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 Do you know how to cook once and create 7 freezer meals?

As a mom of 3 and a wife to a big hungry husband, dinner is often needed and in a hurry. The hungry family at my house is constantly circling the kitchen wanting to eat. I love having meals in the freezer on hand to make my dinner in a flash. Here’s what you need to make 7 healthy chicken dinners. The dinners this will make are: chicken pot pie (2), chicken noodle soup, chicken fajitas, catalina chicken, ranch chicken and barbecue chicken for sandwiches. I’m a frugal cook so this makes 8 lbs of chicken really stretch. Feel free to adjust for your family.

 Ingredients for Cook Once Freeze 7 Meals

What you’ll need:

8 pounds of chicken breast (I used boneless, skinless)

2 cans cream of chicken soup (1 for soup  (and 1 for pot pies)

2 cans of chicken broth or you can do like me and make your own

4 whole carrots peeled diced

2 stalks of celery for the broth rough chopped

2 whole carrots rough chopped for broth

3 celery stalks diced

1 onion diced

1 or 2 peppers sliced thin

1 package of frozen peas

2 deep dish frozen pie crusts

cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper to your taste, barbecue sauce, catalina dressing, dry ranch dressing

Here’s how I did it.

First I put 3 of my chicken breasts in the crock pot with a cup of water and barbecue sauce. It will simmer all day and then I’ll shred it and bag it for eating barbecue chicken sandwiches another night. Just pull out and reheat on the stove when you’re in the mood for barbecue chicken.

Bake the pie crusts according to package instructions. I did 350* for 11 minutes. 

Then I boiled a large pan of water (probably 8 cups) with 2 chopped carrots, 1/2 of an onion diced and 2 stalks of celery with leaves on it. To this I added 3 chicken breasts and let them cook for an hour. This makes the base (broth) of your chicken noodle soup and is used also in the chicken pot pies. Then I pulled out the chicken breast and let them cool and turned the broth off. I grabbed a strainer and strained out of the broth the celery, carrots and onion. Keep the broth for your chicken noodle soup. I chopped up the carrots and added them to the chicken noodle soup. Cut up the chicken and put 1/2 in chicken fajitas (add sliced onions and sliced bell peppers, cumin and chili powder) plastic bag (write on this bag cook in slow cooker for 3.0 hours on high) and 1/3 in chicken noodle soup and 1/3 in chicken pot pies.  Add the cream of chicken to both the broth and the pot pies. Then I diced up the celery, carrots, and onion and cooked on high in the microwave for 3 minutes. Divided them between the pot pies and soup.  Add the peas to both the soup and pot pies. Stirred and let them cool. Once cool I bagged the chicken noodle soup without the noodles (I’ll add that when I cook the soup for the family, noodles don’t freeze so well.) I also bagged the chicken pot pies and wrote on the bag cook on 400* for 50 minutes. 

The last thing I did you can do two ways you can freeze them with their dressings to cook later or you can cook and then freeze. I cooked one for dinner that night (catalina chicken) and will freeze the ranch chicken to pull out and cook later.  I love to do things that save me time and money.  For these two if you don’t cook that night write on the bag Cook on 400* for 45 minutes. Having meals on hand in the freezer stops my family from eating out. That’s always a good thing. My home cooked meals will always be better for me then a fast food restaurant.  This is what you end up with! Now feel free to freeze and reheat later when you are in need of a great meal. 

Have you done this before? What do you create as freezer meals that you keep on hand?