101 Recipes To Cook Now And Freeze For Later

Which kitchen appliances are absolutely indispensable? Before you start praising your pour-over kettle, Instant Pot, or air fryer, ask yourself if it really performs a function that couldn't be duplicated by a different gadget. When you come right down to it, there are just two appliances that we really, truly can't live without: the kitchen range and refrigerator-slash-freezer. Of the two, we'd actually cast our vote for the latter as being the all-time kitchen hero, since while it's great to be able to cook your food, it's even better to keep it from spoiling before you get around to eating it. The freezer, in particular, is an invention that revolutionized food as we know it today: ice cream, out-of-season produce, and bulk bargain buys of perishable items wouldn't be possible without the fabulous freezer.

In particular, the freezer is a boon to two groups of people: meal preppers and those cooking for one (so few recipes are for solo diners, after all). The following foods can either be prepared in advance or have any uneaten portions frozen for later. That way, you can reduce waste and you'll also have resources to make meals in a hurry ... well, as long as your kitchen also runs to that honorable mention appliance, the microwave. If not, you'll just need to thaw them longer. One note on freezer storage times: the USDA says foods can be kept in the freezer "almost indefinitely," so there's no need to worry about expiration dates.

Planning a solo Thanksgiving? Nothing wrong with that! Just think of all the arguments you won't be having and all of the awkward questions that won't be posed – except, of course, for the dog asking "Are you going to finish that?" A turkey breast, of course, makes for the perfect entrée, while cooking it in the crockpot means you can go watch the Macy's parade and a football game or two while your dinner cooks itself. It's true that turkey breasts can still be pretty sizable, but there's no need to subsist on turkey sandwiches for days afterward. Instead, eat what you want, then slice and freeze the leftovers for later.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Turkey Breast

While we usually think of muffins as being sweet, savory muffins are also a thing. These egg muffins, however, aren't actually even muffins. According to Merriam-Webster, a muffin is "a quick bread made of batter containing egg and baked in a pan having cuplike molds." This recipe, while not any sort of bread, at least retains the last two elements of the dictionary definition, as it does contain eggs and is baked in a muffin pan. In fact, what you're making here are basically mini vegetable-cheese omelets. The great thing about these egg bites is that you can bake up a batch in minutes, then throw them in the freezer for a quick, nutritious breakfast on a busy morning.

Recipe: Egg Muffins

Homemade pierogies are a fun, if somewhat time-consuming, project that's perfect for a rainy weekend when you have a few hours to spare and happen to feel like spending them in the kitchen. The great thing about the pierogies you'll produce, though, is the fact that you need not eat them right away. Boil them up, then drain, dry, and freeze them. Once you thaw out the pierogies you can fry them in butter, adding the sauteed onions at this later point in the process.

Recipe: Pierogies

Making your own ice cream sounds like more of a science project than a cooking one as there always seems to be such a lot of work involved. All that churning, ice, and rock salt ... Or you could use one of those so-called "fun" ice cream makers that come in the form of a ball that you've got to toss around for half an hour, all the while praying it doesn't leak. Umm, yeah, but no. We'd much rather make this easy no-churn chocolate ice cream made from whipped cream, cocoa powder, and condensed milk. Whip the cream, stir in the other ingredients, then let your freezer do the rest of the work.

Recipe: No-Churn Chocolate Ice Cream

Whipped cream – we're talking the homemade kind, not the kind that comes in a spray can – can be pretty ephemeral stuff if you keep it in the refrigerator after whipping it. The cream will tend to deflate in a few days, gradually returning to its liquid state as the air evaporates. What you can do if you have leftover whipped cream is to scoop out spoonfuls of the stuff onto a baking sheet, then stick it in the freezer. Once the cream solidifies, store the frozen blobs in a Ziploc-style bag and keep them until you have another piece of pie or cup of hot chocolate in need of topping.

Recipe: Homemade Whipped Cream

Porcupine meatballs, which are named for the raw rice that gives them a spiky look, are a recipe that dates from the Great Depression when stretching the food dollar as far as it would go was a priority for everybody but Daddy Warbucks. Well, today's economy has many of us once more experiencing a hard-knock life as grocery prices rise to astronomical levels. Luckily the rice in these meatballs not only adds to their aesthetics but helps stretch a pound of ground beef to make four servings. And yes, as these meatballs' presence on this list would indicate, they can definitely be frozen and eaten when the sun comes out tomorrow ... next week, next month, or whenever.

