Easy and Delicious Gluten Free Dairy Free Freezer Meals

Table of Contents

In my personal opinion, meal planning and batch cooking are key to surviving and thriving when you’re managing any kind of restricted diet. This is also very true if you’re a busy mom. When you have a good meal prep workflow, it also makes grocery shopping easier in the long run.

Now, before you take on this endeavor, make sure you have adequate freezer space for all of your loot. In my case, I have a massive island freezer and an additional free-standing freezer. This also makes freezing a whole tray of a big batch of muffins super easy.

When you’re managing food allergies, it’s important to know the limitations of your raw materials. For example, I’m not going to mislead you, most gluten free noodles don’t freeze well. That can be seen as a setback if your top family favorite meal is spaghetti. However, what’s good to know is that gluten free lasagna noodles freeze very well. Also, if spaghetti is your jam, the sauce will freeze beautifully. I personally see this as a great way to set future you up for success.

Buckle up because it’s time for me to share some of my best tips along with some of the best gluten free dinners (and dairy free too) to have on hand. We’ll also briefly chat about other meals that freeze well.

Benefits of Batch Cooking

In my opinion, there are SO MANY benefits to batch cooking and keeping food on hand that’s safe for your family to enjoy. One of the biggest is that you have meals at a moment’s notice. Now, there is the thawing/reheating to consider, so it might be a long moment.

Another huge benefit is that not only can you make meals that meet your dietary needs, they also meet your personal preferences. You may find in stores for example that most dairy-free freezer meals tap into a few key ingredients you detest. Now you can make said meals just the way you like them.

Monetary savings is another huge reason to batch cook and freeze at home. Now, full disclosure: you’ll pay with your time and, in some cases, it takes a while to see the payoff. If you’re 100% brand new to cooking in general due to having a fairly new diagnosis, you may need to invest in cooking tools. That’s going to take a good long minute to balance out with your savings. It’s also easy to overlook the cost of fuel, water, and electricity. You’ll need to shop around for safe ingredients, and then prep, and then cook. It’s a real process.

I don’t say those things to talk you out of the batch cooking life, rather, to make sure you know what you’re getting into.

The BEST Way to Start Batch Cooking

I can’t stress this enough: please don’t make meal plans for the next three months that are full of new recipes, an insanely long grocery list, and hours upon hours of work for you to do. If you do that, you’ll burn out the first time you try to batch cook.

Instead, start with ONE simple meal. Chili is a great freezer meal to start with when you’re new to batch cooking. Pick a low stress day to make a 2x or 3x batch of chili. You’ll need to assess how big your cooking pot is to know how much you can scale up. Eat the chili for dinner, and freeze the leftovers. You can either freeze them in individual containers, or a container that holds enough chili for everyone to enjoy together.

By starting with the one meal, you’ll get to see that the cook time is generally the same, and there’s a little bit of extra produce prep time. This one meal will SHOW you that you can take on the task. From there, choose one of your regular weekly meals to scale up to 2x or 3x. Don’t forget to make it a delicious meal because who wants a freezer full of food they don’t want to eat? I know I don’t.

Once you have the hang of things, I suggest taking a day and making a lot of meatballs. Meatballs are great for lunch or dinner, thaw well, and taste good hot or cold. You can also pair them with a range of sauces or dips to keep the flavour profile interesting. Having a freezer stocked with a variety of meatballs will have future you very grateful.

Batch Cooking for the Greatest Common Denominator

One tip I can give you is to make a great meal for the whole family to enjoy. If you have a great lentil soup (or other freezer friendly hearty soup) recipe that’s safe for everyone in your household, I’d batch and freeze that before making something that only one person can have. Now, there are some exceptions to this idea, but most of you reading this will want to focus on family favorite freezer meals that are safe for all.

An example of the exception would be someone like me. My unique situation means I’m the only person eating my food, and it’s all batch cooked and frozen. For everyone else in the house, I make meals that are free from: wheat, gluten, milk, egg, coconut, macadamia nut, refined sugar, beef, and a few other things.

When I do that, it means everyone else can eat the one meal together and I’m doing less work in the long run. The key to pulling it off is to start with simple ingredients everyone can eat. The Master Food List on RAISE can help you easily identify those ingredients.

Another example of an exception would be if the cost is too great. Let’s say you have a mixed allergy household and your costs are already 3x the average shopper. However, one person in the home requires ingredients that are 5 – 8x the average shopper. In a case like that, it’s better to make their specific foods and freeze. A way you can promote inclusion is to try to make them a safe version of foods everyone else will be eating.

