Freezer meal cooking is my answer to getting a real vacation without resorting to junk food. But freezer meal cooking can also make for easier weeknights or can give you a day off from cooking once in a while. A freezer meal party is one way to fill the freezer with delicious and healthy meals that can be ready to serve quickly.
What is a Freezer Meal Party?
A freezer meal party is a fun way to build your freezer meal stash. One way to do this is to gather a few friends together and make a bunch of meals all at once. Each recipe that you make will be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, depending on how many friends you have cooking together. At the end of the party, each friend should have a number of freezer meals to bring home.
Benefits of a Freezer Meal Party
There are many reasons to throw a freezer meal party. Having meals in your freezer that are ready to heat up when you need them can save your sanity on busy days.
Freezer meals are also a great way to have a day off from cooking when you need it. Choosing to eat real food means we tend to make most meals from scratch. Planning one freezer meal night each week can be a good way to have a day off from cooking while continuing to eat healthy food.
But finding the time and energy to create a bunch of meals to stash in the freezer can be difficult. That’s where a freezer meal party comes in. A freezer meal party is a fun way to get all of those meals into your group’s freezers (and you get to hang out with your friends while you do it!).
How to Host a Freezer Meal Party
There are many ways to host a freezer meal party but here are some guidelines to help you plan one that works for you.
Gather a Group of (Nutritionally) Like-Minded Friends
If you’re going to share meals with a group of friends it’s important that you all eat in a similar way. If one friend is vegan and one is paleo it may be hard to find recipes that work for everyone. A few small preference differences (or food allergies) should be easy enough to navigate. Also, try to choose adventurous friends. It will be hard to find recipes that are everyone’s favorite foods so the group will have to be willing to try new things.
Choose a Leader and Location
As the organizer, you are the most obvious choice for leader. However, I recommend deferring leadership responsibilities to whoever is best at it. A good leader will be ok with telling others what to do (kindly of course) and will be the most organized.
You will also need to choose a location that will work for everyone. Ideally, it would be the largest, most well-equipped kitchen but you may decide to choose the house that is most centrally located.
Choose Recipes
Decide whether you are making cooked meals that will go in the freezer or if you plan to assemble the ingredients raw which will need to be added to a slow cooker or another method of cooking when it’s time to eat. You could also do some of each.
- Fully cooked food in the freezer may lose some flavor but it’s also the easiest freezer food to prepare the day you want to eat it. A frozen casserole should only take a couple hours to reheat in the oven (much less if it was fully thawed first).
- A meal that goes in the freezer raw will likely hold on to more of its flavor but needs extra prep time on the day you want to eat it.
Also, consider that meals that are fully cooked should probably go in oven-safe glass containers. This will make reheating much easier.
Gather Ingredients (and Share the Cost)
There are a few ways that you can gather the ingredients and work out dividing the cost of the meals between the party-goers.
- Have each friend purchase and bring ingredients for the recipe they chose.
- Have the leader buy all of the ingredients and divide up the cost evenly among the group.
- Have the leader assign ingredients to each group member.
It may be a good idea to poll the group and see what they think. You may have a friend with a stash of grass-fed butter in the freezer or another friend with a connection for high-quality fish or meat.
Gather Supplies
Once you’ve decided on a location go through your recipes and write down any cooking utensils or kitchen gadgets that location does not have. Send an email to the participants to find out if anyone has what you’re missing and if so ask them to bring it. Consider these essential kitchen items:
- Cooking tools – Mixing spoons, spatulas, knives, pots, pans, bowls, etc.
- Kitchen equipment – Food processor, blender, hand mixer, etc.
- Containers – Ask each participant to bring her own containers. Remember each container is going to need to fit an entire meal (four or more servings).
- Labels – Each container will need to be labeled for easier identification when it’s frozen (you may think you’ll remember, but you won’t, trust me!).
Also consider how everyone will get their meals home. A laundry basket, milk crate, or similar can work well to transport meals easily.
Get Cooking!
Now it’s time to cook. Here are some tips for getting the cooking done in an organized way:
- Have a prep team and a cook team. The prep team can prep ingredients for the next meal while the first is being put together.
- Do a quick clean up in between meals to keep the mess from getting out of hand.
- Consider assigning one person as the “cleaner” who can keep things picked up (and dishes done) as you go.
- The leader should be in charge of what is being cooked and when to stay organized.
A great tool to use for organizing the recipes is Real Plans. Once you add your recipes to Real Plans you can check the timeline and see which things need to be started first (because they have a long cook time, for example) or have steps that need to be done ahead of time.
