Instant Pot freezer meals take convenience and healthy meals to a new level! Get free resources to make stocking your freezer with delicious meals even easier, and check out hours of cooking videos to help you along the way!
We now have twenty delicious meals in the freezer, bagged and ready to be plopped into the Instant Pot for incredibly easy dinners later this Fall and winter. The thought seriously makes me rather giddy.
Without much further work on my part, we will be enjoying really great meals– perfect for a tight postpartum budget and a schedule of newborn snuggles and no sleep.
I announced on Facebook over the weekend that I would be doing a big prep day of Instant Pot freezer meals and recording the process. I wasn’t sure how much of the process I would do live, but I ended up doing all of the prepping and cooking live– broken up into three segments, with a break in between the last two to make my family dinner and wash some dishes.
At the end of the prep day, I was putting 16 meals into our freezer, along with marinara sauce and extra jars of cooked black beans.
Roughly four hours of work for 16 meals. Not too bad. Especially when you consider that many meals will include leftovers, and you could likely do much of the work more quickly if you were not recording yourself while cooking. (Which I imagine, is not in the habit of most people).
Instant Pot Freezer Meal Prep Day Recap
In order to make the videos as helpful to you as possible, (because I know it’s hard to find an extra 3 and a half hours to watch someone else cook for their family), I broke down each video according to what was being prepared at different times in the video. You can easily watch as little or as much as you’d like.
It’s also important to note that I was preparing meals from two different rounds of freezer meals. I did this in part because I still had a few meals in my freezer from the last time I did the second round of meals, and also because I wanted a few meals from the first round as well.
All this to say, you can adapt these resources as you like to make them as useful to you as possible. I discuss the process and the free printables in each video.
Meals I Prepped ::
- Chicken Pot Pie (2)
- Jambalaya (2)
- Meatballs (4)
- Marinara Sauce (14C)
- Creamy Cauliflower Soup (1)
- Butternut Squash Apple Soup (1)
- Onion Pork Roast (1)
- BBQ pork (1)
- Nacho Meat & Black Bean Mix (3)
- Extra jars of black beans (4)
- Family Portion of Brown Rice (2)
Helpful Links ::
Find free printable shopping lists, prepping checklists, and recipes in each round of Instant Pot freezer meals!
Instant Pot Freezer Meals :: Round 1
Instant Pot Freezer Meals :: Round 2
Equipment Used ::
Ball Wide Mouth 24oz Jars & Pint Jars
Cuisenart Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven
Click on each video heading to watch the video. If you enjoy cooking videos, both live and short overviews, consider liking and following This Pilgrim Life on Facebook so you don’t miss future videos. You can also find an index of dozens of recipe videos here.
Freezer Meal Prep :: Part 1
- Introduction (the plan) — 00:00-4:00
- Starting the black beans in the Instant Pot — 4:34 – 11:30
- Cooking Perfect Baked Brown Rice — 14:42- / 25:00-28:00
- Starting the big batch of marinara sauce — 17:00- / 28:00-39:00
- Make BBQ sauce — 40:00-57:00
Freezer Meal Prep :: Part 2
- Introduction (the plan and what we’ve done so far) — 00:00- 4:00
- How to make freezer meatballs — 4:00- 27:00 (forming the meatballs went a little long!)
- Checking on the rice, BBQ sauce, & marinara sauce — 28:00-
- Taking the cooked black beans out of the Instant Pot — 31:00- 32:00
- Cooking hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot — 32:00- 35:30
- Blending the marinara sauce — 37:00-40:00
- Bagging the onion pork roast & BBQ pork — 42:00-52:00
- Taking the eggs out of the Instant Pot and the plan for Part 3 — 52:30-54:05
Freezer Meal Prep :: Part 3
- Making chicken pot pie in the Instant Pot — 00:00 –
- How to clean a cast iron pan — 6:00 – 8:00
- Recap of results of Part 1 & Part 2, bagging the frozen meatballs — 8:15 – 12:00
- Cooking the chicken pot pie in the Instant Pot — 12:10 – 19:00
- Finish cleaning the cast iron pan — 19:30 – 23:00
- Starting the nacho ground beef/black bean mixture — 23:00 – 25:00
- Beginning the jambalaya — 26:00 – 32:30
- Count of all the meals made today — 33:30 – 37:00
- Finishing the nacho meat/bean mixture — 39:45 – 46:05
- Finishing the chicken pot pie — 49:30 – 56:15
- Bagging the creamy cauliflower soup — 59:00 – 1:07:30
- Peek at the final mixture of chicken pot pie — 1:07:30
- Bagging the jambalaya — 1:09:00 – 1:23:30
- Done! How long the process took — 1:23:30 – 1:26:00
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I haven’t even had a chance to look at all of the recipes here, but I just have to say WOW! How awesome it is that you took the time to index all of the videos and make this that much easier for us. Seriously, I agree with Debi – this Busy Momma really appreciates it! Thanks! : )
I can only speak for myself, but I’m SURE I’m speaking for busy Mama’s everywhere, I SO appreciate all the time, and EFFORT you put into this project to help us be better, more efficient Moms! Our families deserve good meals, and you’re helping us on that journey! Thank you!