Recipe: Budget-Friendly Porcupine Meatballs

Back in 1928, the Republican Party came up with a campaign slogan "a chicken in every pot." Well, what with the Great Depression looming on the horizon at the time, the prosperity this was meant to symbolize never came to pass – and 90 years later people may be feeling their feeling our great-grandparents' pain as times are hard once again. Still, if life does gift you with a bargain-priced chicken in your pot, you can always take a tip from your thrifty forebears and use it to make a chicken pot pie.

While this 21st-century recipe uses a few shortcuts such as frozen vegetables and refrigerated pie crust, you can make an even more economical pie by prepping your own produce and making a from-scratch crust. Once the pie is done, don't let a single bite go to waste! Stash any leftovers in the icebox and serve them up next time you're hungry for some old-school cheap eats.

Recipe: Old-Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie

True shepherd's pie is made with lamb or mutton (hence the name), but quite a few recipes call for the cheaper alternative, ground beef, instead. With this one, however, we're using a combo of lentils and chickpeas to make for a flavorful, protein-packed, meat-free filling. This mashed potato-topped casserole is large enough to serve four people, but if you're dining alone, no worries – the leftovers freeze very well and can be heated up in the microwave. You can also freeze it prior to baking, then thaw it and cook it in the oven when needed.

Recipe: Vegan Shepherd's Pie

While barbacoa is often thought of as a Mexican dish, it has roots in the Caribbean. Many of us, however, are most familiar with the dish in its American fast food form as served up by Chipotle. As chain restaurants go, Chipotle really isn't all that cheap, so if you're a fan of its barbacoa, you might want to try making a more affordable copycat version. This recipe makes a couple of pounds worth of meat, but the good news is, you can freeze it in single-serve portions and just thaw out as much as you need for your burrito, tacos, enchiladas, rice bowls, et cetera.

Recipe: Chipotle Copycat Barbacoa

Pumpkin bread is fairly easy to make as it is a true quick bread – just stir, bake, and go. While this recipe is for a pretty basic version, you can customize the bread with all manner of fun add-ins like chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, chopped walnuts or pecans, shredded coconut, or candied ginger. If you'd like to freeze your pumpkin bread for later use, you can simply cut off a slice or two at a time from the frozen loaf. If you like your bread warm, heat it up in the oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes. If you prefer it at room temperature, just let the slices thaw on their own.

Recipe: Pumpkin Bread

If you have an Instant Pot, one thing you can do with it is to make soup, and this tasty turkey soup is a great way to make use of the leftovers from your holiday feast. Use the bones to make a broth. Then put the broth to good use by adding turkey meat, vegetables, and noodles. Even if your Instant Pot's on the blink, you can still prepare this dish in a regular old pot on your trusty old stove, although it will take a bit longer to cook.

Recipe: Instant Pot Turkey Soup

This chicken potsticker recipe might seem pretty daunting at first glance, what with the 19(!) different ingredients it contains, plus, an hour's worth of prep time! Yeesh. Still, it could make for a great weekend project as it may be time-consuming but it's not at all difficult. If you make a big batch (and this recipe produces 60 dumplings), you can freeze the potstickers prior to cooking them and keep them on hand for future snacking.

Recipe: Spicy Chicken Potstickers

While lobster bisque sounds like a fancy-schmancy thing to order when you're eating out, there's a chance that the restaurant may be telling lies about what's in your bowl. The shocking truth is, many eating establishments have been found using cheaper substitutes rather than using such a pricy crustacean in their soups. If you want to make sure that your bisque contains real lobster, you can always make it yourself. This recipe makes four bowlfuls, but the uneaten portion won't be harmed by freezing and thawing for later use.

Recipe: Easy Lobster Bisque

If your only experience with split pea soup has involved the stuff that comes out of a can, you may not have been too impressed with it. This from-scratch version, however, is actually pretty tasty stuff and is also both hearty and budget-friendly. Freezer individual portions of the soup for a microwaveable lunch in minutes, or add a salad and a slice or two of crusty bread for a dinner that's fit for any meat-free Monday.

