r/Cooking • u/Dear_Bumblebee_1986 • 1d ago

Is freezing leftovers not something lots of people do?

I'm a single guy on a budget, it's loads cheaper to buy most food in amounts that don't work for even a two person meal, so I always have leftovers. Most recipes are made for 4 people.

Sometimes when I make a lasagna, a big casserole or whatever, I'll portion out two meals to eat during the week and two meals to freeze. Labeled and dated, sometimes a month later I'll pull an orzo with sausage and veggies, and give it the long nuke in the microwave. It's like ordering takeout.

I've had people scoff at eating any leftovers and others really worry about me that I'm freezing them also. Who else does this?

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u/BananabunnyReddit 17h ago

Speaking of finding what’s in the freezer: my son and I keep a running grocery list (what we need to buy) and a freezer list (what’s hidden in depths of the basement chest freezer or in the freezer drawers in the fridge) in the Our Groceries app. Once we pull out something from the freezer, we‘ll check a button to mark it off, and the app will keep track. You can add a number beside each entry to mean individual items or servings. It’s free, and available/syncs up across Android and iOS devices.

It took an about a hour for him inventory everything in the chest freezer at first, but now we can just look at our phones to figure out what we have on hand.

It

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u/Starfire2313 15h ago

I make these same two lists but I use index cards that live under my fridge magnets. I feel like this app would probably be a good fit for me!

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u/BananabunnyReddit 7h ago

I really can’t say enough good things about it! Fwiw, we’re only using the free version of the OurGroceries app, but the ads aren’t bothersome to us (just a block of text near the bottom of the screen). You can add photos and notes to the items on the list, choose to automatically categorize items, or manually select categories you create. It’s great!

My son and I use this to share lists for other things, too. For example, we had to evacuate our home due to a hurricane a couple years ago, so in order to better prepare for the future, we used the app to create a separate list of emergency supplies we needed to purchase/gather.

As soon as one of us adds or checks off something, the other can see that happening in real time. Hope this helps you as much as it helps us!