freezing and reheating instructions in the post and your reheated waffles will be as beautiful and crispy as the day you made them.

This recipe is written for two and makes 2 to 4 waffles depending on the size of your waffle maker, so if you want to stock your freezer with more, just double or triple the recipe.

Desserts

And a little dessert bonus for you. These are a handful of my favorite desserts for freezing, though honestly, most cakes and cookies and candies do just fine in the freezer and don’t need any special treatment to freeze well.

Just make sure to eat them sooner rather than later, preferably within 2-3 months, as they will very slowly begin to dry out in the freezer.

Freezing Cakes

My favorite way to freeze cakes is to slice them into pieces and lay the pieces on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet/cutting board/plate that will fit in your freezer.

Freeze just long enough for the cake and frosting to be frozen solid and then wrap each piece individually in plastic wrap. Store the wrapped slices in a freezer bag for 2 to 3 months.

When you’re ready to eat, unwrap the cake and let it sit at room temperature for 10 to 20 minutes or while you eat dinner and then enjoy.

Freezing Cookies

Most cookies can be frozen in a freezer bag with no other preparation as soon as they’ve finished cooling.

If you have a cookie with soft frosting or glaze, freeze solid the way you would a piece of cake (so that the frosting doesn’t get smooshed and the cookies don’t stick together) and then store in an airtight freezer bag.

Defrost on the counter for 10 minutes before eating or just enjoy frozen on a warm day.

Easy Cheesecake Recipe
Total Recipe Time: 8 hours hours 25 minutes minutes
This Easy Cheesecake Recipe is a family favorite, and it makes an extremely creamy cheesecake with a smooth sour cream layer over the top and irresistible cinnamon graham cracker crust.
Click for the Recipe
Easy Cheesecake

Easy Cheesecake Recipe – Cheesecake freezes particularly well, and you will never not be thrilled when you find a forgotten piece of frozen cheesecake in the back of your freezer. The sauce included in this recipe also freezes nicely. If fresh strawberries were used, they will have a softer texture after freezing than fresh, but not in an unpleasant way.

Easy Carrot Cake Recipe
Total Recipe Time: 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes
My mom's famous carrot cake recipe that makes the BEST carrot cake with creamy, decadent cream cheese frosting.
Click for the Recipe
Easy Carrot Cake Recipe
Easy Carrot Cake Recipe – Another family favorite that I love having in my freezer dessert stash.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Total Recipe Time: 34 minutes minutes
Fantastic chewy, peanut-buttery Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies that everyone will love, plus instructions for freezing the dough for later.
Click for the Recipe
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies – My current favorite cookie. Eat them warm, eat them room temperature, eat them frozen. They’re always, always, always great.

Comments | 4 comments

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Comments

  1. Joy says

    March 22, 2020 at 7:57 am

    Love your recipes and look forward to your posts every Sunday, especially now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
    Please stay safe and healthy.❤️

    Reply
    • Tracy says

      March 28, 2020 at 9:26 pm

      Thank you so much, Joy!!!!! The same to you and yours!

      Reply
  2. Audrey says

    March 18, 2020 at 8:34 am

    This weekend, I was only able to get a single pound of chicken tenderloins at the grocery store since everything is sold out. So I made a larger batch of your Easy Chicken Curry and froze the rest. I have no idea if it will freeze well, but I guess in a week or two, I am going to find out

    Reply
    • Tracy says

      March 18, 2020 at 10:45 am

      That recipe freezes really well, Audrey!! My family freezes it all the time. I just didn’t include it in this list since it’s a smaller recipe and I was trying to include mostly recipes that would make more than two servings.

      Hope you enjoyed the curry, and glad you were able to find at least some chicken! When I was out this weekend, there was not a piece of poultry to be seen in the stores around here.

      Reply

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Welcome!


Hi, I'm Tracy! Welcome to Baking Mischief, where we realize that not everyone is cooking every night for a family of four. We have delicious sweet and savory recipes, mostly scaled for one or two, and we love our pop culture around here, so keep an eye out for film, book, and TV-inspired treats as well! Read more»
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