5 Days to Fill My Freezers: Easy Family-Sized Freezer Meals

oin me for Day 5 of my 5 Days to Fill My Freezer challenge! Today we’re making three hearty, family-sized freezer meals: baked ziti, cheesy enchilada casserole, and sloppy joes. These recipes are perfect for busy nights and feeding a hungry crowd without stress.

RECIPES:
Sloppy Joe Biscuit Casserole – https://cooking.teatimewithnaomi.com/sloppy-joe-biscuit-casserole-3
Biscuits https://sugarspunrun.com/easy-homemade-biscuits/
High Protein Creamy Beef Pasta – https://www.recipecoo.com/high-protein-creamy-beef-pasta-recipe-for-quick-weeknight-dinners
Green Enchiladas – https://familytablevibes.com/best-green-chicken-enchiladas/

PRODUCTS USED (Affiliate links)
Spice Jars – https://amzn.to/467ZJkt
Spice Labels – https://amzn.to/42zscAx
Flour Container – https://amzn.to/3nFeTg7
Sugar & Other Containers – https://amzn.to/3VD23eO
Measuring Cups – https://amzn.to/3nFeXfR
Disposable Aluminum Pans – https://amzn.to/3VCZlGi
Green Cookware – https://amzn.to/3DGgxpj
Silicone Cooking Spatulas/Spoons – https://amzn.to/3FOispR

YouTube Early Access – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWdpE9fVHlR7i_bYFRw5yiw/join
· For all scheduled videos
· $0.99 / Month
Blog Membership – https://keepitsimplediy.com/join/
· Newsletter & More
· Access to free downloads
· It’s Free!
AMAZON STOREFRONT (Affiliate) – https://www.amazon.com/shop/keepitsimplediy
INSTAGRAM – https://www.instagram.com/keepitsimplediy
BLOG – https://keepitsimplediy.com
ETSY – https://keepitsimplediy.etsy.com
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP – http://eepurl.com/bN8wNf

CHAPTERS:
0:00 What we’re making
1:58 Prepping Pasta
4:18 Enchiladas
9:57 Biscuits
12:38 Baked Ziti
16:34 Sloppy Joes
21:05 Food Reveal
23:49 Freezer Before and After

