I hope you’re planning to join me for Week One of our newest Freezer Cooking Challenge! I figured if I needed to spend some time getting ahead, you might too. Why not cook together, right?
For Week One, we’ll be focusing on beef recipes. If I’m going to brown one pound of hamburger meat, I might as well brown eight or ten. I still just dirty up one pot, and the time I save overall is amazing. So, we’ll be browning 8 pounds of meat at once, then we’ll put together 8 meals with the meat we prepared.
We’ll do this over the course of a week – so really, the time it takes each day to do the work is very minimal. I’ll walk you through all the steps! Here’s what is on my list to prepare during the upcoming week. My idea is to make two of each casserole listed below – one for our evening meal, and an additional one for the freezer. So easy! (All of these recipes can be made gluten free if you use GF pasta and corn tortillas.)
- Cheesy Beef and Rice – catch the details in this post
- Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole (recipe in {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook) – catch the details in this post
- Cheesy Beef and Pasta Casserole (recipe in {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook) – view details here
- Creamy Salsa Enchiladas (recipe in Let’s Do This! eCourse, Lesson 2) or if you prefer, you can make the Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas version of this recipe – catch the details in this post
Don’t want to make them all? No problem. Want to make three of each? Okay. This needs to benefit you, not cause you stress – so you just grab hold of whatever part of this challenge works for you and drop kick the rest. The grocery list below assumes you’ll be making two of each casserole. You can adjust it accordingly.
What you’ll need:
- 5-6 Casserole Dishes (I use 9×13 inch Pyrex Dishes with lids)
- 8 pounds hamburger meat
- 1 pound bacon
- 16 ounces pasta (I use whole wheat)
- 5 cups brown rice
- 5 cups sour cream (40 ounces)
- 4 cups salsa (32 ounces)
- 4 cups tomato sauce (32 ounces)
- 2 eight-ounce cream cheese packages
- 1/2 cup dry minced onion
- 14 cups shredded cheese (4-ounces equals one cup; you’ll need approximately 56 ounces – less is fine if you would like to save money by skimping on the cheese)
- 12 whole wheat tortillas (homemade tortillas are awesome)
- 1 cup ketchup
- 2 cans black olives
- 2/3 cup milk
Be sure you have:
- mustard
- chili powder
- sea salt
- pepper
- garlic powder
I’ve created a downloadable and printable grocery list for you here: Freezer Cooking Grocery List ~ Week One
Be sure to add plenty of fruits, vegetables, and salad items to your list to go with your casseroles!
Here are your first assignments:
- Pick up all needed items at the grocery store.
- Brown 8 pounds of ground beef, along with about a half cup of minced onion.
Once your meat has been cooked, let it cool, then put it into the fridge to be worked with later. You can divide it into 4 equal(ish) sized portions if you would like, just to make it easier later. I personally just put my whole pot into the fridge and will scoop out 1/4 of the contents each time I need it.
You’re welcome to put together recipes as your own pace, of course. But for the sake of those who want to do this freezer cooking in stages, I plan to break all tasks down into small chunks so that it will be doable for all who only have a few minutes to spend on this at one time.
On Monday, we’ll continue on by putting together our first round of casseroles. Don’t forget, Let’s Do This! eCourse and {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook are discounted to just $5 for the whole package.
Hope your freezer cooking prep time goes well! Let me know how these first assignments go for you.
Thank you! How easy you made it!
That’s the hope! I’m excited to be doing this with so many!
So excited!!
Me too! :)
I am so very glad you are giving us this opportunity . I would love to get started with Freezer cooking. I hope you will be having a poultry week and ect? I will be skipping this week because we are all allergic to milk (cheese…) but I am really looking forward to reading your posts about these recipes anyway (^_^)!
Yep, week two will be chicken. :)
Can’t wait to start! I have most those ingredients on hand and just need to thaw out the meat. I’ve learned for my family size recently that I just take your regular recipe and instead of putting in one 9×13, I do two 7×11 size. We eat one and freeze the other. My family isn’t big on leftovers so that size seems to work well for us. Thanks for all the wonderful tips!
