A Month’s Worth of Cozy Single Serve Freezer Meals | Soup, Pasta & Casserole

🍲✨ Cozy comfort food + freezer meal prep all in one video! In this hour-long cook-with-me, I’m making 25 single-serving freezer meals — almost a full month of lunches and dinners ready to go. These meals are perfect if you’re cooking for one, want easy grab-and-go meals, or just love having cozy homemade food stocked in the freezer.

In this video, I’ll show you step by step how I made:
• Hamburger Soup 🥣 → https://mealplanaddict.com/instant-pot-hamburger-vegetable-soup/
• Chicken Taco Soup 🌮 → https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-chicken-taco-soup-248133#post-recipe-10207
• Baked Ziti 🍝 → https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-an-all-star-baked-ziti-231963#post-recipe-11387
• Mac & Cheese Casserole 🧀 → https://www.thekitchn.com/rosie-mayes-southern-baked-macaroni-and-cheese-casserole-23506318

Each one is portioned into single servings so you don’t get stuck with a mountain of leftovers — just cozy meals ready whenever you need them.

💡 Whether you’re a busy teacher, a college student, or just want to make life a little easier, these freezer meals will keep you fueled with homemade goodness all month long.

Favorite Kitchen Items:
Containers: https://amzn.to/47T3NJ3
Instant Pot: https://amzn.to/3VY0GIu
(Similar) Baking Dish: https://amzn.to/4mLam4p

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Hey guys, welcome back to the self-sufficient sister. We’re in my kitchen today and I hope you’re as excited as I am about today’s activities. We are going to be making another batch of freezer meals. It’s been a while since I’ve made a video like that because my freezer can only hold so much and I know I’m not alone in that. Um, my freezer is pretty small and I’ve got a lot of stuff in it. So, I’ve been kind of waiting to kind of get through my last freezer meals before I could make more. So, today they are like major comfort food freezer meals. So, um they’re they’re also going to be great for just reheating in the microwave. Um, we’re going to cook them all today so that when we get them out of the freezer, we just let them thaw and we can just pop them in the microwave so they’re good for lunches or for just a quick um dinner. So, let’s get started. The recipes we are making today, and I will link these in the description so you can follow along and cook with me. We’ve got easy onepot chicken taco soup. We’ve got instant pot hamburger vegetable soup. We’ve got baked ziti and a southern baked macaroni and cheese casserole. So, I really was in the mood for easy comfort foods that are kind of cozy because we’re getting into fall. So, let’s start with the taco soup. Well, actually, I need to start with dicing some onions because three of my recipes call for onions. So, yay. Let’s cut up some onions. I am going to keep a bowl here for any like um food kitchen scraps. Um and I’ll just put them in this bowl and then I can just put them in my garden. I know you’re going to say this is not a knife for onions, but it’s fine. I’ll switch out when I get them a little smaller, I guess. Now, I do love the small onions, but they do make me cry. Oh, this one is juicy. I don’t remember onions being like milky. Can you see that? Maybe I’ve just never noticed before. I’ve definitely cut onions before. I also wanted to grab another bowl so I could put these onions in them. kind of dicing them pretty big. So, dice them smaller if you want. I’ve seen people wear goggles. Oh my goodness. I was doing so well. This is a lot of onion. All right, I’m going to go ahead and cut the carrots and celery. I just need a cup of both. I got to get these onions out of my way. Um, anyway, I just need a cup of both, but probably freeze them. I can’t remember if you can freeze celery, like chopped up celery. I don’t know. I’ll have to look that up or you can tell me below. Um, anyway, let me wash these and then we’ll cut some. So, I um got a well, I really love cantaloupe and honeydew melons. So, this summer I bought them a lot and I just put the scraps out in my garden and I think uh one of my honeydews or and I do cantalopes. The seeds were apparently in the perfect conditions. And so now I have like three cantaloupe plants growing and taking over my backyard. Um I’m still not 100% sure that they are cantaloupe. At first, I thought it was pumpkin and then I thought it was watermelon cuz I know I know I planted I intentionally planted watermelon seeds and pumpkin seeds, but clearly those didn’t want to grow. So anyway, the only other thing I can think of that would have grown up there after a while, it took me a while to get to this conclusion, but it’s my honey, my honey and my cantaloupe seeds, um, that I