30 dinners in 2 days: My attempt at freezer meals

Hello! I’m about to embark on a HUGE project (details coming soon) that will be taking a pretty big chunk of my days. So I’ve been looking at ways to save time and work smarter to make sure my family’s needs are taken care of while I’m busy plugging away on my project.

One of the time savers I’ve been wanting to try for awhile is freezer meals. What are freezer meals? Well, in quick summary, they are fresh-ingredient dinners mixed up ahead of time, loaded into plastic bags, tossed in the freezer, then simply popped into a slow cooker or casserole dish and heated up.

They can be a really economical and healthy way to get dinner on the table without a lot of stress!

I settled on 15 recipes I wanted to try. (Each of these recipes divided into two separate bags is 30 meals total.) There are lots of great recipes for freezer meals all over Pinterest. You can find the ones I used here.

Based on the recipes I chose, I put together a shopping list, picking up all my ingredients on the morning of Day 1.

I was able to finish about half of the 15 recipes on Day 1 and the rest on Day 2. It was a grueling two days on my feet cutting, chopping, measuring and bagging. But, when I saw all those bags of prepared food, it was totally worth it!

To keep my food preparation as safe, streamlined and efficient as possible, I designated different areas – or “stations” – in my kitchen.

I used one of my sink basins as a veggie wash station, filling it with cold water, a few teaspoons of lemon juice and a few drops of Shaklee’s Basic H2 organic cleaner.

I loaded all the veggies in there and pulled them out as needed.

My meat-cutting station was to the right of my sink.

I set up my veggie-cutting station on my kitchen island.

Finally, my bagging station was to the left of my sink. This set up seemed to work pretty well for me and I’ll probably replicate it the next time I do this.

I did the math and estimated that each meal cost me about $10 – not bad for four people. So far, I’ve had enough leftovers from each meal to do one lunch or so. The recipes I chose used lots of veggies and fresh ingredients, which makes me feel good about what I’m feeding my family.

Although it was hard work preparing so many meals at once, I will DEFINITELY be doing this again in a month or so when my stash runs out.

Have you ever tried preparing bulk meals or freezer meals? Do you have any great recipes to share?