The Instant Pot is all the rage. Chances are, if you have one, you love it. Once you try freezer meals for the Instant Pot, that love affair will be taken to a whole new level!

Easy meets fast. They were a pair meant to be together. This easy guide to Instant Pot freezer meals will tell you everything you need to know to get started. 

The Easy Guide to Instant Pot Freezer Meals:

You will need two things in order to get started. You will need an Instant Pot and freezer meals. The Instant Pot should be chosen based on your needs. We have a large family (7 kids including some hungry teenage boys!), so I went with an 8 quart Instant Pot.

If you’re new to making freezer meals, you can find all the basics in this Freezer Meals 101 guide. (click that link to read)

The benefits to making the meals ahead of time to later be cooked quickly in the Instant Pot:

• shop less often (saves time)
• buy in bulk (saves money)
• never have to decide what to make for supper (saves sanity)
• no prep on the day of cooking (saves time)
• never have to run to the store for missing ingredients (saves time and money)

The first step will be grocery shopping. Whenever you make many freezer meals at once, it always saves time to prep your ingredients before you start assembling. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to assemble the meals.

The Shape Dilemma:

One of the nicest things about the Instant Pot is that you can cook from frozen. This is particularly good for those of us who sometimes forget to take out a freezer meal to thaw in the morning or the night before. I freeze most of my freezer meals in large resealable bags.

If they are frozen solid, their rectangular shape doesn’t lend itself well to being put into the round Instant Pot. This poses quite a conundrum.

If you want to place the meal into the Instant Pot completely frozen, the best trick I’ve heard is to make the freezer meals in empty ice cream pails or similar sized round plastic containers. That way, they can fit directly into the Instant Pot, no thawing needed.

The downside to freezing the meals in pails is that they take up a lot more space in the freezer. I like that resealable freezer bags can be stored flat. That way, I can fit several months worth of meals in the freezer.

There’s an easy fix to the space dilemma though. Just place the freezer bag in lukewarm water for a few minutes to thaw it enough to get the contents into the Instant Pot.

What Foods Freeze Well?

With freezer cooking, it’s important to know what freezes and what doesn’t. Read a full list here of what foods freeze well and which don’t as well on tips on how best to freeze them.

I’ve created a cheatsheet for you to print out as an easy reference to remember what freezes well.

Freezer burn is the enemy of freezer meals. The good news is, you can prevent freezer burn by taking all the excess air out of the freezer bags before sealing. Label your bags with the date so that you can track which ones to eat first.

Filling the Instant Pot:

Only fill your Instant Pot 2/3 of the way full. For recipes that will expand, such as those that contain beans or rice, fill it no more than 1/2 full.

I have made the mistake of overfilling and then out of the pressure nozzle came a FOUNTAIN of liquid. It covered my counter, my floor, my cupboards. Some of it even got on the ceiling. You had better believe that I never made that mistake again!

Adjusting Cook Times:

If you are cooking your meat from frozen, you will need to add some time to the recipe instructions. It will take longer to come to pressure from frozen.

If you are adding the whole freezer meal in completely frozen, then you will either need to add a bit of water or turn on the saute setting and allow to cook for 5 minutes before sealing and cooking. This is to create some liquid.

A pressure cooker needs liquid in order to do what it needs to do. Use your judgment about which recipes to add water to as it could affect the final meal. A soup for example would be fine to add a bit of water to. Recipes that are not intended to be watery wouldn’t fare as well. For those, use the saute idea.

Supplies Needed for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:

You will of course need to have an Instant Pot. You will also need good quality resealable freezer bags or empty ice cream pails, and permanent markers or printable labels for labelling the meals. I use Avery 5163 labels.

I strongly suggest that you also invest in an electric can opener. I wish I had gotten mine sooner. When you are opening dozens of cans in a day, it wears on your wrists and thumbs. It also eats up precious time.

Instant Pot Qt 7-in-1 Multi- Use Programmable Pressure CookerInstant Pot Freezer Meal PlanZiploc Freezer Bags, GallonSharpie Permanent MarkersCuisinart Electric Can OpenerLabels (5163)

Converting Slow Cooker Recipes to Instant Pot Recipes:

Many of our favourite recipes are freezer to crock pot recipes. If you want to use one of those recipes in the Instant Pot, you can, but you will have to adjust the times significantly.

Things cook much quicker with pressure cooking. In a slow cooker recipe that calls for 8 hours of cook time on low (4 hours on high), the cook time in the Instant Pot in the sealed setting will be 25-30 minutes. You will of course need to allow extra minutes for the pressure to release.

Instant Pots need liquid to cook things properly, so if your original recipe doesn’t have at least one cup of liquid (this can be broth, sauce, water, etc.), you’ll have to add some.