just threw out there to like compost. Just decided it was time to grow. So maybe I’ll show you guys um what it looks like out there because it really is it’s just taking over my entire yard almost half of my yard. But it just keeps growing, you know, they just don’t stop. So I’ve got a couple of big ones out there. I did I had one really big one that um I took off the vine. It wasn’t ripe yet, but I kind of took it off cuz I wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. So, was definitely Well, I can’t say definitely cuz I really still don’t even know. But, um anyway, so I’m going to give them a while longer. At this point, I’m pretty certain it’s not pumpkin. because just the way they’re growing and I’m just based on pictures I looked at online, I’m fairly certain it’s not watermelon. Based on the pictures online, it does look most like what cantaloupe would look like at this point. So anyway, be pretty cool if in a month I have like 20 cantaloupes. What am I going to do with them? I don’t know. Give them away to people. I guess so. I am making freezer meals. Um, if you’ve seen my last video, you’ll know that I like to put them into single serving. Um, yeah, single servings because I just I’m not a big lover of leftovers. So, I like to be able to just get out one serving and cook that. Um because then that helps me have more variety of what I’m eating every week, you know, instead of making one huge casserole or one pot of soup, you know, and then eating it the rest of the week. Like that’s just not I don’t enjoy that. So this this helps me have more variety in what I’m eating every week. We are ready to start putting stuff in the Instant Pot. So, add beef, onions, garlic. I’m just using uh Market Side Organic. This is 85% lean. No particular reason for that one. That’s just what I bought. I need a cup of diced onion. Probably way more than a cup, but that’s okay. Three cloves of garlic. forgot the potatoes. So, let’s hurry and chop some up. Can’t believe I forgot. Potatoes are the most important part. Probably just leave the skin on for most of it. Okay, I think probably could have used more potatoes, but we’re going to stick with this because my meat is no longer pink. So, now we need to add all of the ingredients. I’m really excited for this. I my Instant Pot. I just don’t use it as much as I should. It’s just such a cool tool. I’ve used it. So, in one of my freezer meal videos, I did make some chicken. Oops. So, I think I made like a Hawaiian one and a honey something honey. Anyway, so I use my Instant Pot to cook those, which is pretty nice because then I’ll just cook up some pasta or mashed potatoes or rice depending on what I have and what I’m feeling. And then it’s just a quick dinner. I did find that I prefer So you Oops. Oh, that’s why we wash the lid first. Okay. Uh, it’s funny. I don’t even know what beef consume is. Anyway, let’s get the recipe. Actually, let’s move these over here so everything’s in the same spot. We can just put everything in. We’re going to do a tablespoon of Italian seasoning. A cup of carrots and a cup of celery. Need half2 cup of frozen peas. need the potatoes, which I definitely did not do enough of. Two 10 oz cans. These are 10.5. 2 tablebspoon of tomato paste. Salt. pepper and then 2 and 1/2 cups of beef broth. I’m just using a half cup right now. So, five of these. One, five cups. Here’s what we have. M. This will be so good with some homemade rolls or homemade bread. Secure the lid. Set to 5 minutes. [Music] So, we’re going to do that for 5 minutes, high pressure, and then we will let it naturally depressurize for 5 minutes. So, that’s over here. We won’t we won’t click that until it’s depressurized itself for 5 minutes and then we’ll do a quick release and then it’s done. That is crazy easy. And then we’ll let it cool down obviously and put it in the single serving. I have some containers I think I’m going to try for this. Uh we’ll let it cool off and then it’ll be ready to eat other days. So, yay. Let’s start our next one. I think let’s do the um chicken taco soup, which I believe will be on the stove. So, I am a little worried about this one because it’s a one pot recipe. Typically, if it’s a pot recipe, you need a big pot, which I do not have. This is the biggest one I have, and it’s uh about eight cups. Um, so the recipe does say that it needs four cups of chicken broth, but when you add everything else in, I worry that it might be just too small. But we’re going to try it and hope that it goes well. This is a try channel. It’s not an expert channel. Obviously, I have bigger pots on my list of things I’d like to buy for my kitchen, but you know, the good ones are just not in my budget. So, we make it work. So, we need to heat this and then we’ll add onion, garlic. So, we’re going to just let the oil cook a bit and then we’ll add onion and garlic cook and then we’ll add everything else. This recipe does call for cumin, which I do not have. I just don’t love cumin, so I opted out of that one. These are going to need tablespoons and half teaspoon of salt and pepper. Okay, another thing the recipe calls for that I’m not adding is um beans. I’m just not a huge bean fan. I know that’s like a typical taco soup ingredient. Uh it called for black beans, so obviously pick the bean of your choice or omit it. Okay, I’m going to go ahead and add my stuff. So, wants about a medium. [Music] Didn’t realize it was so hot. [Music] All right, sh a little. Let’s not completely burn our onions. I really hope this all fits. I am pretty worried about that. It’s just about it fitting in the pot. All right, let these cook until tender, stirring occasionally. I had it way too hot, by the way. Obviously, I’m sure you came to that same conclusion, too. Okay. After that, we’re going to be adding the chili powder. A tablespoon of that. Paprika, two teaspoons, two teaspoons of oregano, and some salt and pepper, which I have right here. I just realized I wasn’t recording. Um, so I added all my seasonings and my beef broth. And I was just talking about how I’m worried about it fitting in this pot. And I was also talking about how I need to get multiple pots because I am supposed to be cooking some pasta um for my other two recipes. Sorry, I’m trying to talk and also do this at the same time. It’s not working clearly anyway. So, I’ll just have to put the soup in a different container while it’s cooling off so I can wash this and cook my pasta that I need for my baked city and the mac and cheese. My this soup, what is a soup? My hamburger soup is um now being pressure cooked. It’s been about 3 minutes. So, that’s doing its job. This will need to add some chicken into it. So, let’s cut the chicken. I bought chicken breast tenderloins and This brand is pretty good, but uh I do like to cut off parts of the chicken. I’ve said in other videos, but I’m a little weird about my chicken. Actually, doesn’t look too bad. Let’s see how much is this. This is 1 and 12 pounds. And the recipe calls for one pound. So, if I had a bigger pot, I’d say just add all of this. However, I don’t think my pot can hold all of it. So, I’ll just cut all of it because maybe I’ll just cut off half a pound. Who knows? There’s my Instant Pot. It’s been the five minutes. So, now I just wait five more minutes to let it depressurize itself. So, that just takes a bit of time. I bet I shaved off enough. So, now we’re going to add the chicken in to the pot. Just like this. Eventually we will get it out and kind of shred it. Okay. Well, we we made it. We made it work, guys. Oops. All right. Let that come to a boil. Then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and simmer until the chicken’s cooked through. It should be a temperature of 165 Fahrenheit. And that should take about 10 to 14 minutes after it’s brought to a boil. So, we’ll just let this guy sit. I’ll go ahead and start loading my dishwasher while I wait because why not? I know I’m going to have to wait a while because, as I said, I’ll need to wash this pot before I can start my next recipes. I had a few dishes left over from my chocolate my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies here. Our hamburger soup is ready to depressurize. It’s been about 6 minutes. So, all you do, if you have the same one as me, you just click this. Let it Ooh, that smells good. All right, it’s going to steam up to my cupboard, making them a mess. That’s okay. And then when it’s done doing that, we can open up the lid. Anyway, whilst doing that, I’m going to put stuff away. Another thing I can do actually while we’re waiting for that to be done, which is, you know, it doesn’t take long, but um let’s take our scraps outside to the garden and I’ll show you my surprise plant that I have out there. It’s really beautiful day. Very sunny, very warm. Um, I just have a bunch of weeds right here. I also have some lizards. So, maybe the lizards will enjoy this food. Okay, let me turn my camera around. So, here’s my corner. I do have some flowers that I planted here. They’re kind of getting overtaken by the cantaloupe. I think it’s a cantaloupe. Anyway, let me just keep scooting back. You can see how far it goes. Yep. And then I do have a few big ones. Let me see. Got one right there. Oh, I’ve got another one. Okay, I got a big one right here. See, I know it’s not a pumpkin. Got another one. Little cutie here. I know I have another big one. Oh, this is a really big one. Ouch. These are pokey. Wow, that is a big one. That’s really big. Oh, and there’s another cutie little one right here. I don’t think there’s any over there. It’s kind of like a scavenger hunt trying to find where they’re at. I think those are my two biggest ones. Looks like I’ve got another little baby. Oh, a two couple of them right there. So, pretty fun and unexpected. There’s the rest of my mess. I really need to get back here and work. I got some garlic bulbs coming in the mail. But those are my green stocks and I did take them down. These beautiful flowers. I like the yellow flowers that come up on it. Anyway, I have to keep moving it because pretty soon I’m not going to be able to get out of my house. So, I kind of have to direct traffic here, you know. Tell it where to go. Anyway, pretty fun. Oops. And random, but that’s okay. Uh, I’m happy to have something growing cuz they haven’t been very successful thus far. Some weeds over there that I’m going to go pull. So, yeah. Pretty fun little experiment. My house smells delicious. Got some stuff on my phone. Anyway, let’s go ahead and open up. Sorry, our hamburger soup. So, it’s been about 13 minutes since it wow, this looks really good. Go ahead and turn it off so it can start cooling down. Oh my gosh, this looks so good. Wish I had some homemade bread to dip in it or some good crackers. Look how beautiful. Yum. Let’s try some. Oh my goodness. You guys, I’m so excited about this. It’s so beautiful. Such a beautiful soup. All Oops. Woof. That’s really hot. It’s going to take a minute. It’s going to take a minute for it to cool down. And I only have plastic spoons cuz somehow I started off with like eight spoons. Okay. I bought these from Target. My regular spoons. I bought them from Target years ago. like I want to say right out of college or even during college and somehow I’ve ended up with three since from all of my moves, but I have no idea how five of them just disappeared. So anyway, that’s why I’m using a plastic spoon. This is really hot. But the potatoes are so tender. So are the carrots. I can just cut right through them with my spoon. The celery looks great. The peas look delicious. Again, I wish I had actually I do have some bread. It’s just not homemade. Some buttered bread would go great with this. I hope I like it. I am kind of a picky eater. I’m sure I will. Really good from that little taste, but it’s hot. I just don’t want to burn my mouth. Oh, yeah. The potatoes. Did I already mention the potatoes? I think I did. Well, while I’m waiting for this to cool down so I don’t completely burn my tongue, let’s go look at our chicken soup. I guess it’s chicken taco soup, not chicken soup. So, it is boiling. It’s looking good. So, I’m going to put it down. So, it’s just at a simmer. Wondering maybe if I should put a lid on it. I don’t know. It doesn’t really say, but I am going to start a timer. My chicken’s pretty thin, so they’re saying 10 to 14 minutes based on the thickness of your chicken. And I’m just using chicken tenderloin, so it’s pretty thin, so I don’t think it will take super long for it to cook through. I’m just setting it for 12 minutes, but maybe I’ll come back at 10 and check. See how it is. Then we’ll take the chicken out. I think it’s cooled off enough now that I can take a bite. Want to get a bite with a little bit of everything. I need some potato. Om goodness. That’s really good. That is so good. Would be perfect with a roll. Like I keep saying, it just feels like fall. It’s just so cozy. This will be great for like those rainy nights. We don’t get snow here, but it’d be good for a snowy night, too. It’s just like so cozy and comforting. And so easy, too. All we had to do was cut the vegetables and then put it all in the Instant Pot. I Excuse me. I really need to use my Instant Pot more cuz it’s such a great tool. So, if you’d like me to make more Instant Pot meals, let me know because it’s easy clean up, too. like it just has just this one pot inside of it and you just throw the lid. I just throw all the pieces together into the like I’ll rinse it off and then I put it in the um dishwasher. You can take the little pieces off. You probably should do that every once in a while, but I don’t. I I wish I would have put more uh potatoes There’s not enough for me, but still so good. The veggies are so tender. Okay, I hope the recipes the rest of the recipes are just as good as this. Now I have to decide uh how I’m going to put these I hope this freezes well. And I hope it reheats just as good as this. I could drink this soup. This is good. It’s about lunchtime right now and I haven’t eaten anything today. So, this is a good meal. Good lunch. Oh my goodness. So good. So, I have a couple of options. I did buy from Amazon. I bought a bunch of containers. There’s three different types. I have