Can you freeze...

DancerSupreme

I am going to make some different bits for tea and wondering if I can freeze any of them.

Chicken pasta bake maybe with mozerella
White sauce
Chicken noodle cassarole
Beef noodle stir fry
Lemon chicken risotto

We eat a lot of chicken and beef which I know are fine to freeze but its the bits that go with it. I find it so much better to go to the freezer and get food out rather than need to cook and in turn not get to spend as much time with my husband and son in an evening.

Thanks in advance for your help

ChocClare

Chicken pasta bake - no problem
White sauce - no problem
Chicken noodle casserole ? in theory it sounds fine - not really sure what this is
Beef noodle stir fry - is fine, but noodles only take a second to cook - you might be better freezing the meat and adding the noodles in afterwards? I have successfully frozen leftover plain spaghetti, but I would worry that it might be a bit soggy if frozen in the dish, if you know what I mean.
Lemon chicken risotto is fine to freeze but you may have to add a little stock to it when you reheat it.

CCP

You can definitely freeze the pasta bake and risotto, as long as the cooked chicken wasn't previously frozen (it's fine if it was frozen while it was raw and has been defrosted and cooked - but I'm sure you know that!). The noodle casserole should be fine, too, but I'm not sure about the stir fry - the vegetables might go a bit soggy.

I've never tried freezing white sauce but I'm pretty certain you can - hopefully someone else will come along soon and confirm.

HTH

Edit - you beat me to it, ChocClare!

thriftlady_2

You can freeze it all but the stir fry will be soggy once defrosted. It only takes a few mins to knock out a stir fry. Why not involve your son in the cooking if he is old enough? Quality and productive time at once;)

DancerSupreme

Thats great thanks guys. Son is only 4 months old lol but I do plan to have him help me out when he is older. I want him to know how to cook good healthy meals from a youngish age to set him on a good path for the future.

I want to do more batch cooking at the beginning of the month but am getting bored of just chilli, bolognaise and normal cassarole.

ChocClare - the noodle cassarole is like a chicken noodle soup. Similar to something we get form the chinese really as hubby loves my chicken cassarole so going to variate it slightly for the nights we want take away...so long as it works of course lol.

Akom

My little tip would be, think what frozen ready meals you can find in supermarkets. They're normally just cooked meals then frozen. I dont think they do anything magical before they freeze them.

Well thats what i do when i've got left over dinner and want to freeze it.

daphne_descends

Perhaps it's just me, but I cannot bear the texture of defrosted risotto

However I do find pasta bakes taste better second time around. Especially veggie lasagne.

tandraig

i freeze cauliflower cheese which is based on white sauce (home made) with no probs so i guess any white sauce would freeze ok.
if i am freezing a pasta dish i always make sure it is well mixed in with sauce as the pasta can get dry on reheating. no prob as italians always mix pasta with sauce on not serve it on top! as i remind family when it looks like i am serving a mess!