Talk to me about bulk making freezer meals

[myusernameisusername]

So me and DH have decided to start making all our months meals (60 meals) in one go and freezing them. i have the shopping list sorted and raring to go but worried about what times are like for re heating pre cooked frozen food in the oven ? do you defrost then heat or just bung them straight in for 30mins or so

I normally defrost in the fridge overnight, then cook as normal.

Whatever you do, remember to shut the freezer door properly at all times. Otherwise you loose a lot of lovingly prepared food!

What things are you making?
I generally do things that get heated up on the hob.
But you can take the meals out the night before to defrost. Then cook in the oven. As you would normally

Lose not loose!

I freeze in foil containers (Ind meals) then reheat in the oven from frozen. I would advise freezing in single layers as we had some sink into the layer below and freeze together.

Depends on what it is. If its something like toad in the hole then you can bung this straight into the oven from frozen as long as the sausages are small enough. If its bolognese/curry/shepherds pie/lasagne/moussaka then I'd take out in the morning ready to heat that evening.

One thing I do is to freeze in the dish you'll use to reheat (but don't store it in that dish IYSWIM) so that you can take it out of the bag, pop it into the dish, it will fit perfectly and then you bung into the oven/slow cooker to cook.

Have you looked into slow cookers. You can buy ingredients, freeze all mixed into a bag, defrost over night and then bung in slow cooker all day.

I batch cook things like chilli and curry (not a month in advance!) and portion things out into takeaway style foil cartons/cardboard lids that I buy from Tesco (they do single and double sizes). We usually defrost overnight, then tip it out into a pan to cook.

I mainly do it for the dc. The main ones are mac and cheese, Shep pie, broccoli and cheese bake, basic fish pie and chicken curry. I do some meals in the slow cooker. The only time I go onto netmums is for the recipes and the slow cooker ones are good. I have plastic containers to store the meals in.

It can be an enormous time saver (although I don't envy you trying to do 60 in one go!!)

I hope I do it ok?!

I try to put in containers to defrost and then cool in microwave, but also put in freezer bags (eg stew), I always intend to defrost in freezer but usually I leave it out for a bit then tip it out onto a plate/ bowl to defrost and the cook in microwave.

I like doing stew or bolognaise as its relatively quick, bung it all in and cook, and then as half the meal is rice or pasta it sort of take up less freezer space, it's just cooking the pasta or rice.

that's impressive!

I do this for chilli and curry, although I use plastic containers as they can be microwaved. After use they go through the dishwasher and get used again, they last about a year.

very important to label; use a strip of sellotape and a permanent marker as freezer labels ALWAYS fall off.

I batch cook chilli and bolognaise. Freeze a meal per plastic container and when frozen take out the containers and store stacked in freezer bags -this is photo of my stash. I find it takes up much less room in the freezer (and plastic containers get brittle and crack if kept in the freezer too long). A pain to wash the plastics all at once but then I can reuse them for other things.
To reheat I put a portion in one bowl we are going to eat out of and defrost and heat in microwave, then plate up from there - so I don't make more washing up....

I generally make a lot of something and freeze the rest - so white sauce (for macaroni cheese and lasagne) and mash potato.
I also buy 1kg of mature cheddar, grate it and freeze it.

meatballs and pasta
Lamb chops
Chicken Chasseur
Beef bourginon (sp?)
Roast dinners
Stir frys
Toad in the hole
Curry
Casseroles
Fish pie
Cauliflower cheese
Off the top of my head

Ill be slow cooking some of the meats for tenderness and then freezing with there accompaniments. im using square foil disposable containers bought in bulk from eBay

You can parboil, oil and freeze root veg for roasted veg. It's makes a nice side dish.

I wouldn't do stir fries. I'd chop and freeze the veg as stir fry mixes but don't cook it before freezing.

Personally wouldn't do lamb chops either. You can cook them from raw as quickly as reheating them.

Roast dinner I'd do as each of the separate components.

Label your meals carefully. There is NOTHING worse than coming home to spag Bol and realising it's chilli.

How long would it last if you chopped up and froze stir fry meat/veg?

The whole point of doing it all cooked and frozen is so they are like ready meals but healthier and portioned out evenly and i can just cook then in the foil containers and bung in the oven when I get home from work otherwise id be ordering a takeaway or some other crap and I'm fed up of that

I do chilli, spag Bol, macaroni, soup and shepherds pie (you can even freeze with the potato topping on it). I defrost overnight then re-heat the next day. With the (defrosted) shepherds pie I brush the top of the potato with beaten egg and then heat at 200c for 30 minutes. I freeze them in individual pie dishes all the others I freeze on plastic bags and once defrosted I hear thoroughly in a pan (I got food poisoning re-heating spag Bol in the microwave once so am super careful.

I'm not disputing that bulk cooking meals is a good idea. I do it a lot. but stir fry ready cooked will not be great and its very quick to do from fresh. Chop the veg, make up the "mix", freeze it but you would be better off flash cooking it afterwards. You could chop and cook the chicken and freeze this separately though. Then just add to the mix at the point of cooking.

Most other things will be fine done in foil trays as you describe but you will need to defrost them the night before otherwise your cooking time will be long since you'll be trying to heat a big block of ice.

Interesting thread.

Do people defrost soup before heating it and can sliced peppers be frozen?

What's the best way to freeze and reheat potatoes, both mashed and roasted? I always have loads left over from a Sunday roast.

I have a defrosting plate, from amazon, defrosts homemade ready meals very quickly. Handy if you want to microwave but have stored in tinfoil.