one that’s like this. Okay. They’re about this thick. They’re not very thick. And then this fits about two cups. This is one cup. So, I’m thinking I should have made rolls today and I could have frozen the roll. Oh well, it’s fine. Anyway, so I’m thinking maybe I could put a serving in these cuz these are dishwasher safe and microwave safe. Just the lid isn’t microwave safe. So, this would be good for that soup, maybe. And then I have three other two other kinds. Let me grab them. Got two other kinds of these. I have this one that’s four cups. And then this one’s split into three categories. So, we’ve got two cups, one cup, one cup. So, the same size. Anyway, so I’m thinking I don’t have very many of these because some of them are being used for my breakfast burrito and my breakfast sandwiches. So, I don’t have a ton of those. Uh anyway, I need to decide which container I want to use for the soups. So, my chicken one is almost ready for me to get the chicken out. Put this over there. Let’s look at it. The chicken is actually probably ready for me to pull it out. And then I need to add corn and then shred the chicken. Put the chicken on this plate. Ouch, that’s hot. I should have kept track of how many chickens I have in there. So, I have to swim around for them. Guys, that soup, that hamburger soup is so good. I always am so happy when things turn out, you know? Sometimes you just don’t know. It calls for about a cup. So, kind of let that stew. Honestly, I think the whole thing more than a cup, but that’s okay. And then we’re going to kind of shred the chicken. And once this is shredded, we’ll put it back. And then it’s done. So, this was another pretty easy recipe. Need some like sour cream or tortilla, like those small tortilla strips would be really good with this. Okay, you guys, my chicken taco soup is finally ready. It’s looking good. Some people would say it needs beans, which is fine. Let me get some. And then I am going to quickly put this into another bowl because I need it to cool down. And I also just need this hot. Okay, so here’s our soup. Again, it would be good with some cheese on top, maybe some sour cream. It’s really hot again, so I’m going to let it cool down. I based on the smell, I don’t know if I’m going to like this as much as the hamburger soup. I’ll be honest. So, we’ll see. I’m sure I’ll still like it plenty, especially if I had some tortillas, tortilla strips to put in. That does taste pretty good. I’m not a huge tomato fan. It’s just really hot. Obviously, just came off the stove. That is really good. Is it as good as the taco the hamburger soup? No. But it’s still really, really good. Yeah, that is really good. Okay, let me finish this. Let me clean up some dishes and then we can start making the pasta for the ziti and the mac and cheese. Okay, I’ve cleaned up a bit from the soups. I have my water on to boil for the pasta. And while we’re waiting for that to boil, I’m going to go ahead and put my soups into containers. I think I’ve just decided I’ll just use this. Just put it in this side. We’ll see how many we get. So, I have one, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of these. Hopefully, they will all fit in my freezer. That’s the other thing we have to watch for because, as I’ve said before, I just don’t have a ton of space in my freezer. I want to make sure I’m getting juice or the liquid, too. So, it’s actually soup. And hopefully this doesn’t stain. Probably will. I had meatloaf in one of my containers and the ketchup. I had for the glaze. Um made my turn my thing red. Woo. This is hot. Still very hot. I think it’s going to get me about five, which is not bad. That’s a week. Oops. That’s a week of uh lunches at least for work. Actually, I probably could get six That got us five meals. That will be so good. Again, I’m just going to have to figure out how to fit all these in my freezer. My water is boiling. I think I’m going to start with the uh what’s it called? The ziti. [Applause] for the baked ziti. It’s asking me to Whoops. We’re going to have to cook the sauce. So, I’m going to get out my pan because we’re going to need uh five cups of marinara sauce. I don’t know if this is big enough. We keep having the same problems. I don’t know if my tools are big enough for these recipes. Um, I have the oven preheating to 375. I need to put some oil in here. be helpful if I turned on the the oven or whatever it’s called, the stove. And once that is heated through, I’ll add some onion and garlic and red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. As per usual, my pot is not quite big enough for the pasta. And I know that was mentioned on my last video when I was making lasagna noodles in this same pot. It’s just not big enough, but it’s