Freezer meals are a genius idea, but only if everyone in your house will eat them. What good is it to pull a delicious homemade meal out of your freezer that just needs reheating, only to have to cook a different meal at the same time to please your kids?

With this list of freezer friendly dinner ideas for kids, you can stock your freezer with things everyone in the house will enjoy so you can make the dinnertime rush easier and even give yourself some well-deserved nights off from cooking!

1. Meatballs

I love freezer meals that are bases for multiple meals, and meatballs are a perfect example of this. They can be served traditional style with spaghetti, on buns with melted cheese for meatball subs, or Swedish meatball style. 

Here’s a great freezer-friendly baked meatball recipe, complete with reheating instructions, that uses basic ingredients and a simple method for results that are anything but ordinary. There’s something so satisfying about knowing you have a freezer full of meatballs on hand for those days when things get crazy!

2. Pesto pasta with hidden veggies 

If you’re worried that freezer meals mean missing out on fresh vegetables, think again! Some of the most freezer-friendly meals out there also happen to be ones that can easily hide veg from picky eaters. From Bolognese that sneaks in extra carrots to chili with hidden mushrooms, there is no shortage of clever ways to sneak more nutrition into freezer meals. 

One of my favourite freezable family recipes, however, is my pesto pasta bake that uses a homemade pesto absolutely loaded with spinach. You can make the pesto in advance and freeze in batches so it’s ready to go for this and other dishes, or bake two pans of the whole pasta bake recipe at once and freeze one for next week! This recipe has been voted as the most favourite, gobbled up recipes inside The Dinner Plan – and we’ve seen and heard stories of plenty of picky kids loving it and asking for seconds!

3. Patties

When it comes to easy freezer meals for back to school, patties are a great idea because they are so versatile. Of course, most kids’ favourite way to eat patties is slathered in ketchup on a bun, but you can always shake it up a bit from time to time. You could serve them with a fork and knife, steak-style, alongside a pasta salad, or make them into a patty melt. 

There’s also a big range of patties you can make and freeze. Beef burgers might be the first thing that comes to mind, but nothing’s stopping you from making some vegetarian burger patties, salmon patties, or turkey patties as well. 

These black bean patties are easy to whip up in your food processor and freeze beautifully. There’s a clever first step of drying the beans out in the oven for a more burger-like texture that kids enjoy, but you can always skip it if you’re short on time. I love these because in addition to serving them burger-style, you can also serve them bun-less with Mexican flavours like a corn, tomato and avocado salad with lime.

4. Pizza casserole

Who needs frozen pizzas with cardboard-like crusts when you can get all the flavours kids love in pizza in this freezer-friendly casserole? Pasta, ground beef, marinara and your favourite pizza toppings combine in a quick casserole that you can prep and keep frozen until you’re ready to bake and eat. 

It’s also a great choice if you’re looking for healthy kid-friendly freezer meals as it’s easy to hide veggies like chopped zucchini or shredded carrots in this, and you can use wholegrain pasta for a fibre boost.

Freezable family recipes that everyone will eat can make your nights a lot easier. Give these a try and let me know what you think!

PS: we are just THREE days away from The Dinner Plan opening it’s doors to new members (July 18th!)! Stop stressing about what’s for dinner, and let us give you the meal plans, the simple, family-friendly recipes and the shopping lists, making dinnertime as easy as A-B-C!
Oh, one of our weekly recipes is also a batch cooking recipes — NO COOK DAYS ARE PART OF OUR PLAN! 😁 🙌🏼 🙌🏼 🙌🏼