Your freezer is a much overlooked back-to-school heavyweight. Make the transition back to the grind easier with these back-to-school freezer essentials!
Back to school season can be rough. Especially at dinner time. With the kids going back to school comes after school activities, which turns dinner into absolute chaos. Of course, having a list of on-the-go dinners is helpful to combat this chaos, but it won’t get you all the way there. You also need to stock your freezer correctly. Seriously, having the right items in your freezer can be the difference between happy, nourished bellies and the drive thru for the third time in a week.
If you’d rather leave the drive thru for an occasional treat and not depend on it as your dinnertime crutch this school year, congratulations, you’ve found the right place. I’m sharing the items I keep in my freezer to ease the school night dinnertime burden. Take out your grocery list and get ready to add these freezer essentials to it!
Freezer essentials
Breakfast
Although I primarily use my freezer to help with school night dinners, it also comes in handy for the other meals I’m expected to feed my children every day. (Seriously, three meals every day is so many!) Let’s start with my freezer essentials for breakfast.
Coffee
It is an emergency if you run out of coffee on a weekday. Don’t mess around with this possibility. Keep coffee in your freezer at all times. All times, do you understand?
Frozen fruit
The uses of frozen fruit for weekday breakfasts are many. You’d truly be doing yourself a disservice by not having at least a bag of frozen fruit in your freezer at all times. Personally, I like to keep a few bags in mine. Frozen fruit is great for making a quick smoothie on a weekday morning and a pan of baked oatmeal on the weekend that can be nuked for a hearty weekday breakfast. This is one freezer essential that really earns its real estate.
Premade breakfast
You need to have quick premade breakfast options in your freezer for weekday mornings. Whether you buy them already premade or you make them from scratch and then freeze them, premade breakfast is essential when you’re trying to get your kids on the bus and get yourself to work on time.
My favorite premade breakfast items to keep in the freezer are waffles, pancakes, French toast, breakfast sandwiches (just please don’t microwave them in a damp paper towel!), and egg bites. We don’t have all of these in the freezer at the same time. I rotate through them as we empty the freezer stash. My preference is to make them from scratch, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a box of Eggos, do you hear me?
Lunch
Every mom I know detests packing school lunches. Make it easier on yourself by having some freezer essentials at the ready!
Yogurt tubes
I’m a little bit freaked out by yogurt in a tube, but my kids love it. They are also the perfect thing to keep in the freezer and throw in their lunchboxes to add a little extra protein to their lunches so they’re not hangry when they get off the bus. Yogurt tubes have absolutely become freezer essentials in my house.
Uncrustables
Sometimes you just can’t find the time in the day to pack a lunch. That’s where Uncrustables come in. Buy a box from the freezer section of your local grocery store or make a bunch of homemade ones using this nifty contraption. If your school is nut-free, just substitute Sun Butter or Wow Butter. Whichever way you choose to keep emergency PB&Js, just keep some handy.
Cookies
I remember when I was a kid, it was always a nice surprise to find a sweet treat in my lunchbox. Because that small joy made such an impact when I was a kid, I like to throw a sweet treat into the lunchbox every once in a while. Unfortunately, my life doesn’t allow me to make fresh cookies every day, so I like to make a few dozen cookies every once in a while and throw them in the freezer for quick lunchbox treats. These chocolate crinkles are amazing little surprises.
Dinner
And now, we’ve made it to the main event. The vast majority of my freezer space, both in my kitchen and in the garage, is devoted to dinner-related freezer essentials. I just need freezer stuff more for dinner than for any other meal because of how busy life is in the evenings during the school year. If this sounds like you, make sure you save plenty of freezer space for these dinnertime freezer essentials.
Meat
I am a huge fan of buying meat in bulk and freezing it. Ground meat, chicken, pork chops – you name it. Buying in bulk is more cost-effective and ensures that I have meat available when I need it, which might even be more important.
If you’re going to freeze meat that you buy in bulk, I suggest you freeze it in meal-size packets. It’s so much more convenient to pull out a packet with a few chicken breasts or one pound of ground beef. It also takes less time to thaw this way!
Veggies
Look, I usually prefer fresh veggies when I can get them, but there is nothing wrong with frozen veggies. They have all of the nutrition of fresh veggies with the added convenience of being ready to go in your freezer whenever you need them. I love to keep frozen corn, peas, and spinach in the freezer at all times. It’s shocking how much I use them!
Bread
I always keep at least one emergency loaf of bread in my freezer at all times. You just never know when that loaf you have on the counter is going to suddenly erupt in green fuzz. In addition to a standard loaf of bread, I like to keep specialty bread products like English muffins, bagels, or hot dog buns in the freezer. The hot dog buns in my freezer have saved me more times than I would like to acknowledge.
Convenience dinners
Sometimes weeknights just call for convenience meals from the freezer. You might not have time to make a full meal, but you can usually find the time to cook a frozen pizza or some nuggets. Add a bagged salad (assuming no cyclospora), and you’ve got a pretty balanced meal that’s ready in just about 15 minutes.
Freezer meals
I go through phases of making freezer meals. Sometimes (like at the beginning of the school year) I get really into them. Pretty much every meal I make gets doubled so I can stock the freezer with minimal extra work. And then I get tired of making meals that freeze well and don’t make a freezer meal for months. But the cyclical nature of my freezer meal moods actually works perfectly because the perfect time to eat freezer meals is when I’m not in the mood to make freezer meals.
If you’re new to freezer meals, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out what to make, how to store it, and how to heat it when you’re ready to eat it. But trust me, it really isn’t hard.
What to make
I like some variety in my freezer meals. Casseroles make great freezer meals, sure, but sometimes I’m just not in the mood to eat a casserole when I need to rely on a freezer meal. Here are a few of my favorite meals to stash in the freezer for a rainy day:
How to store
If you want to freeze a casserole or something casserole-adjacent like enchiladas, simply build the meal in a disposable aluminum pan. Cover first with plastic wrap, then with heavy duty aluminum foil, and label with the contents, the date, and the heating/cooking instructions. It’s really that easy.
Other posts
Looking for more kitchen tips? What about back-to-school advice? Here are some posts that should help with both!
So, are you ready to stock your freezer with all these back-to-school freezer essentials? What’s your favorite thing to keep in the freezer? Share down below or over on Instagram @sarainseason!