Have you ever fixed a delicious meal only to throw out the leftovers days later because no one wanted to eat them over and over? Tossing food is like tossing money! I can’t stand the thought of throwing away food, but I also don’t like to force leftovers on my small family night after night.
So many casserole-type recipes call for baking in a 9×13 pan. That’s great if your brood can eat it in a day or two, but for smallish families, you don’t want to eat the same thing all week. Don’t bother cutting the recipe in half, cut your pan in half!
Using two 8×8 pans or a similar size, you can have two meals for the work of one and not have so many leftovers to get tired of and throw away. As a bonus, on a busy day or a day that doesn’t go quite as planned, you’ve got a meal ready to pop in the oven.
For the freezer meal I like to line my pan with foil and then fill with food. Once frozen, I pop the meal out and zip it in a gallon-size freezer bag to free up my baking dish. This works beautifully with the 8×8 size. Simply peel the foil off of the frozen meal and place it back in the dish to thaw and bake. Two meals, no waste!
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I do this same thing… but I never thought of your foil idea… that is brilliant! Thanks for sharing. : ) ae
That’s a great idea! Man, you have a million of them!
Very good idea!
Actually, I leave the foil on, and then I don’t have to wash the pan! Oh, wait, this is Frugal Friday, not Lazy Friday . . . :>)
I do try to halve recipes if we’ve not tried it before, because it’s a huge bummer when I have a dish in the freezer of something that we didn’t care for the first time around. I tend to want to leave it until it’s freezer burned and too late.
That’s a great idea! I never thought of that!
great idea!! i will certainly take advantage of this one.
That is a great idea! Thanks!
I do something similar and I’ll be blogging about it soon!
I used to do this, but haven’t done it in a while. It surely makes it easy for dinner!
I often split the pan, too. Especially for things like lasagna and chicken pot pie. I’ve read about the foil idea before but have yet to implement it. That would solve the “all my pans are in the freezer” dilemma.
I love the foil idea. I hesitate to do this since I don’t want to use up one of my casserole dishes, but by using the foil it keeps those casserole dishes freed up! Thanks!
I often split and freeze casseroles, but your foil idea is fabulous!
I really like the idea of lining the pans before freezing!! I have been making a lot of freezer meals and just buying the disposable foil pans. It makes SO much more sense just to freeze them in the pans I have lined with foil and then pop them out for storage in the freezer. Genius!!!
I have three kids too and there are ALWAYS way too many leftovers from our 9×13 casseroles. Plus, if it’s a noodle/cheese dish – it usually gets overcooked when I reheat. So I’ve been doing this same thing for about six months now. I usually save one of the 8x8s in the fridge for a meal later on in the week.
Freezer paper works great to line the pan also!
You posted this idea awhile back and I promptly bought a set of the 8 by 8 glass casserole dishes that have lids. I love this idea! There are presently only 3 of us living here, so that size is perfect, and I don’t have to put the dish in the freezer unless I want to.