There is something to be said for having food in your freezer so you can easily pull meals together. I love to stock my freezer with pre-cooked beans (I cook dry beans weekly), and frozen vegetables.
I have found that the ability to pull items straight from the freezer helps me get a healthy meal on the table in no time!
Now, obviously, putting together freezer meals would save me a couple of extra steps on the day of the meal, however, I never seem to have a good block of time to put freezer meals together.
Often I will double a recipe, and throw a second meal in the freezer for later. This most often happens when I make casseroles or macaroni and cheese.
One recipe I keep coming back to, however, is a pot pie. This is a simple recipe to keep on hand for dinner. Most often, I will make a vegetable pot pie. We tend to not have a lot of meat in the house, which is a definite grocery savings. However, around Thanksgiving I cook a second turkey. The purpose for this is so that I can make a lot of turkey stock, have turkey soup, and put fully cooked turkey in the freezer for later.
Now, typically I will put together turkey pot pie in a ziploc bag, all ready to go, so all I would need to do is defrost the bag, and then stick it in a pie crust. However, this past Thanksgiving I had a bit of an issue with the turkey stock that I made – as in the bowl broke and it leaked all over my fridge – and instead threw just the turkey breast in the freezer.
Last week I was looking for an easy meal, and remembered that I still had the turkey breast in the freezer, so I decided to make a turkey pot pie. This was one altered by my kids. They asked for green beans and peas to be the vegetables, so that is all that is in there, you could easily decrease the frozen veggies and put in a potato if you want!
2 cups cubed turkey breast (can also use chicken)
- 1/4 stick of butter
- 1/4 cup of flour
- 2 cups of chicken or turkey stock
- 1/4 tsp Poultry Seasoning
Add turkey, onion and frozen veggies.
Stir until combined.
Roll out one pie crust into a 9″ pie plate.
Put the mixture into the pie plate.
Put the second pie crust over the mixture and cut some vent holes in the top.
Put in a preheated 450 degree oven for 10 minutes, and then turn the heat down to 350 degrees for about 35 minutes longer.
Pie is done when the top crust is browned and the gravy is bubbling a bit.
To make this easy meal complete, I served it on paper plates – because that was the kind of day this was.
You may want to place a cookie sheet under the pie, sometimes mine boil over, sometimes they do not. It seems to change every time I make something that will bubble in the oven!
If you take the turkey out the night before and let it thaw in the fridge, this meal will come together in about 10 minutes, and then the baking time. It is something my whole family loves, and I love that they are getting a lot of green veggies into their little bodies.
Do you have an easy, straight from the freezer meal? I would love to hear it!
YUM! This is definitely a winner. I love a good turkey pot pie recipe and this looks easy enough for even me to handle!
You speak my language! I love turkey pot pie and freezer meals. Best of both worlds!
I have never made a pot pie from scratch, and I think I would like it since you can control the ingredients that you put in. I am a crust kind of girl, so that would be the best part for me.
This sounds so amazing! I always need something that I can throw together fast for busy days!
This looks like a really easy meal that would be delicious too! Cant wait to try it!
That looks sooo good! I can't wait to make this for my family.
Oh my gosh this looks so delicious!! Can't wait to make it at home
We had turkey pot pie last night but I bought it at the grocery store. I need to try this!
This looks amazing, I would use quorn turkey as I am a veggie. Put some greens and gravy and it will be delicious.
My family loves turkey pot pie and I love that it can be a freezer meal.
I am a huge freezer meaql person. We work so hard on a dish and to just double and freeze is a no brainer yet no one thinks to do it. I love your turkey pot pie and the beauty to adjust the veggies to what your kids love is awesome! You have reminded me to get a day next week to do a freezer day!
I also find it is easier to double up on a recipe while I am making it and then freeze, as opposed to taking time to make freezer meals. This turkey pot pie looks like the perfect comfort food for this time of year.
I have not tried to do a freezer meal in awhile and I may have to try this. We love turkey pot pies.
Ive never made meals to freeze. I usually do the freezer crock pot meals. But this looks easy and delicious!
Pinning this for sure! Freezer meals are becoming increasingly popular these days with our hectic and crazy lifestyles so great post!
This looks so yummy! It would be the perfect freezer meal gift to bring a new mama!
We're on week two of eating some of the freezer meals I put together and they really are worth the effort. The meatloaf we had on Wednesday was particularly convenient!
I'm not a big pot pie fan, but this one looks yummy and so easy for nights when you're super busy!!
Great recipe for busy nights. I will make a few and freeze for nights I don't have time to cook!
Looks good! I make this quite often but always snag the crust at Trader Joes or the Immaculate Baking Co brand. I agree it's very helpful to get stuff right from the freezer! Helps to have these things on hand for certain! Our turkey is long gone though!
Pinning this for the next big family meal! My hubby loves turkey pot pie and I have never made one from scratch before. This looks like it would be delicious!
It is definitely yummy! Sometimes these meals can be hit or miss with my kids, but both of them LOVED this. Made me want to make it more often!