What types of food/meals DON'T freeze well? Preparing meals to freeze for after birth

[Ophelia]

Pretty soon I will need to start making an extra meal a week (including sides) and freeze in order to not have to cook much after birth in Feb.

I have very rarely frozen foods I have made, except DS's baked gluten free goods. So I really don't know what freezes well and what doesn't. I cook a lot of stuff in the crock pot. Will be freezing into ziploc type storage bags.

I do make basic mashed sweet potatoes every other week for DS's veggie, would that freeze well? Because those take more time to cook/peel so if I can freeze some the better.

Or is there a website that is good for this information?

Thanks!

[Ellp]

I do freeze a lot of meals (usually leftovers) and if there's one thing I've learned never to do is freeze anything that has big pieces of potato in it. For instance, if you're doing a stew that has chunks of potato in it, after freezing the potato texture changes and very obvious that its been frozen.

If you've got to have potato in the dish, either leave it out and just toss fresh potatoes in it to cook when you're reheating the dish, or puree it eg. in soups.

[katelove]

I agree about the chunks of potato - sort of watery and bleugh on the inside with a leathery outer layer. Mashed potato and mashed potato/pumpkin mix freeze fine though so I would probably give sweet potato a go.

I don't like the way rice freezes. It becomes sort of mealy and I don't like the texture.

Other than that I can't think of anything.

I think wholemeal pasta survives better than white though and both work better if you slightly undercook them. I find 2-3 minutes less than the recommended cooking time gives good results when thawed. Fresh pasta freezes well before it's cooked but not so well after cooking IME.

[Caryliz]

I know there are people who would disagree, but I don't think cheese freezes particularly well. It tends to get all sandy/grainy and doesn't melt the way you might want it to. (The exception being soft cheeses like ricotta, which seem ok.) So for example, I freeze pesto all the time, but I add the freshly-grated cheese only after thawing and right before serving. And we also freeze lasagna regularly, but I put freshly grated mozzarella on top right before baking/heating, as I don't love the texture of previously-frozen mozzarella. I know there are lots of commercial frozen pizzas out there, but IMO you can't compare the texture to freshly baked.

[Ellp]

I agree, cheese doesn't freeze very well in its original form. That said, I have used frozen block parmasan which, when grated, tasted pretty much the same as fresh.

If I was going to freeze something with cheese though, I'd make a cheese based soup, something like cheddar, broccoli soup. Mmmm!

[Ophelia]

That's very helpful, thank you!  We are gluten free and I cook quite a bit of stuff in the crock pot, so I will keep the suggestions in mind when planning the after-birth meals.