Don’t add freezer to slow cooker recipes that have milk or dairy in them (condensed or evaporated milk is ok). You can add the milk or dairy in at the end, but because of the high pressure, you don’t want to include them for the full cook time.

One last note about this: Instant Pots can also function as a slow cooker, so if you only have an Instant Pot, it’s easy to use your crock pot recipes in there using that feature.

Our Favourite Freezer to Instant Pot Recipes:

Find freezer to Instant Pot recipes, shopping lists, prep lists, and printable labels in our Instant Pot Freezer Meal Menu Plan. 

Freezer meals have saved my sanity. That may sound like an extreme statement to make about dinner, but truly, they have. As a busy mom of 7, supper used to cause me so much stress. It wasn’t that I didn’t like cooking. It was that I had a hard time deciding what to make every day. Four o’clock would roll around and I would have that moment of not knowing what to make for dinner. Since discovering freezer cooking, I never have that problem anymore.

Now, each morning, I go to my freezer and open the door where I am greeted with ready-to-cook meals. I pull one out to thaw and don’t have to think about what I’m going to serve for dinner that night. I also don’t have to run to the store to pick up an ingredient I’ve forgotten. It’s saved me so much time and saved our family a lot of money too.

For those of you who are new to freezer cooking, I wanted to put together a Freezer Meals 101 guide to help you get started. Here you will find answers to all your freezer meal questions.

Freezer Meals 101:

What are freezer meals? Freezer meals are just what they sound like. They are meals made ahead and frozen for later use. This can look as simple as doubling a recipe that you’re making anyway and freezing the extra. Most often though, the term “freezer cooking” is used to describe batch cooking. Batch cooking is when you set aside time to make many meals at once. They are then frozen. You can then take out one meal a day for cooking for dinner. Breakfasts and lunches can also be made ahead in this way.

How to know what freezes and what doesn’t:

One of the important elements of freezer cooking is knowing what freezes and what doesn’t. You can read a full list here of what foods freeze well and which don’t as well on tips to freeze them.

I’ve also created a cheatsheet for you to print out as an easy reference to remember what freezes well.

Freezer burn is the enemy when it comes to creating delicious freezer meals. To prevent freezer burn, remove all the excess air from the freezer bags before freezing. Labelling your meals with the date made also helps prevent freezer burn as you can move the older meals to the front of the freezer.

Supplies needed for freezer cooking:

• Good quality freezer bags. It’s important to use good quality freezer bags so that they don’t leak or break. I use both the large size for the main meal and the medium size for additions such as grated cheese or dry pasta and then attach them together using a stapler.
• Stapler. For meals that require more than one bag, use a stapler to attach the freezer bags together.
• Labels. We use Avery’s 5163 label template for our labels.
• Permanent marker. Having a permanent marker on hand comes in handy for adding extra instructions to labels or for adding the date to the labels.
• Electric can opener. Using an electric can opener has saved our wrists, thumbs and so much time.
• Meal plans. Our meal plans include the recipes, prep lists, shopping lists and printable labels which make things so much easier.
• Freezer. An upright freezer works best and the investment will pay for itself for all the money you will save in groceries.

Freezer Meal PlansZiploc Freezer BagsSharpie Permanent MarkersStaplerAvery Labels for Laser PrintersElectric Can Opener

What to include on the label:

• name of meal
• detailed cooking instructions
• date
• optional: serving suggestions

Step by step guide to freezer cooking:

1. Choose the recipes. I always do a combination of tried and true family favourites along with a few new recipes. This allows me to find some new meals to add into our regular rotation. You can find freezer meal recipes here or you can purchase one of our freezer meal plans so that you can skip over the next few steps. 
2. Make a shopping list. Be sure to remember to add the freezer bags to your list. I make three lists, one for a bulk store where I purchase things such as spices, one for a warehouse store where some bulk items can be purchased at a discount, and one for the regular grocery store. If you are planning a huge freezer meal assembly marathon, call your local store with a meat order. This will ensure they have enough when you arrive and can also sometimes get you an additional discount.
3. Print labels and recipes. I use Avery’s 5163 labels. See the instructions above for what information to include on the labels.
4. Purchase the groceries and supplies.
5. Prep your ingredients. Chop and/or finely mince the onions. Fry up any ground beef, turkey or sausage. For recipes that call for cooked chicken, put the chicken on baking sheets and cook it in the oven before cubing or shredding or whatever the recipe calls for. Chop, slice or cube vegetables. Fry bacon. Grate cheese.
6. Set up stations in your kitchen or a larger community kitchen. At each station, place the photocopied recipe, non-perishable ingredients that you will need, spices called for, the freezer bags, labels, and any equipment you will need such as mixing bowls, can openers, measuring cups and spoons, and mixing spoons.
7. Assemble the meals. If you are assembling freezer meals in a group, assign one person to each station and get to work. Making multiples of the same meal is hardly any extra work and at the end of the day, all of you will have many delicious and healthy meals to take home to your families. If you are making the meals on your own, start at one station and work your way around.
8. Clean as you go. Do the dishes as you work so that things don’t pile up. It’s also important to wash the surfaces you are working on to keep things sanitary.
9. Freeze the meals. For all meals that are put in a bag, let out all excess air and lay the bag flat. This will optimize your freezer space. If you are doing this in a group, have everyone bring a cooler or a laundry basket to transport their meals in. Keeping the meals cold can be tricky the day of the assembly, but if you live in a place where the winters are cold, schedule your cook days for cold days and store the assembled meals in the boxes outside until people are ready to go home.
10. Open the freezer at the end of the day and admire the meals that will make things so much easier for weeks to come!