Good idea! :)
I just browned the first 10lbs of beef…out of 20. My mom has asked me to make a batch for her too! That means I’ll be making 16 9×13 pans worth of food in the next couple of days. I’m jumping in while I have the free (ha!) time and knocking out the enchilada recipe and the pasta recipe today.
Thanks for this kick start! I can’t wait to see the stocked freezers (mine and hers) at the end!! :)
Meredith
Wow, you go girl!
Love the idea of grouping like proteins. I’m a teacher and on Spring Break, I tried to stock my freezer – but didn’t group by proteins. I made 10 very different meals and then spent the next day in bed recovering. My knees and feet were killing me and we ended up having bananas with peanut butter for dinner (made by my 11 year old) because I was too tired to cook or care what we ate. I will be following and grouping by protein, this is so obvious – but a point I missed. I would love for you to do a vegetarian week!! I know you are a big meat gal, but for our budget we try to have a vegetarian meal once a week (this helps my hubby’s cholesterol too!). We decided long ago that in order to afford grass fed beef and chicken from our local farmer, we would give up meat once a week to stay within our budget. Some inspiration in vegetarian meals would be much appreciated.
Yes, I agree about grouping the protein being so simple a time saver but overlooked in previous freezer cooking! I have done freezer cooking before but this is the easiest ever with the protein grouping idea! I even had some leftover cilantro lime chicken that I could throw into a freezer bag w/ the rice and beans and cream and froze it. Now I’ll be short some rice so I am going to try using up some potatoes I have and make the beef and potato recipe!
Thanks for the encouragement to get ahead and get food in the freezer! I’m in the life stage (and budget) of only being able to get one or two extra dishes in the freezer per month, if that. I still run out of food money before the end of the month sometimes. I honestly can’t even fathom buying 8 pounds of ground beef in one month! I’m hoping to invest in some local grass-fed beef using my Christmas money, but I haven’t talked to any local farms yet. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series! Thanks for breaking it down into baby steps.
Browned my eight pounds of meat yesterday and is now in the refrigerator waiting for all the wonderful recipes I will be making this week. Thanks for the inspiration to get some meals in the freezer!
I purchased the bonus set and received the ebook, but not the e course…..what did I do wrong? Looking forward to getting ahead this week!
found the problem….purchased on hubby’s paypal so instructions went to him!
I’m excited to try these new recipes! I only have 2 9×13 dishes (bought the second one today) and wondered if you or anyone else have tried freezing a dish and then taking it out of the dish and storing it in a plastic bag without the dish? Does this work? Any tips? I’m not big on disposables so I want to try to get this to work without busting the budget on Pyrex. Thanks for breaking it down for us!
I’ve not had much success with transferring it from dish to plastic bag. But I think the easiest/best way to do that is to place parchment paper on the bottom of the dish. That way you can pull it out easily. :)
Will I need 5-6 9x11s for all the weeks? That is a lot of pyrex.
It does seem like a lot of pyrex, huh?! I find that having lot of 9×13 dishes with lids is a huge money/time saver for me. But after this week, more of our freezer foods will be placed in bags and jars. :)
I would have loved to have done this when we were still in full winter mode. During the winter my garage becomes my “walk-in freezer”! I really need a second freezer, just have absolutely no where to put it. Maybe I’ll try it in the fall!
I love to double up on meals for the freezer. It’s one of the easiest ways. Especially when you can shop the meat sales and take advantage of them.
Laura,
What kind of jars do you recommend for the next few weeks freezer cooking ? Should I get mason jars? Seems like when I try to re-use ones that food came in, I’m dealing with labels that won’t come off & the sticky glue that held the labels on. Also the lids don’t fit properly once the button popped up when I opened it.
Either Ball or Mason jars work great. :)