Well, you've named my go-to’s. Plus meatballs, mac and cheese, comfort food. The things we want to et coming out of the freezer. I know how to cook chicken for reheating, how to freeze it so it doesn't get weird, etc., but at the point where I'm looking in the freezer for it, I'd rather order in. It took me a long time to realize this. The chicken comes out just fine. you can't tell it's been frozen, but I could do a simple prep of a fresh chicken, at that point. Quiche freezes really well, and most pies. Tacos, and other nibbly things, but I'd rather freeze the filling and form them fresh. But lasagna? The best!

Nope--we are not much for leftovers. I have been known to halve a recipe rather than have extra. When I cook a whole turkey I do freeze the leftovers for another meal. Also I have a great seafood pie made with canned salmon that is Huge. Husband & I eat half and I freeze the rest for another meal.

Ragù, fish pie, empty quiche cases, crumbles, unbaked pies, matriciana sauce, casseroles, plain cakes. These aren’t left overs, they are deliberate batch cooking to save time and fuel.

I make extra enchiladas and lasagna, but I do not freeze them (limited freezer space) and have the leftovers within a week of making the original dish.

My favorite thing to freeze is gumbo, which I make with a lot of seafood, including shrimp, crab, and oysters (and sometimes scallops), and I portion the leftovers into single serving containers to freeze. The gumbo I make is very labor intensive, and this is why I make enough to be able to freeze leftovers. The leftovers can be reheated once, but not twice, which is why I freeze them in individual (or two) servings.

I always buy an extra turkey around the holidays when they are on sale and use the meat to make a big pot full of pot pie filling and freeze it in quart containers. I usually get enough to make 6-8 pie sized pot pies with a 12-14 lb. bird. I just buy the pre-made pie crust, thaw the filling, bake for 30 minutes. One pie will feed the two of us for 3 meals.

I've done the same with Costco rotisserie chickens a couple times in the past when we were still members.

ETA: I'm down to one quart of TPP filling. I still have about 4 lbs. of sirloin from the last beef we had processed in the fall of 2021 that I want to use up before we pick up another beef that is at the processor aging right now. I was just thinking about slow cooking the sirloin in the crock pot and making a batch of beef pot pie filling. Hmmm, kinda sounds good! I wish I would have thought about it yesterday when I had time to make it. Maybe next weekend.

I always have various meats/poultry in the freezer we usually grill…ground beef/lamb, bnls chicken breasts, brats, tri-tip. Never without meatballs. Soups…currently split pea with ham and taco soup.

My freezer space is limited too, so I rarely freeze prepared foods. I do sometimes freeze tomato sauce, cooked beans and stock, when I don't want it to go bad before I can use it, but my freezer is mainly filled with meats, seafood, and packaged frozen veggies.

Me too like the rest of you: I make extra of just about everything to freeze for future meals. One thing I also do: my freezer is in the garage right near the indoor access door; when I come home with leftovers from a restaurant I toss them right in the freezer. It's so nice to find something decent in one of the freezers for dinner when I don't want to cook.

Like sleevendog, my freezer is my grocery store, along with my extremely well stocked pantry. Well, I should say "freezers" because I have 4 of them. Like Jack, we raise beef, but I also raise chicken, Elery harvests at least one deer annually and we buy a whole hog from a neighbor. We also make our own sausage. Add my gardens, orchard and berries, and those freezers are full, along with my canning pantry. And, of course, there are always eggs in the refrigerator.

I can various soups, spaghetti sauce, enchilada sauce and meat to be able to open and heat or use on a whim and if I make something like lasagna or enchiladas I make extra so I can freeze those. I normally have pie crust frozen so quiche is pretty quick, an already rolled pie crust thaws quickly. We seldom eat out.

We also eat leftovers. Elery is better at that than I am. I don't mind some things leftover, like soup or chili, cold salads like coleslaw, even baked beans but leftover meat is just not something that appeals to me. That said, I have leftover halibut that I'm going to flake up and make into a sandwich or taco for supper, so I'm pretty diligent about repurposing things. I have a flock of laying hens and I make my own dog food, so there are seldom days when meat goes to waste, the dog is happy to help and the chickens are too. I do have a big orange cat that loves bacon and cheese popcorn (separately) , but that's seldom left over, LOL.

Annie

A lot of soups stews. Meatloaf of various things. I like to pressure cook beans and freeze them instead of getting canned. I make bigger batches of rice and portion some off for the freezer. I like to preset a lot of meats. Like cut up chicken and freeze it with it's seasonings so I can just pull that packet and pair it with something. Sear and pack up pork chops with onions and apples and seal it up for sous vide. Or set of a frozen fish with it's seasonings to cook sous vide. A lot of premade meats that get finished off for dinner. Like stewing up meat for quick Asian, and finishing it off with the veggies and thickening up the sauce for dinner. A whole pot of chop suey is just too much and it does not freeze great once finished- but stopping after the stewing and freezing just that to finish off later for dinner works great. Or slow cook up a roast and chunk it- pull a packet to pair up with something for dinner. Burritos and encheladas sometimes- there's a local place that has great tamales and I'll pick some up and pack them into more dinner sized portions.