Recipe: Split Pea Soup

These chicken "muffins" aren't muffins in the traditional sense, as they aren't chicken-flavored quick bread or any kind of bread at all. Instead, they are just personal pan-sized meatloaves, with the pan in this case being a muffin one. Cook up a batch of them, then pop them out of their muffin cups and into a Ziploc-style bag and stash them in your freezer to be microwaved at a later date.

Recipe: Ground Chicken Meatloaf Muffins

Got leftover ham? A great way to use it up is to make a casserole such as this quick and easy one made from egg noodles, cheese, frozen vegetables, and canned soup along with a few cups of chopped ham. If you want to make it in advance you can freeze it before cooking it, or else you can freeze any leftover casserole in single-serving portions to make for a super-quick meal at some later date.

Recipe: Cheesy Ham And Noodle Casserole

Gyoza are cute crescent-shaped Japanese dumplings that are typically prepared in one of two ways: either steamed or fried. This recipe is for the latter kind, and the gyoza are stuffed with ground pork, cabbage, onions, and mushrooms. While the dumplings are best eaten warm, you can freeze them before or after they're cooked. The pre-cooked kind, as well as the uncooked ones, are to be reheated again in a frying pan although the former won't need as much cooking the second time around.

Recipe: Authentic Fried Pork Gyoza

Making homemade pickles might seem like a complicated process due to all the boiling and brining and canning and whatnot. Did you know, though, that there's a relatively easy way to make pickles in your refrigerator? It's true – all you need to do is cover your sliced cukes in a salt and vinegar brine (with or without sugar, as you please), then let them sit in the fridge for 24 hours. At this point, you can either eat them right away or store them in the freezer for later use.

Recipe: Easy Spicy Freezer Pickles

We usually think of frozen yogurt as an ice cream-like treat, but yogurt is actually a surprisingly versatile ingredient. Here it's also found in frozen dessert form, but instead of being soft and creamy, it takes the form of a hard, candy-like bark flavored with honey, pistachio nuts, and fresh berries. Yogurt bark is very convenient to have on hand since it can be stored in the freezer to eat whenever you want a healthy sweet treat.

Recipe: Easy Frozen Yogurt Bark

The icebox cake is a retro recipe that dates back to the days when refrigerators were a trendy new gadget. While most icebox cakes are made with thin, wafer-like cookies, this recipe calls for chocolate sandwich cookies. These give it a somewhat chunkier texture, as do the strawberries it includes, but the smooth whipped cream ties everything together. While this cake requires at least a few hours in the freezer to gel, the main steps only take 10 minutes. After it's frozen, thaw it out whenever you're ready to eat a slice or two.

Recipe: Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake

Birria, the Mexican beef stew that turned into an unlikely TikTok star and thus earned trendy food status in recent years, does take some time and effort to cook, and our recipe also makes rather a large amount. Once you've cooked the meat, though, you can always divvy it up between a few pint-sized freezer bags and keep it on ice, as it were, for the next time you want a tasty taco filling. Or burrito filling, enchilada filling, nacho topping, baked potato topping ... you get the picture. Anywhere you might want some spicy shredded beef, this stuff will do the trick.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Birria De Res Tacos

Bourbon chicken is a mall cuisine classic, one that's often served by Chinese food booths and whose moniker has an explanation you might not expect. The name doesn't come from the booze as this isn't an essential component of the recipe. Instead, the dish was named for Bourbon Street in New Orleans as it's said to have been created by a Chinese restaurateur in that fair city. This particular recipe, however, incorporates a few twists on the food court favorite as it does include alcohol in the sauce and its seasonings are kind of a Cajun/Asian mashup. This recipe makes two servings, but if you only want a single portion the remaining bourbon chicken can be frozen for a later meal.

Recipe: Sweet And Tangy Bourbon Chicken

Turkey breasts are a great way to enjoy the great flavor of roast turkey even when you don't have a large, Norman Rockwellian family to gather around your table and gobble up their share of a behemoth bird. In fact, this quick-cooking garlic- and herb-seasoned roast is perfect for solo diners. Not only does it make less than a pound of meat (no bones!), but the leftovers can be frozen for later use.

Recipe: Garlic And Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

Lasagna is one of everyone's favorite pasta dishes, but tbh, it's kind of a pain in the rear to put together. This lasagna-esque casserole, however, is made with tortellini instead of the typical long, flat noodles. These cheesy tortellini are topped with meat sauce, spinach, and still more cheese and the whole thing cooks up in a single pot on the stovetop. While we wouldn't try freezing this dish before cooking as you can do with a traditional lasagna, the leftovers can be frozen in single-serving portions and heated up in the microwave when needed.