what I have. So, part of the purpose of this channel is to kind of show you that it’s okay to use what you have. You don’t have to have all the nicest things. You just use what you have and when you can, you can upgrade. But don’t let not having a big pot hold you back from making these things. You know, you can always make it work. So that’s what we do here. We make it work. We do our best. Definitely could have used more water. Now we’ll add the marinara sauce to the pot or to the pan, whatever. It calls for about five cups or 46 oz. I’m going to put a little extra just cuz these are 24 oz uh jars. So, 24 + 24 is 48. So, about two extra ounces, but it’ll work. Then we bring this to a simmer. My noodles are probably good enough. Oops. We lost a noodle, guys. They’re probably good enough to strain them. So, let me go do that. I kind of dumped them out too fast, so we lost a few noodles, but that’s okay. So, now, let me get the recipe. I actually forgot one thing. We need to put together our ricotta cheese mixture with parmesan and salt. Almost forgot. That would have been really sad. Apparently I don’t know how to open this. There we go. We need a cup. Another problem of my life is I only have so many of everything. So I run out of dishes quickly on these days. So I’m using a third cup and I need one cup. You know what? I’m just gonna use all that because I don’t want it to go to waste. And then I need how much? A four cup. We just wing it here. Okay. I’ll just mix this up with fork. All my spoons have been used. It wants me to mix stuff into the pot of the pasta. However, I don’t want to do that. So, I think I’m just going to try mixing it in here and hope it works. So, we want about half of this. I’m sure I have a better utensil I could be using, but this works. So, it wanted me to put the sauce. This is getting heavy. It wanted me to put the sauce into the pot of pasta. I didn’t want to do that cuz I still I just don’t want to clean that pot that much cuz I need it for my mac and cheese still. So, I’m just going to mix it in here and hope that that’s okay. Add the ricotta to the pasta. Ah, yeah, I can see why. That’s okay. It’ll just be a little different than what it’s supposed to be. Add that together. So, yeah. So, you’re supposed to add the ricotta to all the pastas. So like the sauce. So about three cups of the sauce you put in with the pasta, which I probably should put more in here right now. Oh my goodness, you guys. I am flipping pasta all over. I’m going to go get a little bit more sauce. We are just trying our best here. Great. That looks great. Okay, now we’re going to put mozzarella. I have no idea how much it doesn’t say. Oh, a cup. Oops. Okay, let me go put the rest of the pasta in. Actually, I just will bring it here. Okay, we might end up having some crunchy noodles, maybe. I mix this really well. Again, common theme. I don’t think this pan was big enough for this. I think we are going to get some crunchy noodles. all this because I didn’t want to get red sauce in my pasta pot. Still looks really good though. Honestly, this is going to be really good. I can tell this would be good. to make with uh uh with chicken as a side like a like a breaded chicken like uncovered. I think I’m going to put it on a cookie sheet. I just do worry that it’s going to bubble over, make a mess, and if I can I’d rather not have a mess in my oven. Let me put this in. It’s going to bake for 30 minutes about. So, you bake uncovered until the edges um are bubbling and the cheese is completely melted and browned in spots. So, let’s go ahead and put it in. So, I made the mistake of not buying quality garbage bags. So, I just was trying to take the garbage out and the bag completely broke. I didn’t lose much garbage, but I was still recording. I don’t know if it’s going to be um video for you to see, but anyway, that was fun. I’m just kind of cleaning up now. Sorry you’re seeing my messy house. And I do have some water boiling for the mac and cheese. The baked ziti is baking. So, let’s look at the recipe for a second. Actually, pause. I still need to wipe these. Going to wipe the counters to clean up a little bit more. I do have red sauce everywhere, like all over my kitchen. Uh, I think I even have on the floor. So, we will be mopping today. All right, let’s see. Man, this is going to need a saucepan, too. So, we’re going to have to wash that. Okay, you guys. I think we’re finally ready to start the mac and cheese. I have cleaned up quite a bit and the baked city has about 16 minutes left. It is getting hot up in here. My dishwasher is almost full. I had to take garbage out. So these days, these meals are hard work to get them all done on one day, but it will be well worth it later when all I have