Last year I decided to try only soup as freezer meals. After some mishaps, I determined that it turned out not to be a bad deal and last fall I loved coming home from work and having a wide variety of choices in the freezer full of summer veggies. This year I decided to do the same and learn from my mistakes last year.
My biggest struggle with making this much soup at once is choosing which recipes to use. Limiting myself to only 12 soup recipes is actually difficult! After pulling six of my favorite recipes I tried my skills out on six new recipes this year and modified two of the ones I tried before. I’m happy to report that again I have a freezer full of amazing soup.
I stayed under $120 for all 12 recipes and managed to get over 72 meals out of this round. This time of year is amazing in Iowa for the local farmer’s markets and I ended up spending less on produce there than at the store. I also made my own broth and saved quite a bit of money doing that. I did end up buying a new stock pot this year as the 6 quart size was just too small for a few of the recipes and I decided to make my own veggie broth this year and needed quite a few cups for the recipes. Having the extra pot definitely came in handy and I got one with a ceramic liner so food didn’t stick and it was lightweight (weight becomes important when looking at 12 quart pots).
Again I spread out the process over a week since ingredients have to be added, simmered, etc. and there just isn’t enough time to do that in one day. Not to mention that I only have so much room on the stove. When I organize the soups I’m going to make I typically calculate which pot I’ll need to use and try to have one going in the slow cooker at the same time as one or two on the stove.
Here are the recipes that I made this year (you’ll note some are the same as last year):
Italian Sausage, Kale, and Tortellini
South of the Border Corn Chowder
Meatball Veggie (I used a recipe out of a cookbook for this one, but this is close to the recipe I used)
Roasted Tomato-for this recipe I combined two recipes and made up my own. Basically I roasted 5 pounds of tomatoes (seeded and quartered) and 2 red bell peppers (sliced) in the oven with olive oil and garlic. Added those to some cooked, diced onions and boiling veggie broth and simmered until nice and mushy. Added in some basil then used an immersion blender to blend smooth and finished with adding a 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream.
Again getting everything into the freezer took some work, but the end result was worth it!
Just one of the freezers during the organizing process.
The Frugal Steward 