Recipe: 30-Minute Tortellini Skillet Lasagna

Apple pie a la mode is really two desserts in one, but if you don't have the appetite (or want to expend the calories) for a slice of pie plus a scoop of ice cream, you may wish to try this ice cream that tastes like an apple pie. It even contains crushed graham crackers to simulate the pie crust! What's more, unlike an apple pie (but entirely like ice cream), you can keep it on hand in the freezer to have a scoop whenever you please.

Recipe: Apple Pie Ice Cream

Bagels with three ingredients? Sounds like a gimmick, but you'll be pleasantly surprised if you do decide to give them a go. All you do is mix plain yogurt with self-rising flour, and you can even make a DIY version of the latter by adding baking powder and salt to all-purpose flour (although that would technically make these 5-ingredient bagels). Form the bagel dough into ring shapes, put these rings on a cookie sheet, and sprinkle them with the third ingredient: everything bagel seasoning. Bake the bagels, eat them, then keep the leftovers in the freezer. Yes, it's as simple as that.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Everything Bagels

What's the best thing since sliced bread? A loaf of bread that you slice – and bake – yourself. Yes, it's a yeast dough, but you do not need any kind of special equipment or hard-to-come-by ingredients to make it. In fact, once you master the art of baking your own bread, you might just want to have a loaf or two in the freezer at all times and skip buying the stuff from the grocery store.

Recipe: Homemade White Bread

Beef and broccoli is a popular takeout order, but if you lack the inclination or funds to order out, you'll find that it's simple enough to make from home. With this recipe, you'll be using your slow cooker, so that means you can set it and forget it. A batch of this beef and broccoli makes four servings, but if you don't need that much and don't feel like having leftovers the next day you can always freeze them to enjoy at your leisure.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Beef And Broccoli

Taco fillings in a pie crust? It's actually not as weird as it might seem. Hand pies, hot pockets, and similar pastries are made with savory fillings, so why not a taco pie? Tacos in pie form are actually quite a bit less messy than the kind on hard shells and, what's more, you can also freeze the leftovers or even keep a couple of frozen taco pies on hand as a quick meal solution.

Recipe: Easy Baked Taco Pie

Making risotto the traditional way can be a very labor-intensive process. Add liquid to the rice, stir, and cook until it's absorbed, then repeat, repeat, repeat ad infinitum. Lots and lots of time on your feet in front of a hot stove, exactly what you don't need after a long day's work. This shortcut risotto, though, only requires about 10 minutes of stove-top time as most of the liquid is absorbed while it bakes in the oven. This technique may be simple, but it works! And yes, you can freeze the leftover risotto and just heat it up in the microwave when you want it again.

Recipe: Easy Baked Risotto Recipe

While each year brings out a new batch of must-have kitchen gadgets, we're fans of the good old crock pot, an appliance that's as convenient as it is unglamorous. Slow and steady, it will cook your honey and garlic-sauced chicken to perfection and keep it warm until you want it. After you've eaten your meal, freeze the leftovers in serving-size microwaveable containers, then make use of that other indispensable appliance to heat them up again.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken

Arroz con pollo simply means "chicken and rice" in Spanish, but this recipe involves a bit more than just those two named ingredients. The chicken and rice are cooked in a sauce made from tomatoes and white wine and flavored with onions, crushed red pepper, and other spices, and the dish is finished off with a few cups of peas. You'll get 8 hearty servings from the pot, but once you're done eating, you can always freeze the leftovers and zap them back to life later in your marvelous microwave.

Recipe: Arroz Con Pollo

The McDonald's McRib sandwich is the perfect example of a planned scarcity ad campaign – McDonald's builds demand by publicizing the fact that the sandwich will only be around for a "limited time," although it always seems to be back before you know it. Still, if you're a fan of this sometimes-elusive sandwich, you can just say no to manipulative marketing by learning to make your own. In fact, if you keep a batch of the faux-rib pork patties on hand in the freezer, you'll be able to make yourself a DIY McRib every time Mickey D's pulls this item off the menu for the umpteenth time.

