Beef Freezer Meals

Meatloaf

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup breadcrumbs
salt & pepper
any other spices you want! (onion powder/flakes, parsley, garlic powder, etc.)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In one bowl, combine beef, egg, milk, and breadcrumbs.  Add salt, pepper, and spices.  Mix and mold into baking dish.  Bake 30-45 minutes.  Add meatloaf topping (below) and cook an additional 10 minutes.


You can just use whatever meatloaf recipe you would normally use, but this is the ratios I try to stick close to.  I get the breadcrumbs by leaving aging bread on the counter to completely dry out and then running it through the food processor.  If I were making meatloaf for the freezer, I would cover the meat in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil.  Our family of four can eat a 8x8 pan with about 3-4 cups of mixture (I never make it one pound of meat at a time, I just try to keep around 3-4 cups in each pan that I make.) with enough leftovers for one person's lunch.  


Meatloaf Topping

6 Tbsp. brown sugar

½ cup ketchup

½ tsp. nutmeg

2 tsp. dry mustard

Mix ingredients together.  Add to top of meatloaf about 10 minutes before it is finished cooking.

This is my favorite meatloaf topping.  The recipe is from Teresa Fleshman.  We always had this on top of the meatloaf we would eat at a youth group retreat in Colorado and I had to have the recipe so I could eat it more than once a year.  I cut the recipe in half when I make a 8x8 pan.  I'm guessing you'd need the whole recipe for a 9x13.  I have made extra batches of the topping in individual baggies to put in the freezer and it worked really well, but a lot of times I will just make it at some point while the meatloaf is cooking.  As with all freezer cooking, you'll have to watch the times depending on how long ago you got the meat out of the freezer.  

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Oven BBQ Beef

3 lbs. Round Steak

2 Tbsp. Oil

½ cup Chopped Onion

¾ cup Ketchup

¾ cup Water

½ cup Vinegar

1 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp. Mustard

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire

½ tsp. Salt

⅛ tsp. Pepper

Cut steak into 10 equal proportions.  Brown on both sides in oil, in skillet.  Transfer to a roasting pan.  Add onions to oil in skillet and brown slightly.  Add remaining ingredients to make BBQ sauce.  Simmer 5 minutes.  Pour over steaks.  Cover and bake for 2 hours at 350 degrees.

This recipe is from my aunt Debbie, who actually got it from my Grandma Carney, but I have never know her to make it--only Debbie. When I am making this for the freezer, approximately 3 pounds of meat will be enough to fill an 8x8 pan (which again is enough for our family of four--but only sometimes there are leftovers with this meal!).  I would suggest making one and a half or two whole recipes of the sauce mixture when dividing the recipe into two pans to make sure there is plenty of liquid.  I cover in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil to put in the freezer.  When getting ready to bake, take off the plastic wrap and put the foil back on!

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Salisbury Steak

1 (10.5 oz) can condensed golden mushroom soup, undiluted (I've always used regular mushroom)

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 large egg, beaten

1/2 cup chopped onion

salt & pepper

garlic salt or garlic powder

1/3 cup water

Combine 1/4 cup soup with ground beef, breadcrumbs, egg, onion, salt, pepper, and garlic powder; mix well.  Shape into 6 patties.  Place in a shallow baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Drain off fat.  Combine remaining soup and water; pour over patties.  Bake an additional 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

This is another recipe where you might already have a favorite way of doing it, but hadn't thought to make extra for the freezer.  I haven't made this for a really long time.  If you are using several pounds of meat to make extras, you can make the patties however big you want and put as many as you need in each pan.  I always had to use a 9x13 pan to make them fit.  I mentioned in my first freezer meal post that when I froze the mushroom soup with water, it got lumpy and pretty gross looking as it unthawed, but the taste and texture was perfectly fine when it cooked for the 10 minutes.