Do You Cook Freezer Meals First Before Freezing?

For even the most organized of cooks, there will be days when it's just not practical to come home and cook dinner from scratch. On those occasions, a freezer full of ready-made meals can be a practical convenience. Depending on the packaging you choose, you can reheat the meal in your oven or microwave oven and sit down to hot, home-cooked meals within minutes.

Raw vs. Cooked

In a few rare cases, it's possible to assemble an uncooked meal in a container for freezing and later cooking. However, making meals so that all the ingredients cook at the same rate is a challenging prospect. There is also a greater risk of food-borne illness when uncooked ingredients, especially meats, are involved. That's why frozen meals are almost invariably pre-cooked before freezing. If the meals have been prepared correctly, their ingredients are all food safe at the end of the cooking time.

Selecting Meals

Some meals are better suited for freezing than others. Delicate greens and herbs freeze poorly, and watery vegetables tend to become mushy when thawed. Thin pieces of fish or chicken can easily become overcooked when they're reheated. On the other hand, dishes containing a broth or sauce, such as soups, stews, casseroles or baked pasta, freeze very well. If you're freezing leftovers, meats and their sauce should be frozen separately from potatoes or vegetables. This makes it easier to reheat each part of the meal properly.

Safe Freezing

Whether you're preparing a large recipe specifically for freezing, or packaging leftovers out of a sense of pragmatic frugality, it's important to maintain food safety from start to finish. Buy an inexpensive instant-read thermometer and use it to ensure that you've cooked your food to a safe temperature, according to the Food Safety and Information Service's published guidelines. Food must be in your refrigerator or freezer within two hours and should reach below 40 F within another four hours. Divide large batches into small, flat containers or bags, and spread them around your fridge or freezer rather than stacking them.

Safe Thawing

When reheating frozen meals, it's important not to allow microbial growth. If you're going to thaw your frozen meals, the best place to do it is in the refrigerator, where the temperature remains below 40 F. You can also thaw them in the microwave or under running water, if the food will be cooked right away. Another alternative is to cook meals directly in their frozen state, stirring occasionally to ensure even heating. Microwaves heat unevenly and aren't well suited to reheating meals, but they could be used to shorten heating time. Reheated foods must reach 165 F in order to be food safe.