My Make-Ahead/Freezer Meal Experiement

Each week, I like to make a menu plan (albeit somewhat shall we say, "informal") and coordinating grocery list before shopping.  The hope is that this planning will help to keep food costs down. The downside, however, is that sometimes life just happens and doesn't stick with the plan.  On days that don't play out like the 50's housewife model in my mind, and I don't have dinner prepared and plated (or even started) and laid out on a beautifully set table when my darling husband walks through the door, we usually fall into the convenience trap of dining out. Boo! That wasn't in the plan- or the budget!

Pinterest usually plays a large part in my weekly menu planning.  The convenience of pinning a recipe and then being able to read it from my phone as I cook is a fantastic luxury.  One thing I've noticed and become curious about are the pins linking to blog posts that claim one shopping trip, several hours of prep/chopping, and an ample supply of freezer bags can feed a family for pennies on the dollar for a week up to a month. AND THEN, cooking is as simple as emptying a baggie and flipping on the crock pot every day. Really?! Claims like $150=34 freezer meals have certainly grabbed my attention.  Math is not my favorite, but that breaks down to less than $5 per each freezer bag full of dinner for the whole family.

Bottom line: I'm a scientist and I'm ready to "guinea pig" this business.

First things first, let's PLAN.  Something that leaps to mind before beginning: Maybe I'm being a bit prejudicial here, but when I conjure up an image of a typical freezer-to-crock-pot baggie in my mind's eye, I'm thinking of processed food ingredients like canned-cream-of-whatever-soups, velveeta and ground beef (ahem, aka pink slime). I don't eat that and I won't feed it to my family. So let's take care to stick with the most REAL FOOD ingredients- and as much as possible, organic. Okay? Also, let's include a meatless menu selection or two. I've perused Pinterest and come up with the following recipes:

• Teriyaki Chicken 

• Provolone Penne Bake

• Chicken Curry

• Breakfast Burritos

(I don't have an exact recipe for these. Basically I chopped and sauteed a few potatoes and added a dozen eggs once the potatoes started to soften. When cooked, I put about 2-3 tablespoons of the potato/egg mixture in a warmed tortilla with some shredded cheddar. That's the mild version for the kids. For my husband and I, I added 2-3 tablespoons of green chile. Rolled 'em up burrito style, wrapped in foil, labeled and froze. To reheat: remove foil and microwave about a minute on each side.)

• Bean Burritos

(Same as above; I don't have a specific recipe. For these I added 2-3 tablespoons cooked brown rice, 2-3 tablespoons vegetarian re-fried beans, and some shredded cheddar to a warmed tortilla. Rolled, wrapped in foil, labeled and froze. To reheat: remove foil and microwave about a minute on each side.)

• Apple Cinnamon Pork Chops 

• Chicken Cacciatore

• Veggie Supreme Pizzas

(as far as I'm concerned, The Kitchen Whisperer's Simple Pizza Dough Recipe is the only way to have pizza. Ever.)

Note: Most of the above blogs mention doubling and even tripling each recipe to maximize the stretch of each dollar.

Then, I made a list and went shopping.  To the dollar store for the aluminum pizza trays and pans for the Provolone Penne Bake; on to Costco for the meat and cheeses, tortillas, rice and beans; finally, my regular grocery store (King Soopers) for the rest. Typically I prefer Sprouts Farmers Market stores for the best price and selection of produce, but by the end of this afternoon of shopping with 2 little ones in tow, the close proximity of King Soopers won out. The grand total, including 12 lbs. of organic brown rice, 6 lbs. of organic whole wheat pasta, and salad fixings to serve with most of the crock pot dinners, was comfortably near $150. With a tally of at least 15 dinners, (plus all the frozen bean/cheese & breakfast burritos) that makes the cost < $10 a meal to feed our family of four. Some of the claims I saw on Pinterest made more freezer meals for a little less money, and hey that's great- but for me, it is always worth the few extra dollars to buy, eat and feed my family REAL, ORGANIC WHOLE FOODS.

On the first afternoon, after shopping, I spent about an hour washing, chopping and assembling 3 freezer bags of Teriyaki Chicken, 2 freezer bags of Apple Cinnamon Pork Chops, 2 freezer bags of Chicken Caccitore, 1 freezer bag of Chicken Curry, and 1 freezer bag of Vegetarian Curry (using the same recipe for the chicken curry, minus the meat). Oh and, aside from the crock pot on each day of cooking, THIS was all the dirty dishes I had left to wash after preparing NINE freezer meals:

Next day, I started the pizza dough (doubled the recipe) in the stand mixer first.  While the dough was rising, I cooked the potatoes with eggs, and rice for burritos.  We made 3 dozen burritos! 12 egg/potato/cheese, 12 egg/potato/cheese/green chile, and 12 bean/cheese/rice. By then the pizza dough had risen and the kids and I assembled 4 pizzas. Next, I made the Provolone Penne Bake and we ate one pan for dinner with a Caesar salad and froze the other. 

All told, we gave this day about 4-5 hours cooking/prep time.  Add to that the hour from the night before and we'll call it 6 hours to prepare 9 crock pot freezer bags, 4 pizzas, 2 penne bakes, and 36 burritos. Here's what my freezer looked like, holding all of that prepared food:

Lessons learned:

• Spending the better part of a day in the kitchen and making this much food with my two little ones probably would've been better suited to a day when my husband was home to offer a hand (duh!).  
• There were a few more dishes to wash after day two's prep work....
• To me, Pinterest seems to be lacking in the vegetarian/vegan slow cooker/crock pot recipes- apparently herbivores with crock pots only eat soup? So, I've borrowed some cookbooks from the library and plan to use more plant-based options on my next go-round of make-ahead/freezer meals. 
• And cookie dough.

Things that didn't work:

• The recipes/instructions for the frozen pizzas and the Provolone Penne Bake= FAIL.  
• The pizzas oozed into mush and dripped down to burn on the bottom of the oven.  I really do love the idea of homemade frozen pizzas from scratch, so I plan to keep experimenting until we find the right method.  
• The Provolone Penne Bake also got a little watery and mushy when cooking from frozen.

• I got a BORED. Nine days in, with 5 freezer dinners left, I found myself NOT looking forward to firing up the ol' crock pot. This appears to be a consequence of both multiplying recipes in the name of cost efficiency AND using recipes found on the internet that weren't exactly tried and true by our family's palate.
• On the PLUS SIDE, the frozen burritos worked out unbelievably well for us!

Conclusion:

Is the method of make-ahead/freezer meal cooking worth it? 

Is it as cost & time efficient as we hope?

I can't complain about healthy meals for my family under $10, or the effortlessness of the freezer bag to crock pot convenience, or the lack of pots and pans that need washing after dinner each night.  We were also less tempted to dine out (our financial Achilles), saving money this way as well.  All in all, this experiment definitely saved our family some real money. Is it worth it? My simple answer is yes- with a few conditions. Since PLANNING is the cornerstone of make ahead meals and I'm a "planner", this method worked for me on the whole.  If you don't love to plan as much, it may not.  Will I do it again? Considering the remarkable amount of time and money saved, yes I plan to give this method another go.  Next time however, the recipes used will only be our own favorites.