{Mrs. Hillbilly, The Church Lady, Me, The Hot Texan, Hulda, and Gertrude {Hulda’s mom}
Yesterday a bunch of us got together at my house and made 100 freezer meals in just under 5 hours. It.Was.Nuts. A few days before the freezer meal party, The Church Lady and I sat down and decided on which 5 recipes our group would make. We then tallied up the ingredients and passed out shopping lists to everyone a few days before the freezer meal party.
As everyone showed up we stacked all the ingredients on a large folding table and then got to work.
We chopped ten million and fifty two onions and cried our eyes out. It was hilarious and a wee bit stressful, all at the same time. We were trying so hard to measure and get everything right, I can’t even remember having any sort of real conversation with anyone yesterday other than, “How much do we need? What’s the next step… Can you grab… No I don’t have anymore bowls!”
It’s amazing how much you can accomplish with teamwork. I mean seriously, 100 meals? In five hours? Divide by 5 {Hulda’s mom was visiting from out of state} and that’s 20 meals per person. Can you say sweet diggety?!
Pulling a homemade meal out of the freezer and popping it into the oven on a busy weeknight doesn’t get any better than that I tell you.
And yes, it’s official, my new kitchen has been christened.
We made such huge batches of everything that we ended up mixing several recipes in 15 gallon galvanized bins because our cook space and prep area was limited.
Twenty pounds of homemade sweet and sour meatballs? No problemo.
Waiting for sauce.
The assembly line in action.
We powered through 20 full size pans of homemade lasagna with fresh mozzarella and goat cheese {recipe coming soon} like true line cooks. This was the last freezer meal we put together and by the expressions on our faces… I don’t think any of us want to make another freezer meal for quite some time. 😉
In it to win it baby! 100 freezer meals in 5 hours. Who does that?
Apparently a bunch of crazy housewives with nothing better to do on a Monday morning 10 days before Christmas. 😉
Peace Out Freezer Scouts,
~Mavis
Check out these ground beef recipes that can be easily turned into freezer meals:
Freezer Meals – Ground Beef Pot Pie – Even though I can practically make pot pies in my sleep, we were always a chicken or turkey pot pie family. Then I gave ground beef pot pies a try and they were a huge hit with the fam, so they are now on our permanent menu. {Pin it for Later}
Ground Beef Taco Casserole Freezer Meal – We have Mexican food night at least once a week around here and we all love it. I love it even more when all I have to do it pop this dish in the oven and I’m done. {Pin for Later}
Spaghetti Casserole – I don’t think I know of a single kid that doesn’t love spaghetti casserole. I used to be afraid to freeze it because I thought it would make the spaghetti noodles taste weird. Not the case at all. Tastes just as delicious as a freezer meal! {Pin for Later}
Gourmet Spinach Blue Cheese Burgers – I love having a supply of ready-made hamburgers in the freezer, but I hate the store bought ones. So I make these in bulk and freeze away.. {Pin for Later}
Beef Enchilada Freezer Meal – I usually make 4 pans of this at once. It’s another one of my go-to recipes for our weekly Mexican food night, and I love that all the work has been done. I also love this recipe because it requires so few ingredients, and I always have them on hand. Not running to the store to pick up a missing ingredient is awesome! {Pin it for Later}
Cheesy Beef Tortilla Casserole – This casserole is all of the best of tacos, rolled into one cheesy pot. And it gives a purpose to all those little chip crumbs at the bottom of the bag. {Pin for Later}
Simple Lasagna Recipe – I make this simple lasagna recipe every single time I buy ground beef in bulk. My family never gets tired of lasagna. Throw a quick salad together and a loaf of french bread on the table, ad you have the easiest complete meal!. {Pin it for Later}
Easy Freezer Meal Meatballs – I like to serve these up with baked beans, but you can use them a million different ways. All the work is done, so just choose your sauce and create away. {Pin for Later}
Freezer Meal Sweet and Sour Meatballs – Speaking of meatballs, this is hands down my favorite way to prepare those meatballs from above. The sauce is amazing and these pair perfectly with some rice to complete the meal. {Pin for later}
Links to freezer pans I commonly use:
- Aluminum Foil Pan Containers with Lids 8.5″ x 6″ x 3″
- Aluminum Foil Deep Pans 9″ x 13″
- Round 9 Inch Aluminum Foil Pans with lids
Find More of My Freezer Meal Recipes
Tamara says
WOW! That is awesome! What a great bonding and fellowship way to use 5 hours!
