Does anybody have any good ideas for "make ahead" meals?!
Answers: I have been working really long hours during the week and do not have the energy to cook when I get home aside from heating something up. Are there any meals that I can prepare during the weekend and refrigerate/freeze to cook or reheat during the week that will not go bad? All ideas welcome!!
Meatloaf
Pork Chops, rice and gravy
Chili
Stuffed Bell Pepper Casserole (lots of recipes at cooks.com)
soups
stew
salsbury steaks (hamburgers cooked, then simmered in a brown gravy.) with mashed potatoes and corn ( I either buy the single serve frozen ones and add the packet to the plated dish or I open a can of corn DO NOT HEAT IT...and add a spoonful to the plate and a little of the juice to be able to heat it when it's heating with the rest of the meal.
mac and cheese with hamburger and stewed tomatoes
(cook meat, make mac, drain meat, add to mac add tomatoes)
potato/macaroni salad
chicken salad to toss on top of green salad
tuna salad to toss on top of green salad
Chicken Spaghetti (look up at www.cooks.com -April's Louisiana Chicken Spaghetti) place in single serve containers and reheat.
Spaghetti and meatballs
NOTE: Pretty much anything you cook that is meat and veggie, you can freeze to reheat later, as long as it's sealed well. Rice will freeze well as long as you have a gravy or butter dot over it, just add like a TBSP of water to it ( if you're using only butter)when you freeze it, so it has moisture to steam it when it's reheated.
Italian dishes heat up great...think lasagna, manicotti, ravioli, etc.
Meatloaf also does well, you can also make sweedish meatballs and freeze them, then just boil noodles the day you use them.
Any casserole will work well. Maybe a Mexican style casserole with tortilla chips, hamburger, salsa and cheese. When you re heat it add some more tortlla chips for more crunch.
I like to buy lean ground hamburger in big amounts, fry it up with chopped onion. Drain off the fat. Package it in one pound bags and freeze. When you get home from work, just defrost a bag and make chili, tacos, spaghetti, a casserole. You have done the hard work already, you just have to defrost the burger and make the rest. You can be eating in half-hour or so. Or whenver you do make something on the weekend make two batches and freeze one for another date. just take out the night before and put in the frig to defrost. When you get home from work, just pop it in the oven.
Casserole dishes are great for making ahead of time. Big batches of soup work well, too.
My favorite make-ahead meals are:
- Potato soup
- Lentil soup
- Spaghetti bake
- Lasagna
- Baked ziti
Check out my source for tons of yummy, easy make-ahead meals.
What you are talking about is called OAMC (Once-A-Month-Cooking). You can do searches for it on the internet. I have pasted some links below to exclusively OAMC recipes, sorted by highest-rated first, below. If the recipes make too much, you can halve them.
Main dish: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes/oamc-f...
Side dish: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes/oamc-f...
Pasta: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes/oamc-f...
Here is a link to goodhousekeeping make ahead meal recipes, I tried a couple with my family and they are great!! Hope you like them as much as we did. Especially the Salsa Verde Enchiladas and the Chicken with Chive Dumplings, delicious!
lean cusine
I usually cook one or two meals on the weekend and cook enough to have leftovers twice during the week. That helps. When I make meals, I also try to cook more than one and freeze one. I almost never cook just one casserole or meal if I can make two and freeze
Also, I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and pork tenderloin when on sale and seal them with my food saver and marinade. This is a great way to marinade meat of all kinds. It soaks before it freezes, then again while it's thawing.
I also bought this cookbook called "Dinner's In The Freezer". It is all about cooking and freezing meals and the recipes are wonderful. My favorite is the taco recipe.
Here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Panic-Dinners...
This is a wonderful book. Hope some of this helps. I know all about not having energy! I commute 2 hours a day to teach 3rd graders. Good luck!
Set aside a day a week to cook for your week ahead....make things that have the same types of ingredients ,,,,spaghetti sauce,meat loaf & chili share a lot of the same ingredients as do chicken soup and chicken casserole...there are also things that are just quick to fix....Kielbasa,ham steaks,,,beef steaks
and if you have a crock pot...you can pop a roast ,with some broth,onions and a bay leaf.....you will be greeted with the wonderful aroma of dinner.....get a few of those uncle ben 90 second rice packs....(the Spanish rice isn't every good though)
I have cooked 8-12 hours a day for a lot of years...coming home and cooking was the last thing I felt like doing....