Good food suggestions for cooking and freezing

wet-paint

Hi folks,
So I've recently departed the family home for college, and am now cooking for myself. To keep things simple, I like to cook in large batches, then freeze in portions, and reheat over the week.
So far, I've gotten as far as curries, chilli, goulash and bolognase sauce.

I'm looking for any other recipes or foods that'd work well for such an arrangement?


All suggestions welcome.

Cheers,
WP

buzztastic

soups, especially blended ones and homemade burgers freeze well. Jambalaya freezes pretty good too.

joanofarc

Lasagna, do a huge one and freeze in portions ( the silver takeaway trays work well or this.
Chicken chasseur , 4 or 8 chicken breasts, packet or 2 of chasseur sauce, loads of colored peppers chopped, mushrooms. Bung the lot in an oven dish and cook for one hour and again freeze in individual portions.You'll just need to cook rice then and you've meal in minutes.
Good old irish stew is great but best eaten within 2 days...not ideal for freezing.

Twee.

A decent tomato sauce for pasta.

Also look out for rolls/baps going cheap in the supermarket. Usually at the end of the day you can get a few for a euro or so, freeze them and take out for your burgers or garlic bread.

FortuneChip

Chili has to be a front-runner!

And as said, anything pasta related.
Pasta Bakes are a particular fav

wet-paint

Thanks for all the replies folks, keep em coming.

Regarding the pasta bake, would it be to cook the pasta, and then freeze, and then reheat in the oven, baking in the process?

Or cook and bake, and then freeze?

FortuneChip

With pasta bakes, I usually cook the pasta etc, then bake my whole dish, then refrigerate it as I'm likely to use it with 2 days max.
If you're freezing it, I'd be slightly concerned that it will dry out a little, so it's no harm to save some extra sauce and add prior to reheating

ElleEm

Homemade burgers or meatballs freeze well. The meatballs can be frozen alone,then defrost along with a homemade tomatoe sauce and have with spaghetti. Alternatively, have them with gravy and mashed potatoes. Lovely wintery dinner!

wet-paint

Lovely, made up a batch of burgers last night, I threw in some rasher, garlic, parmesan and Ballymaloe for a bit extra taste in it. And I can freeze the baps too, which is dead handy.

ElleEm

wet-paint wrote: »

Lovely, made up a batch of burgers last night, I threw in some rasher, garlic, parmesan and Ballymaloe for a bit extra taste in it. And I can freeze the baps too, which is dead handy.

Nice one.

They are so versatile. I halve the raw beef mince and make spicy red chilli burgers from half, and herby "meatball" type ones with the other half to have with mash, as they make really different dinners.
You can use lamb mince and have those ones with cous cous or rice too.

Neyite

Double/treble the recipe for Pizza - make up a batch and freeze them. Perfect for lazy nights in.

wet-paint

Lovely stuff, thanks folks.

tsuzmir

i usually make big pot of chicken stock and freeze it in 0.5l - 1l portions. when want quick soup, just empty a packet into a pot and add whatever u like: passata and some basil (a spalsh of balsamic and a bit of brown sugar with that is nice), cubed ham and some frozen peas, some roast chicken pieces leaftovers from previous day and noodles..... the only limit is your imagination. takes minutes to make and decent bowl of soup and bread will keep u going for a while

muckety

Casseroles, stews etc are good - daube or bourgignon cooked long and slow, left overnight (helps the flavours develop) and then frozen in portions. All they need when heated is one of those crusty rolls mentioned above.

AstridBean

Soup is a good 'un. You make a good hearty one that'd do for easy dinner or take into college with you to save money on lunch and give you more lunch time options.

Cork Boy

Shepards Pie freezes very well.

A pasta sauce that got me through college from Lidl:

2 x tins nostia chopped tomatoes (35c each I think)
1/3 tube nostia tomatoe puree (70c per tube)
dash of sugar
salt and pepper
dried basil
splash of olive oil
garlic (lots!!!)

Gently fry the garlic, add in some puree and fry a bit. Add rest of ingredients, bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer. Done :cool:

wet-paint

Made about a gallon of stew, but used soup mix instead of pearl barley, and now it's a bit more cloudy and soupy than I'd have liked, but it's tasty enough.

AstridBean

I'm cooking this today. Very easy method and supposedly freezes well:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1094662/pork-goulash-with-herby-dumplings