I hope your surgery goes well, with the least amount of pain, and that you recover as fast as is possible under the circumstances.

I freeze these in single meal portions:

Lasagna

Chili

Sliced bbq

Bbq ribs

Italian sausage and peppers

Home made pizza

I make my Mom’s MacN Cheese recipe , custard style, in a 13x9 and bake cool cut in servings wrap in parchment and freeze . It reheats like fresh made. I make White Chicken Chili and freeze in 4 c servings. I make my pizza crusts and freeze ready to top. Black beans with spices ready to reheat and serve with rice and grated cheese and toppings. Meatloaf freeze in servings stacked with parchment.

I'm not sure my favorites are what you need. I tend to freeze two portion cuts of casseroles, so lasagna, pumpkin lasagna, bread pudding, breakfast pudding, and whatever random casserole I make. Also enchiladas and other individual pieces baked in a dish together. Also, the same size of soups. Quarters of fruit pies. Individual, freezer to MW mac & cheese. Also, useful amounts of cooked meats, especially chicken and turkey. Sliced brisket, pulled chuck. Lots of other things, but those are the favorites. They're all mains, though, not complete dinners.

Do beans freeze well?.....I would have thought their texture would fall apart after freezing. Because chili etc sound great. I also sometimes make a dish of black beans and salsa on rice that would be good too.

I freeze chili and 15 bean soup all the time! They freeze just fine. I also make soups of all kinds and freeze. Not a fan of doing this in the heat of the summer, though. I'm looking for crock pot meals to cook and freeze (just cause I'm lazy, not for medical reasons), so I'll be following this thread. Good luck with your surgery!

It depends how picky you are about beans and the quality of your freezer. Beans in liquid, if they're frozen fast and defrosted slowly, can be quite nice or at least okay. You can also freeze the chili without the beans, and stir in some cooked (canned) ones when you reheat.

At the end of summer, my Dad used to make up containers of eggplant parmesan to use up garden produce. So wonderful to have that in November!

Good luck with the surgery! I like having chicken soup and minestrone soup in the freezer. Just make sure both the noodles and the soup are at room temp before you put them together in the container, then freeze. Or, freeze just the soup and usethis rice when ready to serve.

I freeze home made baked beans all the time, they come out fine.

I usually make large servings of curries, casseroles, spaghetti sauce etc and freeze the extra after dinner. Soups I do the same. My homemade soups often are just a vegetable sauteed with a chopped onion and then simmered in an appropriate stock, then pureed with a stick blender and a little cream added. If the vegetable is broccoli or zucchini, I will add a good sized dollop of pesto as well. Tomato soup often has chopped bacon (fried off in the pan first, then removed and the onions and tomatoes sauteed in the bacon fat, the soup pureed and then the bacon added back into the soup). Minestone is a favourite, as are mulligatawny and cheddar corn chowder. For pumpkin soup I roast kabocha squash and onions, then saute a tablespoon or so of curry powder in a large pot and add the vegetables and chicken stock. After pureeing I add a can of coconut cream.