22 Dump & Go Instant Pot Freezer Meals for Back to School

 

You see this photo?  It is a picture of me and my 22 Instant Pot Freezer meals that I made just in time to stock my freezer for back to school.  Here’s how I did it:

Step One for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:

Step # 1 is to pick out your recipes.  For me, this part was easy, because I have a Freezer to Slow Cooker & Instant Pot Meal Plan Subscription.  I have lots of recipes to choose from in that plan, so I just looked through and found 2 of the one week meal plans that looked good to me and then, my plan was to double it.  

Why double it?  Well, honestly, it’s because making 22 different meals is a lot more time consuming and difficult than making 11 meals and doubling them.  I can fill eleven bags, 2 bags at a time with the same ingredients a lot faster than I can fill 22 bags one at a time.   I will have my freezer stocked with these 22 meals and then I can always have a plan when life is chaotic.  You will be surprised to know just how much easier life feels when you don’t have to worry about dinner each night!  When I run out of meals, I just do it again, or pick another meal plan to use. 

As you can see in the picture below, I’m filling 2 bags at a time, one recipe at a time.  I use the Jokari Baggie Stands to hold my bags up and pull out the ingredients as I need them.  It’s simple and goes pretty quickly.  

In addition to making this backup plan of meals to pull from during the chaotic times, I also like to make one week of meals at a time, so that I only have to do the bulk of my meal prep time for the week all at once in an hour or two.  

Step 2 for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:  

Grocery shopping.  This can be a big job if you’re planning to cook 22 dinners all at once.  For this particular cooking session, we bought most of our items at Aldi, and a few that Aldi didn’t have came from Walmart.  Since I was following my meal plan, I already had the grocery list prepared in advance for me, so I didn’t have to spend much time on it, thankfully, as I didn’t have much time to spend that day!  

Step 3 for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:  

Figure out what all needs to be chopped or browned ahead of time.  I like to see which vegetables will be going into the freezer bags and I chop them all at once.  For this particular meal plan, I was chopping broccoli, celery, lots and lots of onions, bell peppers, jalapeños, poblano peppers, carrots and more.  The chopping of the vegetables is probably the most time consuming part.  If you have a food processor, this part will go quickly.  I unfortunately had recently gotten rid of my food processor, because I rarely used it…. so I did all mine by hand.   

If you have any cooked ground beef in any of the recipes, this would also be the time to cook that up.  I usually try to start browning my ground beef and then begin chopping the vegetables, so both can be getting done at the same time.  

Step 4 for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:

If you have picked your own recipes to use, this is where you will figure out what you are going to freeze in the freezer bags.  If you are using my Freezer to Slow Cooker & Instant Pot Meal Plan, you will simply follow the assembly instructions.  Typically I freeze the meat and any vegetables in it that won’t get too overcooked if cooked with the meat, as well as any broth and spices.  The things that I hold out to add later are things like pasta, potatoes, some veggies, milk products and cheese.  Be sure to mark your bags and add any extra steps that you don’t want to forget on the front of the bag or on the recipe if you have it printed.  If you decide to try out this particular meal plan that I made here in the video below, we include freezer bag labels that you can tape on or print on full page labels.  

Step 6 for Instant Pot Freezer Meals:

Be sure to freeze each meal by getting all of the air out of the bag before closing it.  Then, lay it as flat as possible so that you can easily stack the meals.  You’ll find that some meals are easier to do this with than others.  Then, thaw them before you cook them.  You can do this by putting it in the fridge over night, thawing in a bag of warm water, or even in the microwave.  If you forget to thaw, you CAN cook from frozen, but I would add approximately 5 minutes per pound of meat that is cooking.  The larger the clump that is frozen together, the harder it is to get the middle of that clump done.  If you have really thick clumps, I would add even more time.  

What are the Instant Pot Freezer Meal Recipes That Were Made That Day?  

I’m doing keto right now, so I’m using my low carb plan from my low carb menu.  (I’ve lost 20 pounds in 2 months so far using it!  yay!) Each meal plan has 6 recipes in it, and I doubled all of them but one.  One of them (not listed below – veggie lasagna), is better suited for assembling on the day of cooking, so I’m waiting for that before I make it.  Here’s the recipes I made:

1. Cheeseburger Soup
2. Ranch Pork Chops
3. Chili Colorado
4. Pizza Stuffed Chicken
5. Brisket & Onions
6. Spinach Artichoke Chicken
7. Mexican Meatloaf
8. Shredded Chicken Chili
9. Pork Tips
10. Swiss Steak
11. Creamy Tomato Chicken

If you’d like to see me assembling these meals, check out my video below: