Why didn’t I think of this before?
I love to cook up batches of meals and throw them in the freezer to enjoy later. It used to be that I would freeze the food in meal size portions for dinner, and inevitably there would be leftovers that I would use for my lunch the next day. However, in the last 6 months or so, as my children have grown and so have their appetites, there are no longer any leftovers. That leaves me scrambling to come up with a lunch for myself and my daughter. (My other daughter will contentedly eat peanut butter and jelly every day if I let her.)
When I had little freezer cooking sessions over the last few weeks, I decided to freeze the food in family meal size portions and in smaller bags for me and the girls for lunches. This works like a charm, and I now have a nice rotation of meals for us for lunch time. It is a bit like having my own frozen meal from the store, but this one is much cheaper, healthier and tastier. Works for me!
My wife freezes leftovers all the time particularly pasta sauce, chili, lasagna, and chicken dishes.
They are such a time saver. Chili and pasta sauce are two of our favorites to freeze too.
Good idea! It took me years after my kids left home to figure out how to cook for two and still we sometimes have leftovers to freeze. Usually though, my freezing is now on the front end. Meaning that I buy the family pack of chicken then break it up to single serving sizes right away and throw it in the freezer.
I can imagine after you are used to cooking for kids, it is hard to adjust to cooking for two!
Just did it this weekend. It’s impossible to make football chili for one without leftovers for weeks.
Good idea. Our problem is keeping our freezer organized so that stuff like this doesn’t get shuffled to the back in which case it’s a goner 🙂
Yes, I struggle with that too. I have to take inventory every few months. 🙂
ok, this is brilliant! My house is still running over with boys with hollow legs (They are always hungry) and I keep sane by filling my freezer with ready made meals. Home cooked meals in a pinch: love it! It never occurred to me to make small portions! I am going to start doing this so I can have better meals for lunch and can send prepared meals to work with my husband!
I love doing this for exactly the reasons you stated.