to do is take it out of the freezer the night before and let it thaw in the fridge and then just microwave it for a few minutes. So this this day is worth it for sure. on. So, I have We’ll have to wait for the oven because this is going to bake at 350°. I did butter or put spray on a dish. I have my water boiling or ready getting ready to boil for the macaroni. And then I have four tablespoonsish of butter melting. And I will be putting some flour in that once it’s melted. Then I half and half. Okay, let me get those things out of the fridge. To my butter. This is still not. All right. So, let’s make sure we’re following the instructions here. Whisk until there are no lumps. Hopefully, I put enough flour. We want to avoid too much and we want to avoid not enough. Got to find that happy spot. Pour in half and half. We need three and 1/2 cups. All right. Three and 1/2 cups. Three and 1/2 cups. One. Two, three and a half. Pour in half and half. Whisk until smooth. Cook until mixture starts to thicken. Then reduce the heat to medium low. Then add 8 oz of cheddar cheese. Look at the recipe here. I just want to make sure I do it right. [Music] [Music] We got another five meals out of this. So that’s great. The baked zi is almost done. We’ve got about 30 more seconds on that. Looks pretty good. I knew we would have some crunchy noodles. That’s okay. That will be delicious. We’ll just let the ziti cool down a bit in there cuz I’m still trying to decide which container I’ll put that in. And then still waiting for this mixture to thicken up. Probably didn’t put enough flour in, but anyway, that’s okay. It’ll work out. My pasta is still cooking here. I did set the oven down to 350 now that the bake city is done. Mac and cheese cooks at 350° F. Okay, our sauce is definitely thickening. So, I turned down the heat and I’m going to add 8 oz of cheddar cheese. [Applause] And we will mix until well incorporated. I really need my pasta to be done. Need some pepper and salt. I’m going turn that off and turn the macaroni and cheese curd macaroni up. And then we need to put some cheddar cheese at the bottom of the pan. and mozzarella cheese. The recipe does say to mix these two into a bowl, but why do that if I can just mix it in the pan, you know? And then we will a layer of the macaroni and cheese after I fold in the noodles into the sauce. I need to do that still. And then we’ll just keep putting layers of the pasta. Then just this cheese. Pasta. Cheese. And we’ll end with um a layer of cheese. And we also need to melt some butter and put the breadrumbs in cuz that will be the top. I think we’ll call this good. [Music] Drain it. [Music] Yes. Yes. [Music] M. This looks so good. I love a good mac and cheese. And I I like that this doesn’t use like Belvita cuz I’m not a fan of that flavor. Okay, I’m going to take this over here and Oh my goodness. I think I need to try this. Just like this. Um, I need half cup of Italian. Right. I’m officially out of thing. So, this is a four cup and I need a half cup. So, two of those. Okay. We need a healthy, healthy layer of the mac and cheese. If you don’t make a mess, it doesn’t count. I don’t know, guys. I think this might be the one I’m most excited for. I just I’m a Mac and cheese is my ultimate ultimate comfort food. I just am a cheese girl. All right, let me put some more of this and add some cheese. This is a lot of cheese. I think I’m supposed to use this entire bag. That’s a lot of cheese. Yeah, I’m supposed to use all of this bag and all of the the rest of the cheddar cheese bag. That is a lot of cheese. That’s like That’s 24 oz of cheese. That is crazy. That’s 24 oz of total in or 30. Let’s see. Yeah, that’s 24 oz of cheese in this entire thing. I’m going to use less mozzarella, but not the cheddar. probably would be fine without the breadcrumbs. I don’t know if that’ll be my favorite, but And I’m just going to sprinkle it on, I think. Guys, this is going to be so easy. Wow. Is that normal? Oh my gosh, it looks so good though. Okay. Bake uncovered for I better wipe off some of the sides really quick. for 25 to 30 minutes or until the breadcrumbs are golden brown and crisp. Wipe this off. Okay, there it is going in the oven. I’ve got a ton of dishes to do, but I wanted to just try the um baked penet. That’s good. [Music] Yum. So, that’s three amazing recipes. I think the mac and cheese will turn out just as great. All right, my mac and cheese has 12 minutes. I think I’m going to put the big zippy into this container. Um, I think I’ll try and get five meals again, just like the soups. I’ll probably get more um or less. Actually, I’ll just get five because I can put some in the other side container side uh spots, too. Um yeah, this is really good. I really hope that