Getting started Freezer Cooking
Click here to sign up for my brand new Free Feeding My Freezer 5-Day Freezer Cooking Challenge! You get the new Quick Start Freezer Cooking Guide including recipes, grocery shopping list, cheat sheets, and more!!
I get so many questions about my freezer cooking and freezer meal recipes I thought it would be fun to share the story of how my journey into freezer cooking got started! Moms with two kids and moms with 13 kids have asked me how to start freezer cooking. You can read the full post on how to start freezer cooking here.
I hope sharing my story on how I started freezer cooking will encourage you! The freezer cooking journey doesn’t have to be perfect or planned out from the start (although I’ve been told by tons of moms my large family freezer meals bundle helps them fill their freezer fast!). You can start slow and steady, growing new skills over time if that’s what works best for you! My upcoming 5-day freezer cooking challenge is a great way to start.
Freezer Cooking
I have done freezer cooking in various forms for well over a decade. I stumbled into freezer cooking by accident and necessity. It was 2006. We had a 6-year-old, 3-year-old, and a few

Learning how to feed my family
It was also during this same season I realized it took a lot of my time and energy feeding my family of five. Yes, I had been feeding these people for years already, but it was starting to feel pretty overwhelming. I felt like grocery shopping took a full day of our lives each week. And then there was the planning, cooking, and serving of meals, while also juggling being a full-time working and homeschool mom with a newborn. Little did I know how much our family would grow in the years to come!

Working Mom Complications
Serving up family meals Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays were easier for me because I was home being a full-on uninterrupted momma for these three days. Our meals on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were more complicated because on Friday nights I returned to work.
My husband was home with three small children all weekend (including bottle feeding an on-demand breastfeeding baby – I pumped all weekend at work). When I was home on Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday I was sleeping during the day. Meals were hit or miss. Lots of cereal and sandwiches were served up on the weekends. We certainly weren’t going hungry, but I wanted to figure out a way to make feeding my family more manageable, especially adding in my working mom schedule.

Jamerrill Meets Big Batch Cooking
I started first by naturally learning about big batch cooking. I began cooking up a large meal on Friday afternoons that my family of 5 could eat all weekend. It was simple meals such as big weekend chili, tacos, or spaghetti – the trio of easy meals for moms to make – and it worked well for us. I would pack this meal as my overnight lunch for work. Travis would serve up this meal for himself and the young kids at home for the weekend. Having a big weekend meal was very helpful and is a concept we still use some weekends to this day.

Now Meet Freezer Cooking
After months of developing more bulk cooking and meal prepping habits, I started getting into cooking more casserole type meals for my family. I learned to do 9×13 meals of many favorites such as chicken pot pie, beef stroganoff, tuna noodle casserole, and many more. Then I learned it was just as easy to make two 9×13 pans at a time to make double dinners. And here is where freezer cooking become a thing for me. I knew my family couldn’t eat two 9×13 pans (boy, how times have changed, ha!) so I made one for dinner that night and froze the extra pan for later. This allowed me to build up my first stash of freezer meals and the rest is history as they say. 🙂
Freezer Cooking Grocery Shopping
During this heavy kitchen learning season for me, I also started doubling my grocery list to do bi-weekly grocery shopping. This meant I only had to go to the store twice a month now. It was about a year into doing bi-weekly grocery shopping when I then decided to double that list and take the plunge into only shopping once a month. It was also scary at first but proved itself to work well for our family.
And honestly years later I end up doing a hybrid of monthly and bi-weekly shopping as you can see in my recent Large Family Massive Costco Haul here.

Growing a Large Family on Freezer Meals
Over the next several years we added many more children to our family. We even had a small stint as foster parents (the Lord used our little experience doing foster care to open our heart to have a large family). I eventually left my full-time weekend nursing shift hours to be completely home full-time. Only after leaving the traditional workforce I accidentally-on-purpose grew a hobby into a full-time online business from home.
What does this mean for all of my freezer cooking? Let me tell you, homeschooling many children, having multiple pregnancies, running a real business, and managing a home mean that having a freezer full of freezer meals have SAVED MY LIFE constantly over the years – yes and amen!
You might enjoy where I am after all these years doing lots of freezer meals. Here’s my Realistic Large Family Meal Planning System Using Freezer Meals. And here’s a look at my large family meal plan system with a free

Feeding My Freezer 5-Day Freezer Cooking Challenge
I’m so excited to share this with you today! I have launched my brand new Feeding My Freezer 5-Day Freezer Cooking Challenge!! You can sign up today for free and get my Quick Start Freezer Cooking Guide including all of the details for the 5-day Challenge, grocery shopping list, freezer meal recipes, and more!
FREE Freezer Cooking Guide
Isn’t this Quick Start Freezer Cooking Guide all kinds of adorable?! It’s about 20 pages and you get it for free when you sign up. Be sure to watch for your confirmation email and click “confirm” to get added to the challenge and have your Quick Start Guide sent right out to you!!
We are going to have THE BEST time filling our freezers together! By the end of the five-day challenge, you will have 10+ meals in your freezer! You can do this freezer cooking challenge with *any* family size. If your fam is smaller than mine you just might end up with a few extras to go around. Let me tell you, extras are never a bad thing. Also, don’t worry if you miss a day, just jump back in the next day. Total grace here!
Have much freezer space? Dietary Issues?
You can do this easy freezer cooking challenge with an above-the-fridge freezer or a larger full freezer. If you have dietary issues, want to switch out recipes, or want to make less than 10 meals over five days you can still follow along with each day’s theme using your substitutions.
Here’s a quick peek at the Five-Day Feeding My Freezer Challenge:
- Day One: DOUBLE Dinners (2 meals)
- Day Two: TWO Breakfast Freezer Meals (2 meals)
- Day Three: Make-Ahead Freezer Sandwiches (you can choose to make 12, 25, or even 200! (2-6 meals?! All depends on how you choose to swing it.)
- Day Four: FOUR Slow Cooker/Electric Pressure Cooker Freezer Meals (4 meals – won’t THAT be lovely?!)
- Day Five: Building a Freezer Meals for Kids Stash (2-4 lunches)
As part of the Feeding My Freezer Challenge, you will also be receiving a special email from me each day with more directions, inspiration, and encouragement for that day’s particular challenge.

Sign up here now so you can get the Quick Start Freezer Cooking Guide with recipes, grocery list, freezer cooking tips, and cheat sheets. It’s important you get this now so you can get the groceries you’ll need for the challenge ahead of time. Let’s get 10+ freezer meals in your freezer for the coming weeks!
Getting Started with Freezer Cooking Helps!
You might also enjoy these resources to help you get started with freezer cooking and making bunches of freezer meals for your family!
75+ Casseroles that Freeze Well
20 Healthy Freezer Meals including Instant Pot, Slow Cooker, and oven meals, too!
Here’s a large family freezer cooking day with crockpot recipes, Twice Baked potatoes, and tons more.
Here’s how to cook 40+ freezer meals in one evening!
Take a look at this 75+ Gluten Free large family freezer meals!
Here are make ahead freezer meals for kids – three of our favorites!
Don’t miss 50 Large Family Instant Pot Freezer Meals here. So many good ones!
10 AMAZING Benefits of Large Family Freezer Cooking
And here are the BEST Tips & Methods to Fill Your Freezer FAST with great freezer meals!