Batch Cooking Ahead of a New Baby

Two months before your due date is a good time to start batch cooking, as you want to have the easy meals ready, but also don’t want them sitting in the freezer for months on end. If you can, have a family member or one of your best friends help you with batch cooking. In fact, skip the baby shower and have a batch cook day with all your girl friends. Put on some good music, have appetizers out, and cook/bake together.

In an ideal world, you’ll want to have about a month of meals (if not more) ready to go in the freezer. Focus on dinners first, then easy breakfast foods such as muffins and waffles. Don’t forget to include desserts that mom and dad love. Sometimes in the thick of having a newborn, you just really WANT a cookie.

Easy Dinner Time Options Especially for New Parents

Here are some meals you can make in advance for new moms and dads to tap into once baby has arrived:

Chili
Stew
Individual Servings of Lasagna
Pasta/Meat Sauce (freeze in a size that makes sense for a single use)
Seasoned Pork Chops
Creamy Tender Beef (tastes great with fresh spaghetti squash)

When prepping in advance, don’t forget to take personal preferences into account, on top of dietary restrictions. We want to make sure that meals will be loved after long days of looking after a new kiddo.

Additionally, keep in mind that nursing mothers have a higher calorie requirement. If you’re making individual portions, you might want to make them bigger than what you normally would have made.

You Don’t Need 30 Unique Meals

Let’s say you’re planning to make a month of meals over the next couple of weekends. You don’t need to have an excessive amount of meals to make. Instead, make 3x batches of 10 meals. The same is true of breakfast foods and easy lunches.

When I batch cook, I take into account that a full pan of muffins will serve everyone at least three times. That means that in my case, a double batch of muffins is six breakfasts. Make 4 flavours, and now I have nearly a month of easy breakfasts for people to rotate through.

Great Low Carb Freezer Meals

One of the easiest ways to create low carb freezer friendly meals is to skip the starch such as rice or quinoa. Focus instead on recipes that are naturally low carb AND freezer friendly. A few examples include: chili, soup, meatballs, and well seasoned ground beef.

With something like ground beef, you can have several variations in the freezer, ready to be thawed for a quick dinner. When you’re ready to use it, you can easily pair your ground beef with salsa and guacamole for an easy and delicious dip.

If low carb is a priority for you, take stock of what you’re already eating. Of those meals, which are freezer friendly? Remember, technically, anything can be frozen. However, if it doesn’t thaw well and eat well once thawed, it’s not what I’d call freezer friendly.

As an example, salsa is usually not freezer friendly because of how poorly the fresh ingredients will behave once thawed. However, guacamole is freezer friendly, which is why I stock up on organic guac each time I go to Costco.

Other low carb freezer friendly foods include:

Burger Patties
Shredded Chicken (freeze in the cooking liquid)
Pork Fajita Meat (seasoned, cooked, frozen)
Homemade Chicken Nuggets/Tenders

All of these proteins can also be used as toppings with zucchini noodles, cauliflower rice, miracle noodles, and more once you’ve thawed them.

Using Your Crock Pot and/or Instant Pot

If you don’t already have one of these tools, now might be a good time to invest. I do like the Instant Pot Duo that I picked up a few years ago since it’s a slow cooker and a pressure cooker. I avoided appliances such as a Crock Pot mainly because it does one thing. With the dietary needs in our home, multi-function tools are a must.

Once you have a cooker of some type, there’s a lot you can do. The upside to the slow cooker function is that it can make an easy healthy meal on busy weeknights. You start the ingredients before leaving for work and when you get home, boom. Dinner is served (and your house smells really good).

The biggest benefit to a pressure cooker in my opinion is the speed. You can take something that normally takes hours to cook and have it done in 30 minutes. Fun fact, most people don’t know that you can make bone broth in a pressure cooker. What normally takes 12 – 24 hours is done in under 3 hours. I’d call that a HUGE win.

Some of the best gluten free and dairy free meals to make in your pressure cooker or crockpot for freezing include:

Chili
Stew
Soup
Shredded Chicken (freeze in cooking juices)
Bean-Based Chili
Pot Pie Filling

Convenience Foods to Make at Home for Freezing

For some of you, it’s not the diagnosis itself that makes life hard, or that you can’t have specific foods. It’s that you can no longer tap into CONVENIENT foods that you once enjoyed. Many people who embark on a journey of healthy eating tend to feel the same way. The good news is that you have options. We’re living in a time where there are loads of free-from convenient meals to purchase. You’ll still need to contact companies about shared equipment and ingredient management if you’re in the 30% group of people who can’t do shared equipment.