Recipe: Copycat McDonald's McRib

While cake and ice cream is a classic combo, it's also one that requires a plate, fork, and spoon and must be eaten while sitting at a table to avoid making a mess. Ice cream that includes cake batter, however, is a double-duty delight and a popular Coldstone Creamery creation. If you're not in the vicinity of this ice cream establishment and you happen to have your own ice cream maker, you can always try your hand at this DIY version. The ice cream itself is made from scratch, but at least the cake batter comes from a box mix to save you a little time.

Recipe: Copycat Cold Stone Creamery Cake Batter Ice Cream

We often think of gingerbread as being a winter holidays-only flavor, and gingerbread people are featured on greeting cards, wrapping paper, and Christmas decorations. The actual ginger cookie flavor, however, is something that can be enjoyed year-round in the form of ginger snaps, cookies that are as seasonally appropriate in the summertime as when there's snow on the ground. This holds true for this ginger cookie-flavored ice cream, as well, and it would also go great on top of a slice of pumpkin pie when fall rolls around

Recipe: Gingerbread Ice Cream

Haupia, a frozen treat from Hawaii, is a pudding made from coconut milk (the kind from a can) and thickened with arrowroot powder. Instead of being scooped up with a spoon, though, haupia is cut into squares that can be eaten straight out of the freezer plain or with a fruit topping. If you do want something soft enough to eat with a fork, though, you can keep haupia in the refrigerator where it will have a more pudding-like consistency.

Recipe: Authentic Hawaiian Haupia

"Squid Game" may no longer be on the air – or perhaps it's back for another season, depending on when you read this – but dalgona candy is a Korean treat that predates the show and can still be enjoyed even when it's no longer trending on TikTok. The candy is made with nothing more than sugar and baking soda, although some caution must be employed in melting the former to make sure it doesn't crystallize or even burn. The baking soda is used to aerate the sugar, which gives the candy its honeycomb-like texture, while the cute designs come courtesy of cookie cutters.

Recipe: Copycat Squid Game Dalgona Candy

If the thought of a fresh apple turnover is tempting but futzing around with pie crust sounds like a pain, have we got the recipe for you! The hardest part of making it is to peel and slice the apples, and you can probably even skip the peeling step and just call the dish "rustic." When it comes to the turnover casings, all you'll need to do is thaw out some frozen puff pastry, fold it into triangles around the apple filling, then brush it with a beaten egg. While these turnovers are best when fresh out of the oven, you can freeze them before baking and just heat up one at a time when you're in the mood for dessert or a treat to have with your morning coffee.

Recipe: Easy Apple Turnovers

Dessert for breakfast? Well, maybe on a special occasion – and any occasion on which you stir chocolate chips into your pancake batter is bound to be pretty special. While these chocolate-enhanced pancakes are shown with regular pancake syrup in the photo, you could also replace the syrup with a squirt of whipped cream or a sprinkle of powdered sugar or even double down on the chocolate by using Hershey's syrup instead.

Recipe: Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes Recipe

While the phrase pina colada typically refers to a cocktail made from pineapple juice, coconut cream, and rum, the literal translation of the words is "strained pineapple" and quite often pina colada-flavored desserts omit the rum and just focus on the tropical fruit flavor combo. Such is the case with these pina colada popsicles made from canned pineapple chunks, canned coconut milk, and sweetened shredded coconut. They come together in minutes, plus a little time in the freezer, and this recipe makes about 10 frozen treats.

Recipe: Pina Colada Popsicles

If you want to celebrate the arrival of autumn with a seasonally appropriate breakfast while also adding a little extra fiber to your diet, then pumpkin waffles are what you should be making. Flavor them with pumpkin pie spice and top them with butter and syrup, or omit that particular seasoning and make savory waffle sandwiches with turkey and cranberry sauce or carnitas and pepitas. While you're at it, whip up an extra batch of waffles, too, so you can store them in the freezer and reheat them in the toaster as a pumpkiny alternative to your morning Eggo.

Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Waffles

If there's any part of a meal that should always be fun, that would be the dessert course, and what could be more fun than super-sized foods? Take, for example, this enormous ice cream sandwich, which is meant to be sliced up like a pie unless you've got an appetite to rival that of the late, great Andre the Giant. While this mega-cookiewich might seem like one of Aldi's more whimsical special offers, it's actually something you can easily make at home with a couple of rolls of refrigerated cookie dough and several cartons of ice cream. If you'd like to gild the lily, you can even add a layer of Nutella as the recipe developer did, or you could always mix in your own favorite ice cream toppings instead.