#FreezerMeals #FamilyMealPrep #FillMyFreezer

Good morning. It is day five of 5 days to fill my freezer. And I am making familysized freezer meals. These are going to be half of like a 9 by13 because we are only a family of two. Hey there. Popping in from the end of the video to show you what we ended up making. And just to remind you that you can use any size container you want for a freezer meal. So for me, we’re a family of two. We don’t need a whole 9 by13 dish. I use smaller freezer meal containers. So that is a great tip for you. So, let’s get on with making these recipes. But I’m hoping to do this in an hour, and I’m hoping to get five or six freezer meals. I know it’s not a ton, but I’m doing just a little bit of time. So, I’m starting with cutting up an onion, and I’m going to get three lbs of ground beef cooking all at once. I need ground beef for two of the recipes. We are going to make sloppy joe biscuits, which I’ve made before and it was delicious. But I’m doubling the meat recipe cuz last time I made it, it was too biscuit heavy. And then I’m also going to make a baked pasta dish. But this one’s a little bit different because it doesn’t call for a pasta sauce. It calls for what do you call that? Just crushed tomatoes. So, we’re going to use crushed tomatoes, which is great because I recently crushed a bunch of tomatoes and I have them in the freezer. So, I’ll need to get those out. And then I also want to make some enchilada casserole. So, we’ll do that as well. That one’s going to be chicken and I’m going to use canned chicken for it. I don’t know what I was doing here. It’s like I haven’t ever cut an onion. Okay. Well, that was funny. Let’s get this on. I’m going to add a little bit of avocado oil. I’m going to sauté these onions up first and then add the meat in. I’m debating on if I need the whole onion or just half the onion. Now, this pasta is going to take a little while, so I want to get this going first. And I am going to use the liquid from the chicken, so the broth. I’m going to get half of this box of rotini in here. [Music] I’m debating on if that’s going to be enough. Probably is. Okay, let’s get this broth in here. That’s a great seal. I don’t think I’ve ever had a jar seal that good. Whoa. [Music] Now, to cook pasta in a pressure cooker, you need to lightly cover the pasta with liquid. That wasn’t quite enough. So, I’m going to add some water. All right. Now, I’m just going to stick it in here on the right setting and move on to the next thing. gave those onions a little stir and I realized I could use the rest of this onion for the enchilada. So, I’m going to slice it really thin. So, let’s get the chicken and the onion. And coming back over here because this needs to be stirred again. I had turn the heat down, but it looks like it needed a little more. I’m going to get three lbs of ground beef in here. These will be cooking while we work on the other recipe. Oh, that’s still a little frozen. I might need to put a lid on this. Okay, I put these in my fridge overnight and it looks like they really didn’t thaw like much at all. Well, that lid doesn’t even fit. That’s going to be good enough for the moment. Over here, I’m going to add in a bunch of spices. This is some garlic powder and onion powder. And then, of course, I’m going to add salt and pepper. Whoa. I’m going to add a little bit of cumin and then cilantro and bunch of cheese. I’m going to do probably about half, maybe not half that, cuz I want to put some on the top as well. And then I’m going to drain and rinse this black bean. All right, black beans are going in. I’m going to add this one jar of canned salsa verde. It’s basically the same thing as the tomatilla sauce that I have over there, but it didn’t turn out as good. But I think putting it in this mixture will work out well. Then the last thing I’m going to put in there is going to be some Greek yogurt because I don’t have sour cream and also Greek yogurt is healthier so that works out well. Okay, we need to just mix this up. And what I’m going to do with it then is just layer it. tortilla mixture. Tortilla mixture. And then we’ll top it with some more cheese and hopefully it’ll be super delicious. I think I’m going to use these glass ones. These are about the same size as what I typically use that’s not glass. Trying to get them rotated around a little bit to try to get everything thawing. [Music] So, let’s see if I give these a spray. I want to add a little bit of this good sauce to the bottom. Now, we made this sauce together in one of the videos where we were preserving all of the foods from last year’s garden. Okay. I’m thinking two tortillas. Okay. Some filling. Looks like I’m probably going to be able to make another one. Let’s do tortilla. And I’m just going to top it a little bit more of this sauce. And then some cheddar cheese. I feel like these are so tiny, but when I think about the size of the disposables that I use, I feel like I probably have the right size here. Because these what I could do is just take the lid off, stick them right in the oven and then we’re not having to use one time use items. But that does make it harder if I want to gift any of these. So, okay, let’s compare. This is a lot shorter that way and it’s shorter this way, but it is significantly higher up. So, we might be around the right size. I’m going to make one more of these cuz I have enough of everything to do that. And keep stirring this meat. Okay, we’re starting to get somewhere over here. I am going to season this with seasonings that’ll work for both the sloppy joe’s and what else am I making? Oh, the baked z. So, that is some black pepper, salt, onion, garlic. The only thing I think I’m not going to add in is Italian seasonings. I’ll do that for just the baked ZT portion. And then I need to make up the biscuits for our sloppy joe biscuit. So I think that’s what I’m going to do next. The noodles just finished. I’m actually going to throw in a cup of diced tomatoes just to let it start thawing while we make the biscuits. So, I have milk that’s in a bag and I took it out to thaw last night and I actually Oh, that was this. Okay, I put it in this container because I’m like, well, it might leak. Well, good thing I did cuz it did leak. This is a cup of milk. The recipe calls for 3/4 of a cup. I don’t have anything to do with half a/4 of a cup of milk. So, I’m just going to increase the recipe a little bit. So, we need a little over a tablespoon of sugar. That’s good. Pinch of salt. Hands are kind of wet though. Okay. We actually need a teaspoon of salt. I’m going to go another pinch. We need a heaping tablespoon of Here it is. baking powder. I wonder if I have enough in here to do that. Yeah, keeping tablespoon because I’m kind of increasing this recipe a little bit. And then so if I’m increasing it, we’re going to start with two cups and then add maybe like a/3 of a cup more flour and then six tablespoons increase. I’m just going to do the whole stick of butter. And this is cold butter right out of my fridge. I usually keep it in the freezer, which is why I was struggling with what to say. And we’ll see how long it lasts with this. The handle kind of spins, which I don’t love. came together pretty well. I think there’s a little bit that I could still work in, but I’ll do that when I tip it out. I’m not too concerned about kind of kneading the dough. It’ll be just fine. Okay. Going to press it into kind of thin. Now, last time I made this, I mixed the dough with the sloppy joe’s. I’m thinking this time I might want to just use them like biscuits on top. Okay. The meat is cooked. I’m going to take about a third of it and stick it in the noodles. And right now, the noodles just have a little bit of tomatoes in there. And I think