If you find that commercial options aren’t accessible to you, the other option is to make these convenient meals at home and freeze them for future you to enjoy. This is the road I travel regularly. Here’s a list of easy recipes to make at home, and they don’t require commercial equipment to be done well.

Chicken Nuggets/Chicken Tenders
Pasta Sauce and other Meat Sauces
Italian Sausage
Turkey Meatballs (Beef, Chicken, Bison, Pork, and Rabbit work too)
Pizza
Kung Pao Chicken (only freeze the chicken portion)
Lasagna (easy, but time consuming)
Lasagna Soup (the much easier way to cook and freeze lasagna)

Healthy Freezer Meals to Have on Hand

Now, before I share some thoughts on this, it’s important to remember that “healthy” is not a regulated term. We all have a different idea of what that can look like. In my personal opinion, it’s a well balanced meal, has protein, veg (or maybe fruit), a whole grain, and tastes good. I mean, there’s no point in cooking “healthy” meals if no one wants to eat them. Plus, that’s just a waste of your time, energy, and money. The worst thing you can do is have a bunch of freezer meals on hand that no one wants to eat.

Sometimes however, a healthy ingredient doesn’t freeze and thaw super well. Salmon is a great example. It’s rich in omegas, but the way most people cook it, your salmon won’t hold up to freezing, thawing, AND tasting great the next time you eat it.

Here are some fantastic freezer meals to make that I personally consider healthy (and most are easy meals to make):

Helpful Items to Have When Batch Cooking Regularly

Plastic Wrap
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheet/Aluminum Pans
Gallon-Size Freezer Bag
Individual Containers
Casserole Dish
Very Large Pots/Pans for Cooking Large Amounts
Large Mixing Bowls
Excellent Knives

Vegan Options for Freezer Cooking

I’m going to tell you this upfront: not all vegan ingredients freeze well. Dairy free/Vegan Cheese is a great example. In some applications, it freezes great and in others, total flop. Take mashed potatoes as an example, they freeze well but the thaw is awful. Depending on the ingredients used, the thawed texture is so unpleasant that you can’t eat the meal.

If you’re new to all of this, check out the Advanced Recipe Search on RAISE. Choose the vegan option as well as freezer friendly option. Alternatively, search online for something like “freezer-friendly recipe vegan” or “vegan crockpot freezer meals”. Those might get you great results.

Ingredients such as black beans and brown rice both freeze well, but only in some applications. For rice, I’ve found that the best way to avoid freezer burn and a poor texture when thawing is to make it saucy. So a creamy rice recipe using dairy free milk does much better than say, a plain fried rice. With black beans, you can incorporate them into chili and pasta/marinara sauce and those freeze very well.

Whilst my kids don’t consume tofu, I’ve been told by those who do that it freezes and thaws very well (for those who can consume soy).

How to Freeze Your Loot

When freezing cooked food, there are a few steps to take. First, make sure the food has cooled completely. The easiest way to do this is to store it in the fridge overnight and transfer to the freezer the next morning. You’ll need to choose the best freezing vessel, and this done by thinking about how you’ll use the food in the future.

Individual containers are great if you plan to use the food in lunches, or if you want to have flexibility for people choosing what to eat. Large glass bowls are excellent for meals that will be reheated for the whole family to enjoy together.

Some foods such as fresh fruit, waffles, pancakes, and muffins do well with parchment paper, layering, and freezing the whole tray. Once frozen, transfer the items to a Ziplock freezer bag and label.

If you don’t mind the extra step and equipment, a vacuum sealer might be a great option for you. There are whole systems you can purchase that include bags and bowl-type containers. You can get better results with ingredients such as rice and tortillas when using a vacuum sealer.

No matter how you end up freezing food, it’s important to label it, even if your lids/containers are clear. You might not be able to tell what it is in the future. The label should include what the food is, and when it was made. If you’re a mixed allergy household, include a way to indicate the allergy status or who it is safe for.

In some cases, the easiest way to tackle that is to either have specific shelves/sections in the freezer for each person, or purchase little circle stickers in a range of colours. This allows you to colour code by sticker, and each person will know what’s safe for them to grab.

