How to Freeze Cooked Macaroni and Cheese, 14 -16 Servings

Hi , Phyllis here from southern frugal dot com .

Uh , today I'm going to make some macaroni and cheese for freezing .

In fact , I think I'll just call this freezing macaroni and cheese or something like that .

I don't know .

But anyway , uh , it freezes really , really well this way , but there's certain things you have to do to make it freeze super well .

So first thing we've got here is one stick plus one tablespoon of butter and I've already got that melted .

I'm gonna put my burn on about medium .

Now to this , I'm gonna add one half cup of flour plus one tablespoon .

See that right there .

All right .

Dump that in .

I'm gonna go ahead and add about a teaspoon of salt and we're gonna be fixing a whole bunch of macaroni and cheese , five cups of water , one and two thirds cups of nonfat dry milk .

And there's a reason why we use the nonfat dry milk at this point .

And it's because the macaroni and cheese freezes much better when you use the nonfat dry milk .

And it also actually just cooks better in the oven .

You don't have to worry about any milk .

You know , curdling or whatever milk does when it gets hot for a long time .

So you're gonna just mix that up .

This is five cups and again , I added one and two thirds cups of the non-fat instant dry milk .

All right .

So we just got that all mixed up .

It doesn't take , but a second for that to mix up , set that aside .

And with this flour , salt and butter , we just want to let that uh get a little bubbly .

So you're just kind of cooking the flour a little bit .

And this is all purpose flour .

And I've got my burner on medium .

Now , this is not like , well , it's somewhat like the other recipe that I posted on macaroni and cheese .

This is just a lot more of it and I'm not using as much cheese in this one .

So 32 ounces of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and I like to shred my own because see how small it shreds it .

And uh I just think it's a much better buy to buy it in bulk .

So again , 32 ounces of shredded cheese , sharp cheddar cheese and I shredded that in my uh food processor .

OK .

The flowers bubbling now now to enhance the taste of the macaroni and cheese , I add , this is 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and you'll never know what's in there , but it definitely enhances any kind of dish that you're making with milk or milk products .

I'm also gonna add two tablespoons of Dijon mustard and I use the one that , um , has the chardonnay in it , but any kind would work even just regular mustard .

Now , the mustard is also going to enhance the taste of the cheese .

And when I make macaroni and cheese , I just always use the sharp because you're gonna get a , a much better cheesy taste .

Then if you use like the mild or that medium , you almost can't even taste the cheese .

All right , I'm gonna cut my burner down now to just medium low and we're ready to slowly add the milk and just stir it as you go rs milk overboard over there .

All right .

I know this seems like a lot .

But , I mean , as long as you're making it , you might as well make a lot and , and freeze some of it .

Now , what makes it so much better ?

Uh , when you add this nonfat dry milk because it just freezes really well .

In fact , if , after you freeze it , you are defrost it when you're ready to eat it , clean it up that milk over there .

Uh , if you defrost it in the microwave on defrost and don't , don't put it in the microwave on half , but put it on , defrosted .

So it's solidly frozen .

If you put it in the microwave on defrost , probably take it 20 minutes , maybe even 30 minutes .

Depending on how big a container you freeze it in .

It's gonna be just like you just made it , I promise it will .

And the whole key to that is use the nonfat dry milk and use the defrost button on your microwave .

And I mean , this will keep a long time in the freezer .

Now .

We never keep it very long in the freezer because we always eat it up .

It's so easy .

You know , like if you work and you come home from work and you're wondering what to have for supper .

Just , you know , come in , put that in the microwave , prop your feet up , just add some uh , vegetables for the meal , maybe a little bread .

And you've got a complete meal because you've got all the protein really you , you need for a meal in the macaroni and cheese .

All right .

So I'm just gonna let this come up to almost a boil .

I'm just gonna scrape the bottle and make sure that nothing is sticking down there .

We , we're good .

Sorry about the scraping .

All right .

As soon as this gets almost to a boil , we'll be back .

OK ?

We are back and our sauce has somewhat thicken .

Now , it's not boiling yet .

Now , what you wanna do because see , I've got a straight edge here on the spatula .

You wanna really stir that every once in a while because it will definitely stick to the bottom if you don't and you know , have it on medium low heat .

All right .

Now , I've already cooked the pasta .

I actually cook the pasta before I ever started on this before I even started the video .

