Fun with Freezer Meals

Plus, Enchilada Sauce recipe

Today I made my semi-annual supply of enchilada sauce. I do this two or three times a year. I make a huge batch of sauce, portion it into meal-size containers and pop them into the freezer. I dislike canned enchilada sauce. Like a lot of canned foods, it’s usually high in sodium and other yucky processed stuff and it also usually tastes like you just licked an aluminum can. I can make a ton of my own sauce quickly and inexpensively. It tastes way better and is much healthier for you.

How much enchilada sauce does a family of three require?, you may be wondering. This family needs a pretty fair amount. I love enchiladas, as well as all the casseroles on Pinterest masquerading as enchiladas. Enchilada lasagna! Enchilada stacks! Enchilada bakes! Also, no one in my house eats meat, except for The Child, occasionally. (Mostly bacon. If he had to choose between me and bacon, I feel pretty sure he’d choose me, but he’d need to give it some thought first.) This means that we eat a lot of bean-based meals and most weeks that includes an enchilada-like recipe containing black beans, veggies and a restrained amount of cheese.

The sauce is super easy, only nine ingredients, five of which are spices. Simmer for ten or fifteen minutes and it’s done. After it cools, I ladle 2-cup portions into freezer bags (labeled!) and lay them flat on a cookie sheet. When they’re frozen solid, they’re easy to stack on a freezer shelf or tuck into the door. Packaged this way, they also thaw faster than if they were frozen in a block in a freezer box.

Enchilada sauce is only one of the things I cook this way. I do something similar with spaghetti sauce, dried beans, veggie burgers, even cookies. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making something, I always feel, you should make a ton and freeze it. Then you’ll have less to do on another day. If I’m going to cook dried beans, I cook several pounds at a time, portion them into 2-cup containers (roughly equal to a can of beans) and freeze. If I make cookies, I double the recipe, portion out the dough onto cookie sheets and pop the sheets in the freezer. Once they’re solid, the dough balls can go into freezer bags and you can bake as many (or as few) as you want at a time. (You can bake a couple right in the toaster oven if it’s been a really horrible day. I speak from experience.)

I like to do the same thing with whole meals. If I make an enchilada bake in a 9×13 casserole dish, we are stuck eating it all week. If I prep the meal, and spoon it into two 8×8 pans, one of them can be covered with foil and go into the freezer for another day when I do not have time to cook. (Even frozen solid, it will only take about an hour to bake – and that’s non-active cooking time I can spend working, practicing yoga or playing with The Child.) The other can go into the oven for that night’s dinner. When I do this kind of meal prepping, I like to use those disposable foil pans from the dollar store so I’m not tying up a casserole dish in the freezer.

The only problem with this type of batch cooking is that you need a good-sized freezer. Back when we still ate meat, we bought it at the East Aurora Farmers’ Market, which meant that when the market was ending in November, we bought a ton of meat all at once for the winter. Twenty-five pounds of ground beef. Six or eight whole chickens. A bunch of stew meat and chuck roasts. Ten pounds of bacon. To handle that kind of storage, we bought a massive upright freezer, big enough to hide a body. (I haven’t actually tested this out, but I’m pretty confident on it, so don’t mess with me.)

We don’t use the freezer for meat anymore, but I’m still happy to have the storage space. I freeze a ton of fruits and vegetables, from our garden and The Orchard as well as the farmers’ market. I prep enchilada sauce, veggie burgers and freezer meals. It also comes in handy when Main Street Ice Cream closes for the winter and I need a place to store ten pints of ice cream to hold me over until they open in the spring.

Even if your freezer space is more limited, you can still store some items with a little planning. 8×8 foil pans stack nicely once they’re frozen solid. Freezing items like sauce flat allows for stacking also and the bags are easy to wedge in between other things. Even homemade burgers (veggie or otherwise) don’t take up a ton of space once they’re individually wrapped in foil and tucked into freezer bags. I also recommend keeping a list of what’s living in the freezer and crossing things off as you use them, so you don’t make another batch of spaghetti sauce when you still have one container developing freezer burn, stuffed behind the remaining ice cream.

Knowing you have healthy, homemade options can be a lifesaver on nights when there’s sports, or someone is working late or when you’re just too tired to cook. Even at my worst, I can still manage to fill a pot with water and boil pasta while the frozen spaghetti sauce defrosts. It might not be the greatest meal of all time, but it’s way healthier than fast food or take out. Do the work in advance, when you have the time – you’ll appreciate it later.

If you need help getting started with meal planning or the time management necessary to make it happen, let me know. We can work together.

Thanks for being with me on this wellness journey.

Enchilada Sauce

(Makes 9-10 cups)

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons canola oil

7 tablespoons all-purpose flour (gluten-free works fine)

3 tablespoons chili powder (or more, to taste)

5 cups vegetable broth (low sodium, if you can find it)

29 ounces tomato puree

¾ teaspoon ground cumin

¾ teaspoon garlic powder

¾ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon salt

1. In a stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and chili powder and cook until lightly browned.
2. Add the broth, tomato puree and spices, whisking to combine. Simmer over medium heat for 10-15 minutes or until slightly thickened.
3. Use immediately or let cool and divide into meal-size portions* and freeze.

*Most of my recipes call for 2 cups of enchilada sauce so I divide mine into 2-cup portions, using quart-size freezer bags.

This sauce can be used to make many delicious enchilada-like recipes, including:

Slow Cooker Enchilada Stack

(Makes 6 servings)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, diced

1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup frozen corn

2 cans (15 oz.) black beans, drained (or 4 cups cooked black beans)

4 oz. canned diced chilies

1 cup salsa, any variety

2 cups enchilada sauce, divided

12 6-inch corn tortillas (you could use flour tortillas instead, if you prefer those)

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (or a Mexican blend)

1. In a deep skillet over medium heat, saute onion, pepper and garlic until slightly softened, about five minutes. Add the corn, beans, chilies, salsa and 1 ½ cups enchilada sauce and stir gently to combine.
2. Spray a 6-7 quart slow cooker insert with cooking spray. Cover the bottom with four tortillas, overlapping them to fit. Top with half the cooked veggie and bean mixture and sprinkle with one-third of the cheese.
3. Repeat with four more tortillas, the other half of the veggie and bean mixture and one-third of the cheese.
4. Finish with the remaining four tortillas, the remaining ½ cup sauce and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
5. Cook on low heat for 4 hours or high heat for 2-3 hours. Serve with toppings like avocado, sour cream, cilantro and diced tomato.