Recipe: Giant Ice Cream Sandwich That Supersizes Dessert Time

While Panera advertises a Fresh Baked Goods Feast, if you order soup, it's more likely you're actually eating frozen. Nothing wrong with that if the soup still tastes good, but it is kind of pricey for something that's just freshly thawed. For a cheaper, fresher version, try making your own broccoli cheddar soup from this copycat recipe. If you don't eat it all in one sitting, you, too, can freeze the leftovers, and they will probably taste even more Panera-like once you reheat them.

Recipe: Copycat Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup

If you've never tried making pasta from scratch, it may be because you envision it as a complex process that requires all manner of special equipment. Well, there's no pasta machine necessary if the pasta you're making is gnocchi. While the potato dough does take some time to make and shape, the whole process can be done by hand. Cooked gnocchi should be eaten right away, but you can store the uncooked ones in the freezer until you plan to use them.

Recipe: Potato Gnocchi

When you need to make dinner in a hurry, there's nothing like a good stir fry as long as you have the ingredients on hand or are prepared to improvise if you don't. For this quick chicken recipe, you can swap out the vegetables if you need to, and even use peanuts in place of the cashews. If you're into meal prepping or simply happen to have leftovers, you may be glad to know that this dish freezes wonderfully and can be reheated in the microwave for an even speedier dinner at a later date.

Recipe: 15-Minute Cashew Chicken

Tom Brady, the football player who may or may not be retired on any given Sunday, seems to be carving out a post-playing career in the nutrition field. One of his best-known recipes is a cream-free, sugar-free ice cream substitute made from cashews, coconut, cacao powder, and mashed avocados that is meant to be a nutritious alternative to everyone's favorite frozen dessert. Our avocado ice pops are just as healthy as Brady's ice cream, but are both sweeter and creamier as the mashed vegetables are blended with yogurt and honey. We've also added some fresh lime juice to boost the flavor a bit, too.

Recipe: Avocado Ice Pops

Macaroni and cheese made with elbow mac and neon-orange powder is anything but fancy. If you swap those ingredients for long, flat noodles and parmesan, though, then you've upgraded your mac 'n' cheese into something that merits a more highfalutin name: fettuccine Alfredo. The one downside to this dish (or to mac 'n' cheese, for that matter) is that noodles in cream sauce tend not to freeze well, so this doesn't bode well for the leftovers if you mix all of the sauce and fettuccine together. What you can do, however, is to keep the sauce and the fettuccine separate until you fix your individual plate. That way, any unused sauce can be frozen and later thawed out to top fresh pasta.

Recipe: Easy Fettuccine Alfredo

Pork and cabbage are a dynamic duo well-known in Eastern European cuisine, but they've been known to pair up in Asian dishes, as well. In this instance, these two old friends are meeting up in the filling of gyoza, the crescent-shaped Japanese dumplings. These dumplings hold up well in the freezer, but you're going to want to lay them out on a pan or plate for the initial freezing. That way, when you transfer them into a Ziploc bag or other airtight container, they won't stick together and can be separated easily when you want to heat them up again.

Recipe: Savory Fried Pork And Cabbage Gyoza

One of the hardest parts about cooking a lasagna is trying to work with those floppy noodles – or, indeed, to get them out of the cooking water without tearing them. This lasagna, however, makes use of no-cook noodles to make for easier layering. It also uses store-bought sauce, and if you want to hit the shortcut trifecta, you can even go with pre-shredded mozzarella instead of shredding your own. (As Paris Hilton shares in the inaugural episode of her cooking show, box graters are just "so brutal.") Once you've gone through the hassle of cooking the lasagna, however, you can portion it out in single-size freezer containers and just zap it back to life the next time you get hungry.

Recipe: Easy Lasagna

The type of mole sauce that many of us are familiar with comes from Mexico and is made from a number of ingredients including, interestingly enough, chocolate. Make no mistake, though, this sauce isn't the kind of thing you'd want to use to top your ice cream, as it's not at all sweet but instead 100% savory. You can use mole on chicken, or you might also like it in various Mexican dishes such as enchiladas, burritos, or nachos. If you're undecided on what to do with your mole, though, you can always freeze it until you figure something out.

Recipe: Authentic Mole