Sometimes it's just if I'm making something, it's enough that some can go into the freezer. If I'm making a pound loaf of bread, might as well do a two pound batch and pop one into the freezer for next time.

Like most, a lot of soup. I have to remember to thaw it though, it takes a while. I used to freeze lasagna, enchiladas, etc.

Some that haven't been mentioned for a vegetarian. I make a big roasting pan full of root and other vegetables, those freeze pretty good. Also whole cooked grains like polenta, farro, brown rice, barley. Thaw out for quick pilaf or stir fry, or add to soup. If you freeze and thaw tofu, that is a good way to get a lot of the water out, it drains out when thawing, you can squeeze it out like a sponge. I occasionally do a big pot of dried beans and freeze half in wide mouthed pint jars, for thawing and using just as I would the canned ones. Cheaper and fresher and with glass jars, no "can taste." I can do much lower salt that way too.

I found out roasted or sauteed peppers and onions freeze well too, in small doses for adding to pizza, pasta, etc. at the end, saves time and a good way to preserve my garden peppers. I haven't tried it with tomatoes but I'll bet they would be good too.

For just the two of us, we do a surprising amount of "batch" cooking. We have a small chest freezer in the basement and a large bottom drawer freezer upstairs in our kitchen. Meatloaf, meatballs, chili, a lot of different soups/stews are usually what we cook to eat and have for meals again. In the summer, we make stuffed clams and fishcakes from our "catch" and vacuum seal those for freezing. We have half a recipe from New Year's Eve of a base for Cioppino waiting to be thawed and fish/shellfish added for a yummy meal sometime this week. We don't make much in the way of casseroles - as much as we love lasagna and other baked pastas we usually treat ourselves to those when we eat out.

I wish I had the freezer space to do batch cooking, but alas, my freezer space is taken up by nuts and cranberries and butter. I also have a few cups of frozen broth and condensed milk that were left over from recipes. I don't even have the ice tray for my ice maker in the freezer to maximize my space (ice maker turned off).

There's two of us and I cook for 6 for the leftovers. Husband makes better meatloaf than I do and he'll do a big batch and freeze several small ones. I just reorganized my freezers and found chicken shepherds pies, turkey tetrazzini, spaghetti sauce, posole, chili, lasagna, shredded chicken spiced up for tacos, zuppa toscana (without the cream), apple dessert stuff that just needs a crisp or cobbler topping, We've been trying to use up that kind of stuff. I actually emptied one of my freezers and am down to three.

I started freezing chopped vegies sauteed in butter. I like them better than plain chopped and frozen. Onions, peppers, celery, leeks, mushrooms in different combinations are handy. A package of sauteed leeks in some leftover mashed potatoes in a pot with some cream becomes instant potato and leek soup. When I get morels I do the same...makes the best cream of mushroom soup.

Katie, we've been making meatloaf in cupcake pans, freezing them on a sheet pan, then freezing them in a re-sealable foodsaver bag. I usually eat one, and hubby eats 2. We end up with 3 or 4 meals.

I freeze a lot of things. I have two big upright freezers and two in refrigerators and they are all full. Recently I froze beef vegetable soup and today I will freeze some of my meatloaf and baked beans. When I had an overload of potatoes. I fried them with onions and froze them... I hope to freeze some strawberries in the future. I have been dehydrating strawberries and frozen vegetables, peas and corn and some cabbage. I will use those in my soups. Oh, did some carrots too. If I have leftovers I usually try to freeze some of it.

Sue

I found a recipe from a news feed. i made it tonight and enjoyed a very good diiner. I made three packages for three more meals… 2 legs each, and froze them.

I used my own chicken stock and forgot that it would have no salt. So, if your stock is like mine, you will need to add salt.

Chicken And Orzo With Lemon And Olives

Time

45 minutes

8 chicken drumsticks

Salt, pepper to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 ½ cups orzo

3 cups chicken broth

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 small lemon, cut into 8 wedges

• 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

¾ cup pitted Kalamata olives

1 large bay leaf

3 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano, divided

1

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the chicken legs well on all sides with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

2

In a Dutch oven or large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the legs well on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan.

3

Add the orzo, chicken stock, garlic, lemon wedges and juice, olives, bay leaf and 1 tablespoon of the oregano. Stir to combine all the ingredients, then return the chicken to the pan. Cover and transfer to the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is done (the meat will be firm and its juices will run clear). Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, sprinkle with the remaining oregano and serve.

Author’s Notes.

If You’re Making Chicken and Orzo with Lemon and Olives, a Few Tips

Reach for a large cast iron skillet or oven-safe nonstick skillet. While it asks you to cook the meal in a Dutch oven or a large stockpot, I always reach for my 12-inch cast iron skillet, which provides enough surface area to nestle the chicken into the orzo without it looking crowded. And if you don’t have a matching lid, use aluminum foil to cover.

Deseed your lemon. Taking the extra step to remove the seeds beforehand means you don’t have to worry about biting into a stray seed or two later on.