Freezer Meal 101 Tips:

Wear comfortable shoes. You will be on your feet for a long time. You can also invest in a memory foam kitchen mat to make things more comfortable. I have one by the sink.

Never freeze in glass containers. As contents expand while they are freezing, the glass can break.

Freezer meals keep for 3-6 months if properly stored. They need to be kept in a freezer at 0° Fahrenheit or below.

These Freezer Meal Hacks will make things go more smoothly. If you’re looking to learn more about batch cooking, check out our Freezer Meal Tips section where you can reference all kinds of resources and information to help you.

How does freezer cooking save money?

Using this method of cooking has cut our food bill in half! I am able to buy things in bulk, take advantage of caselot sales, get additional discounts by calling in meat orders, and most importantly, nothing goes to waste. Gone are the days of buying groceries only to have them go rotten in the freezer.

I am able to use everything I buy. I also no longer have to run to the store for forgotten items and make impulse purchases. And of course, the most obvious reason for how freezer cooking saves money is that you no longer need to do take-out or pizza delivery.

Note that some items are not less expensive when purchased in bulk, so compare prices to be sure you are getting the best deals. I also sometimes plan our freezer meal menus around advertised sales which saves even more money, particularly if it’s a sale on meat.

Freezer Meal Recipes:

There is nothing quite like standing back at the end of a freezer meal day and admiring the stack of meals. Knowing that you won’t have to cook supper again for days, weeks, or even months is one of the best feelings in the world! Having meals made ahead is already such a time saver, but these little freezer meal tips add up so they will make you even more efficient.

1. Clean your kitchen before you start. This may seem obvious, but starting with a clean canvas will make clean-up less overwhelming later.
2. Make room in your freezer before you begin so that you’ll have room to put all of those great new meals you’ll be making!
3. Invest in an electric can opener. I cannot stress this enough. I wish we had gotten ours years sooner. When I think of all those freezer meal days where my wrist and thumb were so sore by the end of it, I can’t believe I didn’t make the small investment in a good electric can opener sooner. It’s also a huge time saver. Another bonus is that my kids love operating it. Opening cans is an easy way for my kids to feel involved and makes one less thing for me to do.
4. During your prep and while you assemble your meals, wear comfortable shoes. This is another tip that I cannot stress enough. This will be the difference between having very sore feet, shoulders and back and not. I even use an anti-fatigue gel mat in the kitchen by the sink for all the standing I do that day.
5. Make a good, energetic playlist for your freezer meal day. Good music helps the time go by faster and keep your mood upbeat.
6. Choose a friend to make freezer meals with or even a small group of friends. This helps the time go faster and maximizes your time. You can assign people to “stations” and have them assemble a large quantity of the same recipe. This also makes the experience a lot of fun. I make my freezer meals with my friend Christie, who also happens to be my neighbour. We get so much visiting in while we make our meals and we’ve gotten such a good system going that we just keep getting faster and faster.
7. For ground beef freezer meals, put 20 – 30 lbs of ground beef into a large counter top electric roaster and let it cook on 200/250° overnight. In the morning, it’s browned and ready to use. You’ll need to use a ladle to take out the excess liquid or drain the meat. This tip (and picture) is from my dear friend Kimberly Walker, who is a mom of 10 and a freezer meal veteran.
8. For recipes that call for cooked diced chicken, bake chicken breasts on a cookie sheet at 350° for 45 minutes and then chop. This allows you to cook a lot of chicken at the same time.
9. Use printable labels and add the date to them so you can see at a glance which meals to use first. A freezer meal inventory sheet can also be useful for this.
10. Dump recipes are the way to save the most time when assembling freezer meals. You can easily make ten meals in an hour or less. The downside of course is that there is less variety than using a freezer meal plan, but for speed, they just can’t be beat!
11. If you’re making dump meals with a friend, have one of you fill the bags with the protein while the other makes the sauces to pour in. This makes things go even faster.
12. Track your progress as you go and celebrate the victories. When you’re in the thick of a big freezer meal day, it can be easy to lose sight of why you’re doing it. You may start to feel discouraged. You can choose to keep track of your progress by crossing the recipes off a list or by keeping a tally sheet. At the end, celebrate your accomplishment! You can do this by giving yourself a treat such as chocolate or a glass of wine or going out for dinner with a friend, particularly if you and the friend made the freezer meals together.

