Eating a balanced diet has been one of the most helpful things in my chronically ill life. Healthy meals, sleeping enough and on a regular schedule, exercise/moving my body as much as I’m able, and staying hydrated are the biggest factors that I have control of. Unfortunately my energy levels can vary wildly from day to day and I’m not always up to cooking a full meal. To help on the hard days I’ve been making extra food on the days I feel better and freezing it for future use.
Cooking my own food has been especially important since I have a lot of allergies and food intolerances to work around. Finding meals that are already made that fit what I can eat is a long shot. When I do make these large batches to freeze I am often not up to doing all the work on the same day, so I prep things ahead of time slowly, sometimes over the course of several days. It’s also a lot of fun to invite friends over to help prep and assemble these meals. We’ve had many burrito or pierogi parties with friends.
Lastly, don't be afraid to use things that make your life easier. Using a food processor when you can to chop veggies can save you energy for other things. I love my rice cooker. It’s not that cooking rice on the stove is particularly hard but with a rice cooker it’s abundantly easy. I buy disposable aluminum pans for storing many of my frozen meals in. It makes for super easy clean up and there’s no concerns going straight from the freezer to the oven like there could be with glass or ceramic cookware.
My favorite frozen food to keep on hand is burritos. These are individual servings, they can be cooked in the microwave in 5 minutes or so, and they are a fairly balanced meal. I use measuring cups as scoops for assembly so that they all end up roughly the right size. It’s a great meal to make an assembly line with friends. I generally include rice, meat or other protein, some form of beans, sauteed onions and bell peppers, salsa, and shredded cheese. If you like them spicy then add some hot sauce in as well. They are great just like that but if you have extras around you can add them in once you heat the burritos up (think lettuce, guac, sour cream, etc…). Microwave for 5-6 minutes flipping occasionally.
Pierogies freeze well but are a little more complicated to make. I have some friends who do regular pierogi parties and when they do I like to participate but I’ve never hosted my own pierogi party before. Very basically speaking you make the dough and the filling ahead of time and then roll out the dough, fill using some kind of pierogi press, and then boil them to seal everything in. When you’re ready to eat them you can saute them with butter and any veggies you have around to go with them.
Chicken pot pies are great options for freezing. When I do these I make the pie crusts a day or two ahead, then prep the veggies and meat and make the sauce. Then simply assemble it, cover it, and freeze it. You can par bake the crust if you want but it’s not strictly speaking necessary.
Shepherd's pie or cottage pie also work well. Technically a shepherd's pie is made with lamb, while a cottage pie is made with beef but I’ll leave the meat choices up to you. For a vegetarian version you can use a food processor to mince up a bunch of mushrooms. In fact, adding mushrooms in with the ground meat is also delicious and adds an extra layer of flavor and nutrition. Whichever meat you decide to use, just cook it on the stovetop with onions, carrots, and frozen peas. Add a little broth and thicken with your thickener of choice. This is the bottom layer of the pie. The top layer is mashed potatoes. It’s also very good when made with mashed sweet potatoes. It works fairly well to prep veggies one day, cook the base the next day, and then cook the mashed topping the following day and assemble to freeze. These types of meat pies (including chicken pot pies) do take a pretty long time in the oven to cook if they are going straight from the freezer. You can pull them out and let them thaw in the fridge for a day or you can just plan to leave them in the oven for 2 hours.
Glorified mac and cheese is another favorite of mine. Some of my friends have argued convincingly that this is more of a pasta casserole than true mac and cheese. Either way it's a delicious and balanced meal that freezes very well. Cook your pasta al dente (you can use whole wheat pasta or gluten free varieties too), add in whatever cooked veggies and/or meat you have around, and then make a cheese sauce on the stove top using butter, flour, milk, and cheese. Mix it all together and cover it to freeze or bake it for dinner. I recommend adding some extra shredded cheese on top when you bake it but if you don’t have any around it’ll still be good. My last batch had roasted butternut squash, blanched kale, sauteed sweet onions, and turkey kielbasa in it. Using ground meat would make this sort of a glorified hamburger helper, ham and bacon would work really well in this, you could even use shredded chicken or pork.
Rice based stuffing is another thing I like to keep around. This is essentially what you might use for stuffed peppers. I usually make rice, ground meat, black beans, and a variety of veggies. When you need a healthy meal but don’t have a ton of energy you can pull this out and either eat it as it is, or you can stuff it into peppers, winter squash, or zucchini boats.
I like to keep some muffins and sweet breads in the freezer in addition to full meals. I particularly like making pumpkin bread and zucchini bread but most any sweet bread would work. This makes it really easy to have some healthier snacks on hand at any time. Meals are great but once in a while you just need a little something between meals and even better if it’s something healthy. Sometimes I pull them out one at a time and sometimes I’ll pull a few out at a time and eat them for a couple days. Things like scones, granola bars, cookies, and cake also freeze very well if those are things you want to have around.
I also like to keep some things in the freezer that aren’t full meals but can supplement other meals to make cooking them easier. Meatballs are great for this, all you have to do is boil some pasta and open a can of sauce and you have a full meal. Rice is nice to have on hand. Various types of bread can come in really handy. Pancakes and waffles can make breakfast for dinner type meals easier. Slow cooked oats can be frozen and used for breakfasts.
If you want even more freezer meal ideas just walk down the frozen meal aisle at the grocery store. Most of the meals are there because they freeze easily. And if anyone wants a more detailed breakdown of how I prep these meals over multiple days let me know in the comments.
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