My idea of a freezer-friendly recipe used to be packing up leftovers in aluminum foil and then throwing it away a few months later. But now I cook more intentionally to keep the freezer filled with glass containers of spaghetti sauce, five-bean chili, Indian butter chicken, stuffed pasta shells in marinara, chicken fajitas, spinach and bean burrito filling and salsa verde chicken enchiladas.
On weeknights, I almost never cook from scratch. In between walking the dog and my workout, I’ll pull one of those freezer-friendly recipes out to defrost in the microwave, maybe start a pot of salted water for pasta or crank up the rice cooker. Then all that’s left is to prep a green vegetable or salad. Even for vegetables I take the easy way out, like tossing asparagus or broccoli in olive oil and roasting on a sheet pan.
Cook once, eat a bunch of times
The hard part is a weekend afternoon of cooking every two or three weeks — which is not that hard. If I make Indian butter chicken, for instance, I load up the pressure cooker with enough for six or eight meals for two. If I make my (award-winning) five-bean chili with our friend Roger’s homegrown organic habanero peppers, I use a huge pot that also results in six or eight meals for two, plus several smaller containers of chili for lunch portions of baked potatoes with chili and cheese on top.
We eat a lot of soup for lunch on work-from-home days, so I’ll usually make a big pot of at least one freezer-friendly soup on those cooking weekends too. I like soup recipes that include both beans and greens, either vegetarian or with a small amount of animal protein like beef, turkey or sausage.
Get yourself the right tools for the job
If you’re planning to go all in on cooking freezer-friendly recipes, get yourself a really big pressure cooker. As long as you’re going to cook a big batch of something, why not get 6 or 8 meals out of it instead of just 3 or 4? I’ve had this 8-quart Instant Pot for six years and it’s still going strong, despite getting lots of use.
Pro tip: How to keep your Instant Pot from smelling like the last thing you cooked
My Trinidadian friend Vyanti, who’s an amazing cook and like me, cooks with a lot of spices, taught me this secret. Get a bunch of sealing rings in different colors, and assign a color to each type of recipe you cook. I use an orange ring for Mexican, red for Italian, black for Indian and so on. Pop it out of the lid and put it in the top rack of the dishwasher after you cook. If the lid still retains a bit of a smell, scrub it with half a lemon and some baking soda.
Splurging on Pyrex
Freezer-friendly recipes do require investing in the right containers to keep your freezer-friendly recipes fresh and free from freezer burn. I love these Pyrex glass rectangles in 6-cup and 3-cup sizes. Of course, you could try those giant ice cube trays, but they require first freezing the food, then popping it out and storing in freezer bags or wrapping somehow and then moving it to some dish or container for defrosting. All that’s just too much trouble for me. The Pyrex storage containers make it super simple to go from freezer to microwave to a saucepan on the stove. (Another reason for splurging on the Pyrex is that if I’m going to put food in the microwave, I want it in glass instead of plastic. Also, it lasts forever and doesn’t discolor or hang onto smells.)
Washi tape and Sharpies
Once I have a row of Pyrex containers lined up on the kitchen counter, filled with appropriate serving sizes of whatever freezer-friendly recipe I just cooked, I add two strips of washi tape to each container — one for the lid and one for the side of the container, so I can easily see what I’ve got stacked up in the freezer. (I love this washi tape set of solid pastels that take Sharpie well. The tape is also easy to remove when the Pyrex comes out of the freezer.)
Use quality ingredients
One of the tricks to freezer-friendly recipes is to start with the best ingredients you can. I prefer hormone-free chicken and meat, organic vegetables (especially the ones like spinach that I add in large quantities) and really great spices.
I order my spices in bulk cellophane bags from Penzey’s and then decant them into spice jars with a paper funnel. (Just take a piece of paper and use washi tape to create a funnel shape.) We like spicy, so I go through a lot of red pepper flakes, cayenne and hot chili pepper. I also use a lot of their black peppercorns, cumin, curry, oregano, basil, rosemary and saffron.
Examples of freezer-friendly recipes
I’ve included a handful of my favorite freezer-friendly recipes in the list below, but let me preface that by saying that my recipes are pretty loosey goosey. I don’t give precise measurements very often. If you’re the kind of cook who measures every teaspoon precisely, my recipes will drive you crazy.
- Award-Winning Five-Bean Chili
- Spaghetti Tempesta
- Indian Butter Chicken
- Spinach Lentil Soup
- White Bean, Sausage and Kale Soup
For those who measure ingredients
If you prefer a recipe that actually tells you how much of each ingredient to add, you might try the freezer-friendly meals in this book: Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer. The authors team up to cook a bunch of recipes all at once, which sounds kind of fun, and then they all take home containers of each recipe for their own freezer.
One of my favorite bits of advice they offer is to freeze any extra into smaller individual portions to give away to neighbors, friends or family members, particularly people who live alone and don’t have time to cook. That’s a great way to use up the last little bit of chili or spaghetti sauce at the bottom of the pot.
Buy basics when they’re on sale
One thing that makes it easier to do a big cooking day is to already have most of the pantry ingredients on hand so you only need to shop for the fresh ingredients. When our grocery store has sales on things I use a lot, like boxes of chicken broth, diced tomatoes or tomato paste, salsa or spaghetti sauce, we buy a bunch. If my favorite brand of tomatoes (Muir Glen) is on sale as a BOGO, we’ll stock up on 8 or 10 cans. In addition to knowing I have canned tomatoes in the pantry, I like paying half price for a great brand.
Save time where you can
Lastly, I’m a big believer in saving time and effort with pre-prepped food if it doesn’t impact the taste or texture. For instance, I buy the plastic boxes of pre-chopped onions in the produce department, which saves time and tears. But I don’t like the jars of chopped garlic. In my opinion, nothing can replace fresh cloves of garlic, chopped by hand right before adding to the pot.
If there’s any short cut you can think of, take it. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to have an assortment of freezer-friendly meals ready to make your life easier when it’s time to get dinner together. To me, a stack of Pyrex in the freezer is like money in the bank!