You'll need three boxes of the Mueller , uh macaroni or whatever kind you use , but you definitely want three boxes of it .

So that would be , uh , let's see , 24 ounces of Elbow Macaroni .

And I just usually get the Mueller because it's on sale a lot and you can get like buy one , get one and they also give out some nice coupons .

So I usually always have that on hand .

So I cook it usually if it'll uh say you , you know , cook it for nine or 10 minutes and to uh not , don't start timing it until it actually starts boiling again and then start the timing .

And I usually cook mine 9 to 10 minutes because I want my macaroni .

But , you know , I don't necessarily want it .

I want it softer than that .

So now our sauce is ready .

It's not really boiling yet because you don't want it to boil .

Hey , y'all , go back in there .

Go , go , mama's recording .

Go steely , go .

OK .

Sorry about the dogs .

So they seem to know when I'm recording .

All right .

So we're ready to add the cheese .

Now , now I'm gonna hold back a little bit of this cheese to put on top .

So you wanna just go ahead and dump your cheese into that hot mixture and I know this is a lot of cheese .

It's 32 ounces of shredded sharp cheddar cheese .

But we're gonna freeze this and have a bunch more meals out of it .

Now , in our house , it's just the two of us .

So I freeze it in uh portions for two .

And usually when we have this , this is the main um , protein for the meal .

And I like to add um , cooked like broccoli or um cabbage , collard greens , kale , whatever and have it sometimes with uh corn bread , sometimes with biscuits and maybe some sliced tomatoes or I've even had it with uh red cabbage , spiced red cabbage .

And by the way , I'm gonna do a video on of freezing that uh red cabbage .

It's like a German red cabbage which goes really , really well with macaroni and cheese .

So I'm gonna go ahead and cut my burner off now because I , I definitely don't want this to boil .

Let me give you a close up of that .

There you go .

So it won't take it long for all of this to melt .

And again , this is not like the uh other recipe that I posted on baked macaroni and cheese .

That one had more cheese in it than this one will have .

I mean , that one is like super full of cheese , double the amount you would normally put , which we like that too .

But when I'm freezing it , I I'd rather use this recipe and again , it freezes so well and the secret to the whole thing is to , uh , use the nonfat dry milk because if you use regular , even like the , uh , uh , skim milk or whatever , like that's in the car and , you know , you're , you're subjecting the whole thing to , to curdle and then the milk get watery .

If you use a , a nonfat dry milk , it doesn't ever do that ever .

All right , we're just about there now .

I got it all and we're gonna bake this in the oven .

Sorry , I don't remember what this pan is .

I think it's about 12 by 16 maybe and probably mm two inches deep .

All right .

We're ready to add our macaroni to this .

If you got any chunks in there , just kind of stir it around .

They'll kind of dissolve .

All right .

Now , I'm gonna pour this into the macaroni rather than do it the other way because this is , of course a much bigger pot .

So y'all hang on here we go and get all that out of there .

Now , we'll have um , some of this macaroni and cheese for supper tonight .

And uh I'll just say that enough for our supper and um , the rest of it will be frozen .

And y'all know that um I can think of ST that was a little uh macaroni and cheese frozen .

The way I learned how to freeze all these different meals is just looking to see what these companies froze .

And of course , one of them is macaroni and cheese and another one that I really like that .

Um , they do is the stuffed peppers .

They also do a pizza that's , uh , on that freezes really , really well , too .

So , anything you see that , um , it's in the frozen food dinners , you know , if they can do it , you can do it .

It's just that simple .

All right .

I think we've got this thoroughly mix now and I'm gonna move you all over to the other side so you can see better .

We'll be right back .

OK .

Here we go .

We're ready to dump this into the pan .

It's a lot , a lot , a lot .

Hopefully it'll all fit in this pan .

But if it doesn't , I'll get him another little pan .

Yeah , I think it'll all , it's close .

Now , get that all out of this pan if I can .

All right , it already smells good .

All right .

So now I'm just gonna spread this out .

Let me measure this pan for y'all .

You do need to know what size pandy is .

All right .

It's exactly two inches high .

11 by 16 , 11 by 16 .

So that fits this recipe perfectly .

Just spread it out .

I don't think anything will come over this side .

Now , now we are gonna bake this at 325 degrees for 30 to even 45 minutes depending on your oven .

