With virtual learning/homeschooling on my agenda for fall (you can read more about that here), and mama working from home, I know I’ve got to be organized and prepared to make this a little easier (and smoother) for us all. One of the questions I had was about lunch – how will I pull away from helping and working to make lunches for us all? Welllllll. If you’ve been around here long enough, you know I love me some freezer meals – so easy-to-use freezer lunches to the rescue!
My friend Kimi and I have made a couple rounds of freezer dinners before and we both agreed that lunches would be a hit (and a help)! Kimi is a phenomenal cook and always has great ideas for meals. Normally we do this on our own (with the help of a babysitter) but this time we ordered a couple of pizzas on a Saturday night, and our husbands helped watched the kids while we whipped up some meals!
We worked for a few hours and each walked away with SEVERAL portions of individuals lasagnas, ham and cheese pockets, sausage burritos, chicken quesadillas, homemade hamburger helper, and broccoli cheese soup. We’re ready for the first weeks of school!
Unfortunately, Kimi and I both cook the same – eyeball it, add a dash of this or that, and cook from memory, but I always try to use a guide especially when freezing. Here are the recipes/guides and my notes for what we used for this round of freezer lunch meals:
- Ham and Cheese Pockets – This was my first time trying these. I just bought refrigerated pie crusts and cut them in half, adding cheese and ham.
- Individual Lasagnas – I used this as a guide, but used my own variation of ingredients. I didn’t use ricotta, and just use a couple of jars of Prego Sauce.
- Chicken Quesadillas – I used shredded chicken with taco seasoning, and then added some corn and salsa. We added that to a shell and topped with cheese.
- Hamburger Helper (similar) – This is similar to the recipe Kimi used. We just packaged them in quart sized bags and laid them flat to freeze them.
- Broccoli Cheese soup (similar)
- Sausage & egg burritos – Kimi fried up sausage meat in a skillet, and then added some eggs until they were all cooked together and topped with cheese. We scooped some out on tortilla shells and rolled them up to freeze!
There are so many easy ideas out there for quick lunches, and I’m excited to try more as we get deeper into the school year. If it saves me some time during the school day, sign me up! Do you have favorite easy lunch ideas?
This is awesome! I have always wanted to make time for meal prepping but I never know here to start. But this is a great starting point. With a family of six meal planning saves us so much time, money, and the frustration of constantly asking what’s for lunch or dinner. I appreciate you sharing because it is a huge area of struggle for me. As well as finding the time to prep our meals.