they freeze well. That’s my biggest thing now is to just make sure that they freeze well and then they reheat well because you don’t want to go through all this effort for them to just not turn out cuz they’re all delicious right now. Got my dishwasher going. So, probably pretty loud. I almost fit everything into the dishwasher, but I’ve got a few um dishes that I’ll put in later. On my next round, one, two, three, four, five, six. We’ll get eight from this. eight meals unless I unless I decide to fill in. My back’s starting to hurt. Um Oh, should I? Eight is just kind of a lot for one. Well, that’s right. I don’t know how I’m going to fit this in my freezer, you guys. I really don’t. I am going to have to reorganize my freezer or something or take some stuff out. Go through it and Oops. I want to save that. I might have to throw out stuff that I don’t need. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We got eight of the baked ziti. Okay, you guys, we are just about done. I honestly am just running out of space here. I just My kitchen’s not that big. Uh uh we definitely bit off a lot and I think we’re going to be okay. I did just take a few minutes to reorganize my freezer and kind of get rid of stuff that I didn’t need. I have 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven more containers left for this mac and cheese. So, we’re going to make it work for seven meals. You guys, this is so much food. This is going to last me a long, long time. This is amazing. Probably could have left this in. I don’t think these breadcrumbs are quite where it’s supposed to be according to the recipe. Golden brown and crisp. They’re not quite crisp. Some of them are, but not all the way through. But I did it for 25 minutes. Yeah. Anyway, I want to let this cool before or just a little cool just a little bit before I start putting it into the other containers. Okay, let’s get into this. Oh gosh, beautiful. These would be really good. This would be a good side for something, some kind of beef or chicken. Or you could just have it by itself. Doesn’t have a ton of protein in it, but Some people don’t want protein. That’s okay. Wow. I might need to find some more containers. Mostly because I don’t want to have a ton of this in one serving. Uh, I think I’ll be okay. We’ll be fine. I can link these on Amazon. I don’t have an affiliate link or anything for Amazon right now, but I will definitely link where I got these containers from. I really do like them. They seem to hold up pretty well in the freezer and then obviously the microwave. They do stain easily. So all this red sauce might stain them cuz the ketchup stained them from my meatloaf. So if you don’t mind that. And they’re pretty cheap. I think they were I want to say like around $30, guys. This looks so good. Need to get every bit of this goodness. Also, I just You don’t want to scrape the cheese off. Oops. Okay, let’s try a bite. Got our gooey. Got our ooey gooey mac and cheese. It’s really hot still. I like it. I don’t love the breadrumbs, but so cheesy. Probably could have used a little bit of garlic. some kind of seasoning aside from uh what’s salt and pepper, which I guess is what the Italian seasoning was for because uh it’s Italian seasoning, right? Italian seasoning breadcrumbs. So, did I say that? I don’t know. I’m losing my mind here, you guys. This was a lot of work. I’m super tired. My feet hurt. But it’s well worth it to have so many delicious meals ready to be put in the freezer. So, let’s count and see what we have. Okay, my water’s running in the background. Sorry. So we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 freezer meals. That is almost an entire month. And these will be great for lunches or for dinners. You guys, I’m so excited. This is amazing. I’m going to let these cool before I put the lids on. And then I did make some room. Maybe I’ll show you my freezer. I was able to make some room down here. I’ve got three freezer meals left over from my last video. So, I think they’re all going to fit. Hopefully, they stack well. That’s that’s my hope. I think it’ll be okay. If not, I’ll just keep some in the fridge that I can eat this following week. So, that would be five meals that I can just put in the fridge instead of the freezer. So, that would work. But, wow, guys. Thank you so much for spending time with me in the kitchen today. I hope you guys try some of these recipes. I will link them down below. They’re not my recipes. I’m following from someone else. So, let me know if you try any of them. Let me know if you would do anything different or add anything to any of the recipes. I love reading your comments about tips and tricks and what you liked or what you would change. So, I will see you guys next time.