Hopefully you’ll find these freezer meal tips helpful. If you’re new to freezer meals, you might want to read The Quick Start Guide to Freezer Meals. You can also check out our library of freezer meal recipes.

Have you wanted to try making freezer meals but not known where to start? The quick start guide to freezer meals is here to help! Freezer meals are the smartest thing I have ever done to save myself time, money and sanity. I love not having to decide what to make for supper every day.

In this quick start guide to freezer meals, you will find everything you need to try this method of cooking and see if it’s right for your family. I thought the easiest way to explain this would be to answer some of the most common questions I get about freezer meals.

How should I start?

Planning out a full day of freezer meals is daunting. Even doing a one hour mini session could be too overwhelming for some. My suggestion for those who want to try their hand and freezer meals but not jump in headfirst is simple. Take a few of your family’s favourite recipes that would freeze well and double them. Eat one for supper that night and freeze the other. After a week, you’ll have supper for the next week.

My guess is that after experiencing that second week of being able to eat ready-made meals without having to do any cooking, you’ll be ready to jump into making large batches of freezer meals in no time!

What recipes work best?

If you are wanting to use your own recipes, there are some that adapt well to being frozen. Things such as chili, taco meat, spaghetti sauce, lasagna, sloppy joes, chicken with marinades, soups, and casseroles are all examples of recipes that double easily and freeze well.

Once you are ready to branch out beyond your own recipes, you can find new ones to try in our freezer friendly recipes or dive right into our freezer meal plans that include shopping lists and printable labels.

Here are a few recipes that I recommend starting with:

The Best Ever Freezer Meal Spaghetti Sauce

Make Ahead Beef Fajitas

BBQ Shredded Chicken

Freezer to Crock Pot Chicken Taco Soup

Sloppy Joes Freezer Meal

Pizza Casserole

Pinto Tortilla Soup

What can I freeze?

Many foods can be frozen. Not all foods freeze and reheat well, mostly due to texture issues. There are some adaptations that can be made to account for this. One example is that milk inside a freezer meal recipe does not reheat well but a substitute of evaporated milk or a high fat cream can be used in its place. You can read a more comprehensive explanation of what freezes well here or you can download this free cheatsheet about what freezes, what doesn’t and how to make adjustments in recipes.

What containers should I use?

My preference for freezer meal containers is using large resealable freezer bags because I find that I can fit the most in my freezer that way. Some people use aluminum foil pans so that the container can go directly in the oven. I find I can’t find nearly as many of those in my freezer and I don’t like the garbage it creates.

Some people are concerned about storing food in plastic. Alternatives include glassware, silicone containers, and mason jars. The freezer bags that I use are BPA-free and safe for using with food for freezing.

What supplies do I need?

If you are just doubling your usual recipes, the only supplies you will need are what you would normally use plus the storage containers. If you are planning an actual freezer meal session or full day, you will need large bowls, measuring spoons, measuring cups, knives, sharpies, resealable freezer bags, and a can opener. I highly suggest that you invest in an electric can opener. It saves a lot of time but also it saves your wrists. I wish I had bought mine sooner. It has been a worthwhile investment for freezer meal assembly.

There are a few other things that are not necessary to have but do make things easier. Labels are great as you can fit a lot more information on them such as the cooking instructions and even serving suggestions. A Sharpie works for labelling until you get to the point of printing out labels. A mandolin or food processor speed up the time spent prepping vegetables such as onions and peppers but are not a requirement. Knives will do the trick but are not as fast.

I don’t think it’s necessary to invest in those contraptions that hold your freezer bags up. It works just as well to place your freezer bag inside a plastic juice jug or container and fold the top of the bag over it.

How long do freezer meals keep?

The general rule of thumb is that you can store your meals in the freezer for 3-6 months. Removing the excess air from the bags will help prevent freezer burn and make the meals last longer.

Starting by doubling some of your tried and true recipes and freezing them. I think you’ll find that the freedom that comes with having meals ready to go every day will be life-changing. That may sound extreme, but take it from me, a busy mom of 7, truly life changing!

Filling your freezer really is as simple as that. This guide to freezer meals will hopefully give you what you need to gain a bit of confidence and give it a try for yourself. Let me know how it goes!