What Can I Make and Freeze Now So I'm Not Cooking From Scratch All Through December?

Soups, stews, mince sauces, cooked meat and casseroles all freeze well, and two November cooking sessions — one Saturday, one Sunday, around two hours each — are enough to fill a freezer drawer with roughly twenty two-portion boxes and bags. This page gives you the keeping times as the Food Standards Agency and FoodSafety.gov state them, both sessions in cooking order with the containers to use, a freezer inventory sheet you can copy straight into a note on your phone, and a defrost-tonight plan for the evenings when there is no time to cook.

The short answer, before anything else

Freezes well and does the most work in December: bolognese-style mince sauce, chilli, curry bases, lentil and vegetable soups, chicken pieces (raw or cooked), casseroles and stews, cooked pulses, roasted root vegetables, traybake squares.

Keeping times, from the FoodSafety.gov Cold Food Storage Chart: soups and stews 2 to 3 months; cooked meat or poultry 2 to 6 months; raw mince 3 to 4 months; raw chicken pieces 9 months; raw sausages 1 to 2 months; bacon 1 month. These are quality guidelines, not safety deadlines. The Food Standards Agency puts it more simply: "Meats are usually best eaten within 2-3 months. Baked goods, fruit and veg are best between 3-4 months."

The two sessions: The Base Saturday in the first week of November, and The Component Sunday two weeks later. Both are laid out below.

The four freezer rules the whole plan rests on

1. Your freezer should be around -18°C — the FSA's figure, and what every keeping time here assumes.

2. Frozen food does not go off on a date. FoodSafety.gov is explicit: "frozen foods stored continuously at 0°F (-18°C) or below can be kept indefinitely," and its freezer guidelines are "for quality only." A box of soup at four months is not dangerous, just less good than at two. You are managing flavour and texture, not a countdown.

3. Cool it fast, then freeze it. The FSA says to "cool cooked food at room temperature and place in the fridge within one to two hours," and to "cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer." A shallow two-portion box cools in a fraction of the time a deep pot does, which is most of why the container list below matters.

4. Label everything. The FSA's phrasing is hard to improve on: "label food you freeze so you don't end up with Unidentified Frozen Objects (UFOs)." Contents and date, on masking tape, in marker.

One more for shopping week: you can "freeze food right up until midnight on the 'use by' date printed on the label." Reduced chicken thighs the day before their use-by are a legitimate part of this plan.

How long each thing actually keeps

Lined up, the keeping times make a clear picture.

Recommended freezer storage times for quality, FoodSafety.gov Cold Food Storage Chart (last reviewed 19 September 2023). Food held constantly at -18°C stays safe indefinitely; these ranges describe quality only.*

Anything cooked in the first week of November and eaten in December sits well inside its window. Bacon and sausages, the shortest bars, are worth buying fresh in December rather than stockpiling now.

Session One: The Base Saturday

First Saturday in November. Around two hours, most of it unattended. You are making a double batch of mince sauce, a pot of lentil and vegetable soup, two trays of roasted chicken thighs and two trays of roasted root vegetables — in this order, so nothing waits on anything else.

1. Oven on, 200°C. Root vegetables (carrot, parsnip, squash, red onion) onto two trays, oil and salt, in they go. Forty minutes, no attention.

2. Biggest pot on the hob. Onion, carrot, celery, garlic, then the mince. Brown it, add tinned tomatoes, stock, herbs. Lid off, lowest heat, 45 minutes, a stir every fifteen.

3. Second pot. Onion, leek, whatever vegetables are tired in the drawer, red lentils, stock. Lid on, low, 30 minutes.

4. Chicken thighs onto a third tray when the vegetables come out. Oil, paprika, lemon. Roast until cooked through and the juices run clear.

5. Everything off the heat by 75 minutes, cooling while you clear up. Nothing goes into the freezer warm.

6. Box and label at two hours, inside the FSA's one-to-two-hour window.

Containers: flat rectangular boxes for the sauces and soup — shallow cools faster and stacks better. Freezer bags laid flat on a tray until solid for the vegetables and chicken; frozen flat, they file upright like books. Two-portion sizes throughout.

Yield: six boxes of mince sauce, four of soup, four bags of chicken, four of roasted vegetables.

Session Two: The Component Sunday

Third Sunday in November, about 90 minutes. This one is deliberately not meals but parts, so December dinners get assembled rather than cooked.

1. Oven on. A traybake of oat squares goes in first and cools while you do everything else.

2. Tomato and pepper base sauce — onions, peppers, garlic, tinned tomatoes, simmered down hard. It becomes pasta sauce, shakshuka or a soup starter depending on what you add later.

3. A pot of chickpeas or lentils, cooked plain and undersalted, frozen flat in bags in their cooking water, which protects the texture.

4. A chilli or curry base — aromatics, spices and tomato, no protein. You add that on the night.

5. Raw chicken pieces, marinated and flat-frozen. These go in raw, in the marinade. Defrosted in the fridge, they cook in 25 minutes.

6. Cool, box, label, freeze.

Containers: boxes for the wet bases, flat bags for everything else, squares wrapped in pairs.

Yield: four boxes of base sauce, four bags of pulses, four boxes of chilli base, four bags of raw marinated chicken, one bag of squares.