Base Ingredients That Tend to Freeze Well

As you go about batch cooking and using your freezer more, you’ll start to notice that having certain ingredients on hand will make life easier. Here are a few examples:

Frozen Banana Chunks (great for making thick, creamy dairy free smoothies with ease)
Dairy + Gluten Free Bread You Love (just about all bread is freezer friendly, and you can quickly grab a slice or two for breakfast or to add with dinner)
Frozen Vegetables (think peas + carrots, corn, butternut squash, green beans, broccoli, etc.) these can be quickly roasted and added to breakfast or dinner (yes, my kids ate veg with breakfast)
Fish & Shell Fish (you can buy seafood frozen in individual portions which can make some types of cooking much easier)

Let’s Talk About Freezing Meat

As you become a batch cooking pro (and shopper), you’ll find that purchasing raw meat in bulk will save you a lot of money. When you’re freezing meat, you want to think about how you’ll use it in the future. For example, I’d purchase about 15 pounds of organic chicken breast, cut it into cubes, then freeze it. The pre-cutting made future meals so much easier.

Another raw meat to freeze is ground meat. You can freeze ground meat raw, but you can also freeze it cooked. You’ll want to cook it, give it a generic seasoning, cool it down, then freeze it. By seasoning with salt and pepper only, it allows you to use the ground meat for anything in the future. You could use it for Mexican style black bean tacos or French inspired cream sauce with meat. If you had aggressively seasoned with Italian seasoning let’s say, it wouldn’t really be good to use in those Mexican tacos later.

I also LOVE to freeze shredded meat. There’s two ways to do this. First, you can freeze shredded meat in its cooking juices. You’d shred it, put it in your container, then add some of the cooking liquid, and freeze. The liquid is there to keep it moist. Personally, I don’t always freeze shredded meat with the liquid, but that’s because I don’t like cooking liquids with my meat. I reheat my shredded meat in the oven until it’s crispy and dip it maple syrup.

You can also freeze shredded meat in a sauce, and that’s where life can get extra easy. For example, you could make a big batch of shredded BBQ chicken, then portion and freeze. Once you thaw, you’ll need to give it a good mix as some sauces can break in the freezer. However, I’d also encourage you to remember that even though a broken sauce isn’t pretty, it’s still delicious.

Freezing other cuts of raw meat such as pork loin or pork shoulder works well, and some recipes you find online show you how to cook meat from frozen in your Instant Pot which I think is pretty cool.

When you’re freezing meat, the biggest tip I can give you is to make sure the meat is covered/wrapped properly. When you purchase meat from companies like The Honest Bison, it arrives frozen, but the meat is also packed properly to stand the test of time in your freezer.

Depending on where you purchase meat and how they pack it, you may need to invest in a tool like a Food Saver to make sure you can store your meat properly (to prevent icing and freezer burn).

Ingredients and Meals That Generally Don’t Freeze Well

Remember, just about anything can be frozen. The key is if said item thaws well AND eats well once it comes out of the freezer. Gluten free and dairy-free freezer meals that tend to thaw poorly include:

Gluten free noodles, especially if they’re on the mushy side.
“Dry” rice foods such as fried rice. Rice freezes better in a creamy situation.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes. These work well commercially, but not always at home. Deep fried potatoes might be one of the exceptions.
Dairy free cheese-focused meals. Think mac n cheese.
Mashed potatoes of any kind.
Quesadillas
Refried Beans

My Favorite Meals to Double Batch (or Triple Batch)

These are my kids’ favorites, so I try to keep a version of these recipes in the freezer most of the time. Now that they’re older and everyone has cars, jobs, and friends, it’s just easier to keep the freezer stocked and let them take what they want when they’re ready to eat.

I will add, having freezer stock like this has made last minute trips a breeze because I go “grocery shopping” in the freezer, load up a cooler, and take off.

Chili – I make it with ground turkey, but ground beef works well to. If you opt for a leaner meat such as ground chicken, watch your cook time to prevent the meat from drying out.

String Bean Dish – Because the kids love it and it reheats well.

Beet Stir Fry – Also because the kids love it. They actually LOOOVVEEEE this meal.

Meatballs – They’re versatile and I can make a lot of meatballs in one weekend.

Pasta Sauce – I load with veg and it becomes part of a future healthy dinner.

Waffles – The kids LOVE them, they thaw easily, and I hate making breakfast early in the morning.

Muffins – They make for great snacks and you can put them into a lunch box frozen and they’re thawed by lunch time.