Don’t Forget, It’s a Party!
It’s a party after all so be sure to plan some fun too! These tips will help you enjoy the party:
- Make sure there are snacks to eat. Everyone is going to get hungry smelling all of the amazing meals you’re cooking!
- Play some upbeat music. It can help motivate you and make the party more fun.
- Plan to make three to five meals depending on complexity. You don’t want to take on too much and make it stressful.
Following these tips will help you make this party fun and enjoyable, as well as productive!
Ideas For Recipes to Try
If you need some inspiration to get you started, check out a few of my favorite real-food freezer meal recipes below…
- Paleo Sweet and Sour Chicken
- Simple Black Bean Soup
- Farmhouse Beef & Bacon Stew
- Slow Cooker Pineapple Pulled Pork
- Chicken Taquitos
- Chicken Tortilla Soup from Mommypotamus
- Gluten-Free Cheddar Drop Biscuits
Have you ever been to a freezer meal party? How did it work out?
Hi Heather!
Love reading your posts! I’ve learned so much over the last year about health just from stumbling onto your page. I started slow by changing my eating habits and drinking raw milk and eating organic meats,and was loving it. But a couple days ago I watched the documentary on Netflix called Cowspiracy and was shocked and horrified. I was wondering if you watched the film and am so curious of your opinion. Hope you get back to me. Thank you! -Heather
Such a fun post! I love this idea. It would be so awesome to have a freezer full of meals, and so fun to gather and make everything with friends.
Great idea!!! I will definitely be trying this for those days we are all short on time and inspiration! Thanks for posting 🙂
ok, I need to clarification. How do you make the paleo sweet and sour chicken a freezer meal? Do you cook everything and then throw it in a container to heat up before eating later? Or do you prep all parts separately.. sauce, slurry, chicken then freeze and cook later? I love this idea and would love to do it with friends!
Hi Margo,
You really could do it a couple different ways… either prepare & cook the whole thing and freeze as a complete meal, I’ve even frozen meals with rice before in smaller grab n’ go type containers… OR you could prepare the chicken and the sauce and freeze in separate containers, then make the slurry/sauce and add chicken on the day you’re actually serving. Does that help?
Have fun at your freezer prep party, I’d love to hear how your experience goes! 🙂
~Sarah
Hi, there! One question: how do you divy up ingredients to buy?? Does everyone bring $$???
Hi Danielle,
We’ve found that the easiest way to do this is to have ONE person purchase all the ingredients, and then have everyone reimburse that person based on the divvied amount.
You could potentially divide all needed ingredients (aiming to get Close to an even amount financially), and have each person purchase their required ingredients… but this is definitely trickier.
Hope this helps! 🙂
~Sarah
Very interested in this but can’t seem to get over the hurdle of different dietary requirements/preferences among my friends…thoughts?
Hey Arlene!
Well, I know this can be a bit of a challenge… depending on how different the needs are, perhaps you could bring some of the ingredients already pre-prepped (like a specific type of meat or something)?
Or, bring a specific ingredient that you know you will need to make a substitution for… for example, one of the recipes we made as a group called for soy sauce… I brought my own coconut aminos and used it instead while we were prepping the meals. Small changes like that can make a big difference and shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
If you’re struggling to find recipes that everyone can agree on, I might suggest trying to either prep ingredients together for individualized recipes (although this can get pretty complicated!), or maybe just making ONE recipe together in super-bulk that everyone will be happy with 🙂
Here are 65 recipes that are good for freezing: http://nursesarahkeepsitreal.com/real-food-freezer-meals-recipes/
Hopefully you can find something in the mix that will be helpful!
~Sarah
Hi! I’m 8mos pregnant and having dome help in prepping some meals in advance, so a freezer meal party seems like a godsend! I have a few friends interested in participating as well, I’m just confused on the math. Say, for example, a group of 4 people select 4 recipes (and I believe you when you say that’s the max you’d want to tackle!). We would then quadruple each recipe, and each person would go home with 4 meals. Right? How would each person take home 6-8 meals without the group selecting 6-8 recipes? I’ve got serious mommy brain right now, appreciate your help!
I love this blog & find myself here often. Thank you for making it!
You link to your favorite real-food freezer meal recipes above, but they don’t have freezer directions or number of servings per recipe. Please consider adding these details to the linked recipes (starting with the tortilla soup-YUM!).
I am having a freezer-cooking party next month, in lieu of a baby shower, to make the 1st months as a family of 5 easier.
p.s. We are planning to make Nourishing Traditions/Paleo/Whole 30 type meals.