Q: Do you have suggestions for vegetarian meals that can be frozen? I'm 7 months pregnant, and once I have the baby, I'll want hearty breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are easy to re-heat. I've thought of tomato sauce, enchiladas, and breakfast burritos so far. Any others?
Sent by SH
Editor: For breakfast, what about smoothie fixings and freezer pancakes? Soups are also fantastic freezer food and can be frozen in individual portions. Calzones filled with veggies, beans, and cheese are also easy to make in bulk and re-heat well. Take a look at some of these recipes:
• Good Idea: Toaster Pancakes
• Black Bean, Sweet Potato, and Quinoa Chili
• A Very Simple Indian Dal Palak
• Wild Rice Burgers
• How to Make Calzones and Freeze Them For Later
Readers, what other ideas do you have?
Related: 15 Quick, Easy, and Make-Ahead Breakfasts
(Image: Emma Christensen)
Floral Drink Dispen...

Soup bases freeze well. If they are frozen in small portions (to serve 2 or 4), heat it up with enough vegetable broth to get the desired consistency. Most of the rice dishes freeze well as long as they don't have mushy veggies in them. Pizza bases can be parbaked and even topped with everything, wrapped and frozen. Muffins freeze well and so do breads.
I like to roast a ton of vegetables, season them, and freeze them in small mason jars. They are great to pull out and add to eggs, salad, a baked potato, or just to eat alone.
Two meals that are always in my freezer in single-serve portions: my favorite rice & beans recipe from Food & Wine (suggested as a side but it's great as a main course) and kitchuri. I usually make my friend's recipe, but Vegetarian Times has a good one, too.
Veggie enchiladas, veggie lasagna, you could make all sorts of fritattas a head of time and freeze those (and they are good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!), chilli, soups, stir frys with rice or noodles in individual portions, pizzas. So many things.
You can make dashi from scratch (very easy), make big batches and freeze them, then just cook udon noodles to throw in while the broth defrosts.
Also beans in general freeze very well, just put them in tupperware with enough of the cooking water to cover. If you do any sort of stewed bean (I do this with black beans, cook them with onion and cilantro), those also freeze well and you can throw them easily into burritos or just serve with rice.
Potato or potato/spinach piroshki freeze beautifully and make a nice snack or part of a lunch with a salad or soup.
Congrats! I'm 6 months pregnant so I'm doing the same thing. So far, I've been trying out recipes for different breakfast burritos - one with the tofu scramble recipe from PPK and another with eggs, soyrizo, and country potatoes - both turned out really well.
My all-time favorite vegetarian cookbook is the 'Moosewood: Cooking for Health' and several of those recipes freeze really well. Just one batch of the whole grain pancakes goes along way for a quick breakfast. I also have made and individually frozen black bean burgers which can be quickly defrosted and eaten with or without a bun.
Also, it isn't a meal...but I've heard that oatmeal is great for nursing moms so I've collected a few oatmeal bars to try out (dessert and breakfast recipes) as they'd also be easy to eat one handed.
We freeze gnocchi all the time. I also love (in the summer) to fill ice cubes with minced garlic, lemon juice/peel, basil, and olive oil for quick pesto cubes to put on pasta.
For breakfast, try making a few batches of healthy muffins. Pretty much all muffins freeze well, can be heated up in the microwave in mere seconds, and (this is important!) can be eaten with one hand!
101 Cookbooks oatcakes are a great choice, as well as blueberry bran muffins, whole wheat apple muffins from this site, and a number of others.
I'm a midwife (yeah, duh... the name) and am constantly making freezer-ready food for expecting families. Favorite options are calzones (good recipe in Vegan Planet,) chili, lentil soup, and hearty sauces that can be quickly combined with pasta. Freezing some pre-cooked grains (rice, bulger, quinoa) is also a plus. Any stewy/soupy meals get frozen in zip bags laid flat, and I keep them stacked for space. I usually keep quick bread, cut in half, and muffins in freezer bags. Easy grab-n-go breakfast.
If you're breastfeeding remember to pack some calcium in... favorite sources are greens and tofu. Best wishes!
Vegetarian lasagne (<A href="http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/10/roasted-butternut-and-sweet-potato-whole-wheat-lasagna/">here<a/> is a great recipe!)
I second broth-based soups; chili also freeze really well. Quiche also freezes pretty well. You can also freeze things like avocados (cut in half, remove pit, cover cut surface with lime juice and freeze in a freezer bag with as much air removed as possible). My mom used to make "hamburger buns" or pizza buns - essentially homemade buns with chili or pizza toppings in them. They freeze really well and are really great for lunches. Its what we got instead of pizza pockets and you can use pretty much any white dinner roll recipe for the bun.
I've never made it, but I hear baked oatmeal freezes really well also.
waffles! here's my recipe for a vegan one made from hummus:
http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/the-hummus-waffle/
Corn fritters, potato pancakes, veggie burgers, cooked (cubed or mashed) butternut squash, roasted beets... There have been some great ideas on TheKitchn recently about making quiche and frittatas in muffin pans, then freezing them. I always make a huge batch of caramelized onions, freeze them in ice cube trays and transfer them to zip locks. These are really nice to top off veggies, eggs, sandwiches, etc.
SPINACH CANNELLONI
500g cottage cheese
500g ricotta cheese
1 box frozen spinach
2-3 eggs
1 ½ - 2 c. shredded Italian cheese
¼ - ½ c. parmesan cheese
1 – 2 tsp. garlic salt
28 – 30 pieces oven ready cannelloni shells
1 jar tomato sauce
Combine ingredients and pipe into cannelloni shells. Put a layer of sauce on the bottom of a baking dish and layer the shells on top. Cover with sauce. Bake at 300-325 ºF for 1hr. Top with extra cheese and bake until cheese is melted.
EASY ENCHILADAS
Easy to make, lots of leftovers. You can freeze these too.
1 c. canned or frozen corn, drained
2 c. tomato sauce
1/4 tsp. red pepper (chili pepper) flakes
8 corn or flour tortillas
1 c. grated cheddar cheese
1 onion, chopped
1 c. mushrooms, sliced (optional)
2 tsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
19 oz. (540 ml) can kidney beans
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sauté onion and mushrooms in oil for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 2 minutes longer. Rinse and drain beans thoroughly. Place beans in a bowl and mash slightly. Add to skillet along with corn. Add ½ cup of sauce and red pepper flakes; mix well.
2. Spray an oblong Pyrex casserole with non-stick spray. Soften tortillas by heating in the microwave on HIGH about 1 minute. Spread ½ cup sauce in bottom of casserole. Spoon some of bean/corn mixture on each tortilla in a strip across the middle. Roll up tightly and arrange seam side down in casserole. Top with remaining sauce. Cover and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese and bake uncovered 5 to 10 minutes longer, until cheese is melted.
Yield: 8 enchiladas. These reheat &/or freeze well.
Dumplings! I use the recipe for Rickshaw dumplings from The Kitchn, but replace the pound of ground meat with 2 medium yams, roasted and mashed. Make the whole batch, freeze them, and drop 5 or 6 of them directly into a nonstick pan for a fast dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast.
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-kenny-laos-rickshaw-dum-74872
Veggie curries! (There's an excellent butternut squash and garbanzo bean with red lentil recipe in Jane Hornby's "What to Cook and How to Cook it").