I might actually need more. We’ll see. Okay. Going to call that good. Now I need to drain this. I’m going to turn the heat off of it though and let it sit for a minute while I work on this. We need some Italian seasoning to our pot. I’m going to add some beef bullion. There is a little bit of liquid left down in there. And then I’m also going to add some oregano just because I thought about it and that seems really good. Now I’m going to add in some of this fake parm. And then also some Greek yogurt. That’s probably good. Probably more than good. And that’s all that this recipe calls for. But I have a feeling I’m going to need some more like tomato sauce because that little bit of tomatoes I don’t think really did anything. Maybe I’ll use some tomato paste cuz see that just that’s not enough. My thought with using tomato paste is Whoa. is it won’t be adding extra liquid as much. do like that much. Now, I’m going to want to top these with cheese, but I might add some mozzarella in here as well. Let’s get it mixed up first, though. That’s looking much better. Oh, it smells so good. Look at that. Feel like I need to try this. Oh my gosh, that is so good. And it doesn’t even have the mozzarella in it yet. [Applause] This might be dinner tonight. And I probably could have doubled the whole thing, but sometimes, you know, I double things and then it’s like, oh, we have to eat it forever. This with some garlic bread. Oh, that’s going to be delicious. Okay, let’s get them topped with a little bit more cheese. Now, these I would either put in the air fryer or just in the oven and bake them until they’re all nice and bubbly. And you know, I think one of these is going to be our lunch. They’re so good. And just to make it a little more pretty, some Italian seasonings on top. I just got all of the fat drained. I have it in this bowl here. I’m going to let it cool and then I will just throw it away. So, I am going to add all of the ingredients to make the sloppy joe sauce. And I’m kind of just going to wing it. There are a few recipes that I kind of am basing off of. So, I’m going to add a little bit of apple cider vinegar. And I’m just going to taste it as I go. Just a little tiny bit. A decent amount of Wisher sauce. Turn that down a little bit. I’m going to add Dijon mustard. I know it’s traditional to add yellow mustard, but I feel like I like the taste of Dijon better than like the very tart other. And then some chili sauce. This is the Hind chili sauce. Going to add a decent amount of that. And then a little bit of brown sugar. And then I might add ketchup or I might adjust. I just want to get it all mixed together. And then we’ll see. I might need to add a lot more sloppy to these joe’s cuz I am doubling this. This is two lbs of meat. And originally the recipe is just one. Granted, I didn’t follow a recipe here. Okay, let’s add in the rest of this sauce. And I’m going to put a little bit of water in to get the rest of that out. Now I’m smelling this and this smells so good. I just want all of it for today. Don’t worry, we’ll get it in the freezer. So, it looks right, which is great. Now, I just need to see where we are flavor-wise. Too bitter, but it’s sweet. Hm. I think musher sure. I don’t think I need the apple cider vinegar. Oh, well, there’s that one. It’s sweet and bitter. So, I’m trying to figure out what the best way to combat that is. I could use a tiny pinch of baking soda. I think I’m going to do a little bit of brown sugar. See if that helps. Think I could use some garlic powder as well. I think that’ll sweeten it up a bit. Okay. Probably didn’t need all that garlic powder. I think we’re good, though. Turn this off. Okay. These are the two containers that I have left. I’m going to get about half of this mixture in each of them, and then we’ll top it with the biscuits. So, I’m not going to mix the biscuits in this time. I think that made it a little bit too runny. I still might have made way too many biscuits cuz that’s a pound. Well, we’ll see how many fit. We’re going to have three extra biscuits. I think put more in there than in here. H like what else am I going to do? I don’t think I’m going to cook three extra biscuits. Then last but not least, we’re going to add a little bit of cheese. Wo! Cheese on the stove, too, I guess. and on the floor. Okay. Okay, these are looking fantastic. We have our sloppy joe’s over here, our enchilada bake here, and our baked z. And I cannot wait to eat all of these. Now, we do have dishes over here, and dishes over here, but I feel like pretty minimal. They all fit in the sink, although some of them are just too hot to go in the sink. I need to put that tomato paste away. But otherwise, we did pretty well. All right, I need to get these closed up, labeled, and put in the freezer. And then we need to take a tour of the freezers because this is the end of day five. We have done single serve freezer meals, we’ve done breakfast, we’ve done marinated meats, we’ve done candies and sweets, and we’ve done these familysiz meals. So, let me get these packaged up. This one’s just going in the oven. Okay, here’s what we’re looking like. We’ve eaten through a few of these freezer meals. We still have this one that I need to give away, but we’ve got a few left in here. So, I will be probably doing some double and freezing, but at least we have a head start. We didn’t really change anything here. This is just leftover rice. Same with the bread. But we’ve got a little bit of breakfast in here. Those are the leftover protein bagels. Here’s what I did with the apple cakes. The apple cake is actually very good. Although, I think I would still prefer just like an apple crisp. And then we’ve got our breakfast here. There’s only two burritos left. And then these muffins haven’t been touched yet, actually, which is surprising. Now, I was going to have all of those tacos and pizza things here, but we ate them all already. So, we’re getting there. I’ll have to circle back to them. And then down here is where we have all of our cookies. So, let’s go look outside. Okay, here is the outside freezer. It looks like I could probably put those tortillas back that we just used or I could make more of those tacos cuz we really liked those. But here’s how we’re looking. We really made a dent here, which is great because this, as you remember, was only this marinated pork. Was only this marinated pork. So, the fact that we got all of this in here is fantastic. We now have five new marinated meats plus the meatballs and then plus all of these that we just got. And then I’m going to cook the other one up right now. So that is the end of day five of 5 days to fill my freezer. I feel like I made a really good dent. Obviously there’s always more that you can still do. And I feel like anytime I do something, I’m like, “Oh, I could have done more.” But you know what? There is more time. There’s more days I can continue cooking. But we have enough food now for me to not cook for quite a while. So that’s super awesome. And of course, I will be cooking still. So, these are just for the days that I don’t want to. And here is a little before and after of the inside fridge. We were pretty empty. And then I feel like we just ate so much of the food instead of getting it into the freezer. But looking at it this way, yes, it did get a lot more full than it was. So, that is fantastic. And then going outside, we have so much more in it than we did, which is great as well. So, thanks so much for joining me on this challenge. So, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you’re new here and haven’t yet, please subscribe. I’d love to see you. If you haven’t seen days 1 through four of this challenge, I will pop a few of them here. And I will see you next time. Bye-bye.