If you did the one-hour autumn batch cook we ran in September, this is the same muscle pointed at a different problem. That session got you through one week; this one stocks a month — which is why it is two longer sessions rather than one weekly one, and why almost all of it goes into the freezer rather than the fridge.

The freezer inventory sheet

What makes a full freezer usable is knowing what is in it without opening the door. Copy this into a note on your phone.

| Item | Date frozen | Portions | Best by (quality) | Where |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| Mince sauce | 7 Nov | 2 × 6 | Feb | Drawer 1 |

| Lentil and veg soup | 7 Nov | 2 × 4 | Jan | Drawer 1 |

| Roast chicken thighs | 7 Nov | 2 × 4 | Jan | Drawer 2 |

| Roast root veg | 7 Nov | 2 × 4 | Feb | Drawer 2 |

| Tomato and pepper base | 22 Nov | 2 × 4 | Feb | Drawer 3 |

| Cooked chickpeas | 22 Nov | 2 × 4 | Mar | Drawer 3 |

| Chilli base | 22 Nov | 2 × 4 | Feb | Drawer 3 |

| Raw marinated chicken | 22 Nov | 2 × 4 | Aug | Drawer 2 |

| Oat squares | 22 Nov | 8 | Mar | Door |

Two columns do the work. Cross off Portions as you take things out. Best by is a month, not a date, because these are quality guidelines, not safety deadlines — "Feb" means eat it before then for the nicest texture, not bin it on the 1st.

The defrost-tonight plan

The night before, or the morning of. Move one box from the freezer to the fridge. The FSA is direct: "You should defrost your food in the fridge so that it doesn't get too warm," and "the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight." One box, one door, thirty seconds.

On the night. Reheat until steaming hot all the way through. FoodSafety.gov gives 74°C (165°F) as the safe minimum internal temperature for leftovers and casseroles if you prefer a thermometer to a visual check.

If you forgot to move it. USDA FSIS gives two faster methods: cold water — "immerse it in cold water... Change the water every 30 minutes. After thawing, cook immediately" — or the microwave, after which you should "plan to cook it immediately." Both require cooking straight away.

Reheat once, not twice. The FSA: "previously cooked and frozen meat should only be reheated once."

Rice has its own rules, all from the FSA: chill it "as quickly as possible, ideally within one hour," keep it in the fridge "for no more than one day until reheating," and to eat it frozen, "defrost your rice in the fridge and then reheat it until it is steaming hot before eating immediately." Never reheat rice more than once. Rice cooks in twelve minutes — this is the one component I make fresh on the night.

On refreezing. USDA FSIS: "Once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing."

What does not freeze well

USDA FSIS names three: "mayonnaise, cream sauce and lettuce." Anything built on those — a creamy pasta bake, a coleslaw, a dressed salad — is fresh-on-the-night food.

Freezer burn is a quality problem, not a safety one: FSIS says it "does not make food unsafe, merely dry in spots," and that it is "caused by air coming in contact with the surface of the food." Push the air out of the bag before you seal it.

Which freezer are you working with?

Before you shop for November, it helps to know whether your problem is an empty freezer, a full one you cannot navigate, or a system nearly there. The quiz below sorts that in two minutes and gives you the next three things to do.

Frequently asked questions

How far in advance can I actually cook and freeze Christmas food?

The first week of November is early enough and not too early. FoodSafety.gov's Cold Food Storage Chart gives 2 to 6 months for cooked meat and poultry and 2 to 3 months for soups and stews, so a first-week session lands everything inside its window through December. Food held constantly at -18°C stays safe indefinitely; those months describe quality, not safety.

Is it safe to freeze food on its use-by date?

Yes. The Food Standards Agency states that "you can freeze food right up until midnight on the 'use by' date printed on the label." That is useful for a batch plan: reduced-price meat and vegetables on their last day become legitimate ingredients, provided they go into the freezer that day and are cooked properly after defrosting.

Can I refreeze something I defrosted and did not use?

It depends what happened to it. USDA FSIS says "once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking," with some quality loss from moisture. For food already cooked, the FSA's rule is the limiting one: you can freeze cooked food again, "but you'll only be able to reheat it once after that."

Why does everyone say to be careful with rice?

Because it is about speed of cooling, not freezing. The FSA advises chilling leftover rice "as quickly as possible, ideally within one hour," keeping it in the fridge "for no more than one day until reheating," and never reheating rice more than once. Frozen rice should be defrosted in the fridge and eaten immediately after reheating.

What should I not bother freezing?

USDA FSIS names mayonnaise, cream sauce and lettuce. At Health & Fitness with Ella we would add anything whose appeal is crispness or freshness — salads, crumb toppings, delicate herbs. Freeze the base, finish it fresh: that is the design principle behind the Component Sunday session.

Get the high-protein snack list

The gap this plan does not cover is mid-afternoon — the stretch between lunch and a defrosted dinner where most of us eat whatever is nearest. The high-protein snack list is a free download of quick, no-recipe options to keep alongside the freezer stock.

Get the high-protein snack list — free https://healthandfitnesswithella.com/60-high-protein-snack-ideas

If you want the whole month planned, not just the freezer

30 Days Body Reset is the structured version: a done-for-you 30-day meal plan, a daily 30-minute workout, and a mindset practice for each day — for readers who would rather follow a plan than build one. €12.99.

30 Days Body Reset — €12.99 https://healthandfitnesswithella.com/30-dayss-body-reset

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