Janet Zimmerman: ground rules for selecting from your recipes for freezing meals

[TdeV]

Hello @JAZ, I have many of your cookbooks which I dip into regularly.

 

Shortly I'll be having major surgery, so I'm wanting to pre-cook meals and freeze them. Could you please suggest what to consider when choosing between your recipes for which dishes will freeze best?

 

Right now I'm intrigued by @Smithy's post for Instant Pot: Spicy Chickpeas with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives. How well does that freeze?

 

(I'm not a very knowledgeable freezer)

 

TIA

[JAZ]

I've never frozen that particular dish, but in general, cooked beans freeze pretty well -- they sometimes break up a little, but that's not usually a problem. Other dishes that freeze well are stews and soups. If they include pasta, you might want to leave it out and add to cook when you reheat the dish. I've found that pasta tends to get pretty mushy when frozen. 

 

I'd say that from the Super Easy Instant Pot book (which is where the Spicy Chickpea recipe can be found), the Chorizo Chile and Sloppy Joe filling would both be good candidates for freezing. You could also make the Creamy Turkey and Wild Rice soup -- just leave out the frozen vegetables and cream and add when reheating.

 

Which other books do you have? I'll take a look and see what other candidates I can recommend. 

[Smithy]

@JAZ, while we wait for @TdeV' answer I'll ask about another of your recipes. I'm looking at the Pimento Cheese Quiche from your Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook. I have oodles of eggs and this quiche looks like it might lend itself to road trip food soon. Can you think of a reason not to make it and freeze it?

[JAZ]

52 minutes ago, Smithy said:

@JAZ, while we wait for @TdeV' answer I'll ask about another of your recipes. I'm looking at the Pimento Cheese Quiche from your Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook. I have oodles of eggs and this quiche looks like it might lend itself to road trip food soon. Can you think of a reason not to make it and freeze it?

 

I have never frozen quiche, but of course there are several brands of frozen quiches out there. The ones I've tried are pretty good, so I don't see any reason that this recipe wouldn't work frozen. The frozen quiches I've seen all call for baking directly from frozen, so that's what I would try.

[TdeV]

Hi @JAZ,

 

I have

• Dutch Oven Dinners
• Dutch Oven Cookbook for two
• Instant Pot obsession
• The Ultimate Instant Pot Cookbook for two
• Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook

 

Thanks for offering to recommend some freezable recipes.

[JAZ]

I looked back through the Dutch Oven Cookbook for Two (hadn't looked at it in a while, so I wasn't sure what all is in there). Here are the best candidates, I'd say:

 

Any of the three chili recipes

Short rib soup

West African chicken peanut soup

Chicken and dumplings

Chicken and sausage gumbo

Beef daube

Hoisin braised beef (you can do this with pork shoulder too, which is less expensive)

Lamb shanks and chickpeas

 

I'll post later on the other books.

 

[TdeV]

I'm sorry for disappearing, it's a long story.

 

@ElsieD said

 

 

Just checking, the ingredients go into the freezer bag raw?

[ElsieD]

@TdeV I presume so but I don't know so.  The best person to ask would be @JAZ.

[Smithy]

On 1/11/2026 at 10:31 AM, Smithy said:

@JAZ, while we wait for @TdeV' answer I'll ask about another of your recipes. I'm looking at the Pimento Cheese Quiche from your Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook. I have oodles of eggs and this quiche looks like it might lend itself to road trip food soon. Can you think of a reason not to make it and freeze it?

 

On 1/11/2026 at 11:31 AM, JAZ said:

 

I have never frozen quiche, but of course there are several brands of frozen quiches out there. The ones I've tried are pretty good, so I don't see any reason that this recipe wouldn't work frozen. The frozen quiches I've seen all call for baking directly from frozen, so that's what I would try.

 

Well, lookee what I found in my freezer!

 

 

I have no idea how long this has been lurking in there, or why it went into the freezer in the first place. Frost on this bit of leftover pimento cheese quiche is visible. I can now report on freezing it for later.

I put it into a microwaveable pot. You can see how firmly it had molded itself to the container.

 

 

After flipping it over I gave it a couple of minutes on very low so it could begin thawing. Then I gave it enough time and heat to actually warm up. This was the result:

 

 

It threw off a fair amount of water (which, incidentally, also happens to the refrigerated leftovers when I microwave them). The texture suffered slightly...there was a bit of chewiness, maybe almost graininess, that hadn't been there before. The flavors were still very good.

 

It may be that preparing the dish but not cooking it at all until the day it's to be eaten, as @JAZ suggested above, would give better results. It may also be that if I'd packaged the leftovers more carefully and/or baked them instead of microwaving they'd have come out better. None of those options is useful for my road trip purposes (frozen, microwaveable meals, or maybe wrapping this quiche in a breakfast burrito for reheating later) but others may find the information useful so they can take different approaches.