freezer – Life with the Lawsons

I don’t know about you, but there are days full of chasing kids, working, cleaning, errands…never ending lists of to-do’s and dinner is the last thing on my mind until everyone is starving and I have nothing prepared!

What do you do?

Drive through another fast food place and spend way too much money filling your kids up on junk?

Order pizza again?

I have a better idea!

With a few bucks and an hour or so, I can prepare a few casseroles that can sit in my fridge and be popped in the oven and ready in 20 minutes, or even frozen for later use!

This last weekend, I decided to do a big meal prepping session! I spent about 3 hours in the kitchen and ended up with 12 casseroles, 3 full sized chicken pot pies, 3 mini chicken pot pies, 4 pear pies (I shared with my neighbors so they’re not all pictured!), two bags of frozen vegetable beef soup, and pear pie filling for future fried pies!

Our freezer is full and so will our bellies be when we thaw and serve these amazing meals!

Meal prepping can be done in small batches or in one big batch like I did this time.

When I’m doing casseroles, it saves me tons of time and work when I cook all of my meats at the same time. Regardless of how many casseroles I’m making with taco meat, I cook it all together and divide out as equally as possible. The measurements aren’t exact, but that’s ok! These dishes come out perfect anyway!

I will cook my chicken in the instant pot because, well, let’s be honest…I never remember to thaw it in time, and it can be cooked from frozen in the instant pot and takes very little time.

I also save a lot of time and work by shredding my chicken in my stand mixer. I can’t imagine how long it would take me to hand shred or dice enough chicken for a dozen casseroles! This method is super easy. Simply put your cooked chicken breasts in the stand mixer bowl with the dough hook attachment, and turn on low until the meat is all broken up like this! Fast and easy!

Shredding chicken in the mixer saves so much time!

I also use my mixer to combine my casserole ingredients, dump into the aluminum pan, cover with cheese, label and place the lid on top, and freeze. It’s super quick and easy!

Here are a few of my family’s favorite meals to freeze. Full recipes and tips coming soon!

Beef Enchilada Casserole