Toast the orzo in the pan. The recipe calls for adding the rest of the ingredients at the same time, but I like to add the orzo first to give it time to toast in the chicken fat, which deepens the flavor.

Deglaze the pan with chicken stock. After toasting the orzo, I deglaze the pan with chicken stock, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon, to make sure all the tasty bits get mixed up with the stock. Afterwards, I add the remaining ingredients.

Try it with dried oregano. If you don’t have fresh oregano on hand, you can replace it with 1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano

Rho, I would love to have your recipe for that seafood pie. That sounds like something we would really like.

Kate, that recipe was in my inbox this week (from thekitchn.com). Thanks for your post!

That recipe sounds and looks great, but I would like it so much better made with thighs. :)

party, having made this recipe, I would think you could use any chicken part. I was thinking of trying it with theighs too.

I always make an extra impossible pie when I am cooking; they freeze really and are fast if you nuke them.

various examples

As chloebud said, that Chicken and Orzo recipe arrived from Kitchn.com, and the writer commented that it could easily be doubled and also can be made with chicken thighs. I think we all copied the same recipe!

SEAFARERS SALMON PIE

1 (15 1/2 oz.) can salmon, drained 1 large onion, diced 1 garlic clove, minced 1 (16 oz.) container plain yogurt 4 eggs 1.5 Cup shredded gruyere 1 tsp. dill weed crumbled 1/4 tsp. salt

PARMESAN CRUST:

1 1/2 c. flour 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese 1/3 c. canola oil 1/4 c. nonfat milk or water

Crust - Combine flour and cheese. In separate bowl, mix oil and milk until creamy. Pour liquid over flour and stir lightly with fork until blended. Pat the dough with fingers in a 9 inch deep dish pie or quiche pan, pressing evenly over bottom and up sides. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Combine the rest of ingredients and pour into Parmesan crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 65-70 minutes. Cool 15 minutes in pan. Serves 6.

I use whatever cheese that is in house usually mozzarella or cheddar or a mix

Thank you Rho!

aliceinmd and chloebud, I used my 2" deep LaCreuset pan and that worked just fine. A double recipe wouldn't fit, but the single did.

@Lars, I make what I call ”gumbo base,” which includes everything but the shrimp because I don’t like re-heated shrimp. When I want gumbo, I take out the frozen ”base” and heat it up. I throw the shrimp in at the last minute…just long enough to cook but not overcook.

I use lots of crab, but I don’t think I’ve ever included scallops. They are pretty hard to find in this neck of the woods.

I no longer put oysters in my gumbo. I used to but then for some unknown reason, I decided I didn’t care for them in the gumbo. I still eat oysters in other things, though.

How many of you have made Freezer Coleslaw? It’s not as bad as it sounds and is adequate as a condiment…like on hot dogs. I don’t know that I would eat it as a side. I think almost any vinegar based coleslaw will do.

“…chloebud, I used my 2" deep LaCreuset pan…”

Thanks, Kate. I have a Le Creuset brasier that’s about 2 1/2” deep so should be good.👍🏻

I have one refrigerator and one upright freezer and fill them both up. I am not a "Prepper" but when I have to make a meal I know I can pull out the fixin's so as to not have to run to the store (45 minutes round trip). When I buy veggies I chop up way more than I need which saves me future time for what seems like I need to do - chop up something for everything I want to cook.

The main things I freeze for my convenience are:

• vegetable additions (onions sliced and chopped - red, white, yellow, and sweet, shallots in glass jars (they go bad quickly here), green onions chopped, celery slices, diced carrots, 3 colors of sweet bell peppers sliced, Jalapeno, Serrano and Poblano hot peppers, garlic in glass jars, steamed broccoli, cooked tomatoes and potatoes, berries and grapes)
• bread (part bags of plain white bread, pita, tortillas, hot dog and hamburger buns, bagels, croissants, homemade puff pastry, pizza crust, pie crusts, panko and bread crumbs)
• condiments (butter and hard cheese on sale, tablespoon portions of tomato paste, cilantro and parsley stems for stews, nuts that all like to go rancid here in the South)
• flour (AP, bread, whole wheat, rye, Tipo 00, Bisquick, rice flour, cornmeal, cereal) because we live in the humid South and the pantry moths love my pantry storage
• overflow because I made too much (cake slices, pie filling, cookies, fried bacon, pancakes)
• Meat and seafood - all the usual raw stuff in half pounds for the two of us. But always lasagna, enchiladas, meat loaf for sandwiches, browned ground sausage, cooked chicken/turkey for additions to casseroles or soups

I like to only cook for what we will eat at one meal so that I don't have freezer burn tasting food or something that we won't eat again that soon from the fridge. It has only taken me 50 years to figure out how to save my prep time and gas for the car. I do use my vacuum sealer a lot to portion things and a grease pencil is absolutely necessary because frozen everything looks the same. Beware that flours and breads need to be in plastic zipper bags then into the vacuum bags or they will taste funny and also that plastic wrap is not meant to be frozen on anything - ever.