make ahead meals

wittyschaffy

Hi everyone - so kitchen demo is next week.   It may be a while before we have full use of the space again so I'm doing some meal planning to get ready for us not having use of the stove or prep areas.  What are your "go to" meals that you can make ahead and re-heat in the microwave?  I'm going to make a pan of lasagna and a batch of chili.  If it ever gets nice out, there is always grilling too but I'm not counting on that just yet since it has been raining/snowing/sleeting here for the last 24 hours and there is a couple inches of ice on everything underneath the really wet snow.

 We're trying to minimize dish cleanup too since we'll be doing dishes in our basement laundry tub until everything is put back together (and we have a dishwasher - double smile!) .

Muffin'sMom

I grill about six pounds of chicken breasts all at once.  Then I leave some whole and freeze, chop some up and freeze, and shred some and freeze.  That way, I have meat done and I can just add some kind of microwave rice or noonles and some kind of sauce and eat it in a bowl.  You can also grill veggies along with it and freeze those too.  I get BBQ sauce, sweet and sour, marinara, and then they have those new cream cheese ones in the dairy section.  I do this for me because Monday through Friday it is no one but me, and if it's not fast I end up eating junk instead.

I also get the frozen mac and cheese and when it's hot add some chicken or drained tuna and little bit of dijon to make more of a protein.  You can get those microwave rice things and add chicken, tuna, chopped ham.

I also brown ground beef in big batches and drain and freeze those too.

Milliechel67

I freeze pulled pork and BBQ beef after cooking it in the crockpot then make sandwiches or tacos with the leftovers.  Let me know if you need recipes and I'll pull them later tonight!  I also freeze most soups I make (because I tend to cook for 10 instead of 2 when I make soups) and that makes for an easy dinner with a sandwich.