Granola Bars – I can create a variety of flavours and the kids have access to easy snacks that I know are made with better-for-you ingredients.

Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar Free Banana Bread – I purchase mini paper loaf pans and freeze this as individual portions. My kids pull a mini loaf anytime they want, and sometimes two of them will split one along with a protein.

Individual Homemade Gluten & Dairy Free Pot Pies – One of my kids *almost* bought me a huge LEGO set to bribe me into making a triple batch of this particular pot pie recipe just to have even more in the freezer.

Find Freezer Recipes with the Advanced Recipe Search

Whilst I’ve focused on gluten and dairy free today, I want to draw your attention to the Advanced Recipe Search tool on RAISE. It’s free to use the tool and browse through ideas (you’ll need to be a member if you’d like full recipe access).

The ARS is the most powerful recipe search tool online for people with food allergies and dietary restrictions. There are 100 filters for allergens, plus an additional 50 filters for special feature (budget friendly, freezer friendly, etc.) and specific meal types such as appetizers, condiments & sauces, desserts, pasta, pizza, and so much more.

If you’re more than gluten and dairy free, take it for a spin and plug in all of your needs of your household to get custom recipe results.

Answering Your Gluten & Dairy Free Freezer Meal Questions

Would dairy free tomato soup freeze well?

It really depends on the dairy free ingredients used in the tomato soup recipe you’re following. Some dairy free soup recipes freeze well whilst others just don’t. What you’ll want to do is make your tomato soup, then freeze three individual portions.

The next day, thaw one and see how well it thaws. Be sure to reheat it and stir well to give your soup a fighting chance. Assuming the first day freeze went well, you’ll test the next one after a week, and the third portion after a month.

If you find that your recipe doesn’t freeze well, I’d search online specifically for something like “freezer friendly dairy free tomato soup” because there’s a good chance the recipe developer has tested it. You can also swap the term dairy free with vegan since vegan recipes don’t include milk.

Do you know of a gluten free soy sauce made on wheat free equipment?

The only gluten free soy sauce I know of that isn’t made on shared equipment with wheat is actually coconut aminos by the brand Kevala. Last I checked, their equipment was wheat free. You’d need to reach out them to make sure this is still true.

Unfortunately, a lot of gluten free foods, even those that are certified gluten free are made on shared equipment with wheat. When I called a major manufacturer of gluten free soy sauce, I had to pry the details out of them.

Can eggs be frozen?

Yes, eggs can be frozen. I’ve tested egg whites and egg yolks separately, but interestingly, not whole eggs. However, I have it on good authority that you can freeze whole eggs. Once you thaw your eggs, you should use them for things like scrambled eggs, frittatas, baked goods, etc. Know that you won’t be able to make certain dishes from frozen eggs.

To freeze eggs, you’ll want to crack them, then store them in a freezer safe container. Your container should reflect how many eggs you’d use in one go because you don’t want to thaw a dozen eggs, only to use two, then put the rest back in the freezer. That action will degrade the quality of your frozen eggs.

Do gluten free grains freeze well?

It really depends. Gluten free bread and gluten free bagels freeze very well. Gluten free noodles on the other hand absolutely should never be frozen, with the exception of lasagna noodles in a super saucy recipe.

Rice and quinoa are both naturally gluten free and sometimes freeze well. Quinoa generally freezes pretty well on its own. Cooked rice on the other hand has been hit and miss, but, creamy rice dishes freeze well.

Gluten free tortillas freeze excellently and I can’t say enough good things about the process. You can freeze the dough balls, or you can freeze the made tortillas. Make sure you use a small piece of parchment paper between tortillas when freezing so you can take them out one at a time (without the paper they stick together).

Gluten free pizza doughs and cooked pizza crusts freeze very well. You can freeze crusts and create something new each time you thaw, or you can freeze whole cooked pizzas (something I do often).

When in doubt, test a small amount of your gluten-free grain to see how it fares after a day, week, and month.

Final Thoughts

Remember, take some time to plot out what kind of resources you can dedicate to batch cooking, to avoid overwhelming yourself. If you’d like help getting started, enroll in the Free-From Batch Cooking eCourse. It also comes with a RAISE Membership, so you can tap into freezer friendly recipes.

If you don’t have an extra freezer for storage, that will probably be your first step. The average freezer most people have won’t be able to hold more than 1 – 2 batch cooked meals along with what’s already in your freezer.

From there, select a few meals you love to double batch and get started.