Crystal says
Where do you get your containers for the meals? I am inspired!
Mavis Butterfield says
Costco sells them in bulk.
Jennifer Jo says
So how many people is each meal supposed to feed?
Mavis Butterfield says
Ideally 4-6. It usually takes us 2 days to eat an entire pan of lasagna.
Lisa says
Chewing gum while cutting onions works remarkably well at reducing the crying. Of course, I always forget and start cutting.
Thanks for the recipes. One of these days I’ll have to try it.
Mavis Butterfield says
Thanks Lisa, I’ll have to try that.
Lisa Millar says
So impressive!! I love it when I get around to making some freezer meals (well, love it when I don’t feel like cooking and there is something to drag out of the freezer)
Crazy and fun way of doing this! Going to pinch some of your recipes and have a go (erm… after Christmas that is…)
Heidi P says
I so wish I was one of your freezer meal friends. Looks so much more fun then doing it alone.
Side note~ obviously Mrs Hillbilly doesn’t want to be photographed. She’s either shy or famous. I’m going with famous:) Famous makes a much better story in my mind.
Mavis Butterfield says
Mrs. Hillbilly is not shy. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. 😉
Ginny says
I LOVE this idea! It just looks expensive up front. How much would you say it costs per meal? I know it may be hard to say…Thanks for sharing! 🙂
sharon says
Love it!! Oh I would love to do this!!
Shirley says
This might seem like a silly question, but how do you measure out 8 ounces of spaghetti ??
tb123 says
Any chance you’d be willing to share your recipes, shopping lists, and an estimated cost per person?
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes, I am working on writing up the recipes. 🙂
Shannon says
This looks so fun! I’d love to plan one of these sessions with my friends that I try to convince to do freezer cooking. Looking forward to seeing your total cost per person and shopping lists! Thanks for sharing. PS: Your kitchen looks fab!
Kathryn says
This is amazing and completely inspiring. You have a new follower!
Mavis says
Thanks, Kathryn. And welcome!
Lois says
I would love to ry this with some friends a nd also love to see what final cost total for each person would be. Thank you Lois
Liz says
What recipes did you make? I am new to freezer coming and would love to make 100 meals in 5 hours, even if it is only 5 different recipes!
Heather in Idaho says
Mavis,
Can you please tell me what specific recipes you used? I’ll follow them to a T! My daughter is flying out from your neck of the woods, specifically to help me make a lot of freezer meals (to help our family out during my cancer treatments)….tomorrow for a week! I’m not prepared!
Any help from you is most welcomed!!
Heather
Mavis Butterfield says
Hi Heather, best wishes with your treatments and I think it’s wonderful your daughter is coming out!!! You can find all my freezer meal recipes here: https://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/category/recipe/freezer-meals/
For our freezer meal party I think we made Lasagna, regular meatballs, sweet and sour meatballs, meatloaf, chili and something else {I can’t remember though}.
Heather in Idaho says
Thank you so much, and God bless you!
Dani says
Hello. I hope you are still answering questions from this post. Thank you for sharing this idea and the recipes. How do you handle the upfront costs? Are all of the items purchased and then the bill divided equally after the fact? I think this would be a fantastic thing to do with some of my mom friends and a great way for them to share some favorite recipes.
Mavis Butterfield says
Hi Dani,
We had everyone bring ingredients for the specific recipe they were sharing. I suppose you could tally up receipts and divide by the number of people attending, but it just seemed easier to us to do it the other way. I hope that makes sense.
Rita says
So what is reason for all the freezer meals? Is this a ministry or are the meals divided between people who helped? Or is this just to help one person – as in the lady who was preparing for long-term treatment? (I’m a Mavis also – not many of us ).
Sam says
I love this idea and am thinking of getting some friends together to do this with. I did want to mention to you that galvanized containers are NOT food safe so you may want to go another route next time.
Ciara Peters says
Never read your blog before, but you can bet I’ll be following from now on! You made this military freezer meal expedition sound like a comedy drama. Ver good writing! I am the same with my freezer meal inspiration, I like to tackle 2 large freezer meals in a day and then freeze all the portions (for my husband and I).