Now , my husband does not like those little hard uh macaroni that sometimes are on top of macaroni and cheese .

He always says something when he runs across one that's hard .

So , the way to prevent that is just try to spread some cheese all over the top of it .

And so that's when I held this back just to try to get it all over the whole top of it .

We still end up with some little hard pieces sometimes , but he's kind of picky about his macaroni and cheese .

So I try to accommodate him .

So I guess I held back , maybe a cup , cup and a half .

Yeah , I think we'll have enough to spread it all over the top .

Husband's at the dentist this morning .

He's having to get a cap put on one of his back teeth because our dentist said that that tooth was a , a , an accident waiting to happen .

So Mr Bucky decided he'd better get that tooth capped because he wanted to keep his teeth for a long time .

I mean , he's 75 years old , but he needs his teeth to chew with .

So that's why we'll be having supper tonight rather than our big meal in the middle of the day , which is what we usually do .

But today our big meal will be tonight and he should be able to , hopefully the novo cane will have worn off and he'll be able to eat tonight .

All right .

That's about the best we can do on covering up everything .

Now , some recipes for macaroni and cheese called for putting bread crumbs on top and I'm not sure why I don't like that , but I just like just the cheese and the macaroni .

I don't want any of that , you know , breading on top of it , it would probably look good , but I prefer to put cheese on the top of it .

All right .

I think we've got enough on there now .

This should work .

So , again , 325 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes .

If you use a pan this size , uh , you know , if you use smaller pans , you just have to adjust your bag time .

But the reason for the 3 25 is because of course , we've got milk products in this and you don't want to cook something with milk in it too fast in the oven .

I mean , this won't curdle but you know , you just wanna cook it slower .

All right , we'll be back when this is all done .

Ok .

The mac and cheese is ready .

I want to give you a shot of it in the oven just ever .

The slice bit brown on top and we're gonna take this up and let it cool and then we'll be back .

Ok ?

We are back .

The macaroni and cheese has cooled .

Now , it's still just a little bit lukewarm , but I'm gonna go ahead and put it in the freezer cartons .

I've already gotten a couple of them in there and what I do is just cut it into the appropriate size for the carton and this is gonna serve two people .

Now , the size of the serving in this case is , you know , for the a complete meal for this being the protein for that meal .

Now , if you wanted to freeze for uh say four people , you could actually put this in uh uh like a freezer bag , like a gallon freezer bag .

And the whole key to it is to be sure and use the , uh , nonfat dry milk .

And when you thaw it out to make sure you do it on , do it in the microwave .

Not , don't put it in the regular oven because then it's gonna taste like leftovers .

But if you warm it up in the microwave , it's going to taste like you just made it .

All right .

So I've already got four servings .

There's five and I think we can get one more and then we're gonna hold some back for supper tonight .

Now , if you were just serving this as a , you know , like a side dish with some other meat or something that would probably serve three people .

Oh , so we got six servings .

Let me open my cabinet here and I'm gonna actually put the rest of this in one of these Pyrex dishes so that I can warm it up for tonight .

See , any little stragglers , I'm gonna go ahead and clean out of the pan right now .

This will just save you a lot of time .

So you can you know , have a good meal and not have to order out or go out to eat because that's what we used to do all the time because I always wanted good food and I , I didn't have time to cook very much .

So we went out to eat a lot and spend a lot , lot of money doing it .

So once I started , uh , making stuff in larger portions and freezing them and then heating them up in the microwave later .

But we kept going out to eat so much .

All right , I'll just mash that down in there .

Now .

This is probably enough for four servings right here or it probably two meals for us .

And we'll have that tonight maybe tomorrow or the next day .

All right .

So that's all there is to it .

This is uh , freezing macaroni and cheese .

So we've got , let's see , 6123456 .

And this would probably be , uh for at least two meals this in the Pyrex thing .

Uh , so four servings .

So , let's see , 2468 , 10 , 12 , 14 , probably 16 servings out of this big pan .

And by the way , this is a great thing to take for like , uh , a family dinner where you need to bring something and after you cook it in the big pan and one that's the two inches thick , it'll stay hot for a long time .

All right , we will see y'all next time .

I hope you'll try this cooking .

Really ?

I'll just call it cooking in bulk to , uh , so you have good food all the time .

All right .

See y'all next time .