How to Start a Freezer Club (and Why You Should)
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The shortest cut to saving time and money while getting healthy meals on the table is by starting a freezer club. In this post, I’ll share everything I learned over my 7 years of freezer cooking with friends and how to start a freezer club.
Or you may want to learn how to throw a freezer meal party instead.
Why I Joined a Freezer Club
Before having kids, I worked a full-time job with irregular hours. Dinner at home was the exception rather than the rule, unfortunately.
But, after quitting my full-time job to stay home with my first child, the budget got tight and dinner at home was a must. I liked cooking but didn’t have a lot of experience, so when my friend, Darcie, asked if I wanted to join her Freezer Club, I jumped in.
Our group of anywhere from 3 to 8 women at various points all stuck together, fed each other’s families, and learned a LOT about freezer cooking for 7 years!
As a result, I grew immensely as a home cook and am now a HUGE proponent of freezer cooking. I’d love to tell you more about my group, why I love it, and how to start a Freezer Club of your own.
What Is a Freezer Club?
A freezer club is a small group of friends (anywhere from 2-8 people) who commit to cooking freezer-friendly meals for one another each month. (Take a moment to read about freezer meals, if you’re unfamiliar with freezer cooking and wondering how it works.) My friends and I began our freezer club in 2007 and never looked back.
Our freezer club had varying amounts of women in it over the years. In the early years, our group was usually 6-8 women. The last few years, we pared down to just three of us who swapped. Although I loved the days of bringing home 12 pre-made meals in one night, we found our smaller, more low-key group to be more manageable once we had more kids.
However you decide to structure your freezer club, I think you’ll find it to be really fun and helpful!
Benefits of Freezer Cooking With Friends
There are so many advantages to freezer meal cooking. These advantages are multiplied when you work together with like-minded friends. If we were sitting down for a cup of coffee and I was trying to convince you to start your own group, these would be my bullet points:
- Save money. By meal planning and buying in bulk, you’ll see your grocery bill go down significantly. Plus, for our family, knowing I have ready-to-go meals within reach keeps us from spending money by eating out. It’s hard to say for sure how much we save, but I’d wager to say it’s at least $100-200 a month by cooking this way even part of the time.
- Save time. By planning your shopping trip, you’ll cut down on all those little stops by the store during the week. You’ll also cut down on your prep and cooking time each month by preparing the same one or two meals in a large batch.
- Have healthy meals always on hand. If your freezer club is committed to a “real food philosophy” like ours (see “What makes for a healthy freezer meal?” in this post), you’ll be giving your family a wide variety of wholesome, nutrient-dense meals and NOT processed junk.
- Help others. A bonus to freezer meal cooking is that it’s easy to have freezer meals for new moms or someone in need, too. Over the years, our freezer club has collectively given many new moms, people in a crisis, and even a man recently released from prison some extra freezer meals to bake or warm up at their convenience.
- It’s fun! I’d meet with about 6-8 other gals every five weeks for our freezer club meetings for years. Those meetings were a blast! We had coffee, wine, and snacks, and caught up at someone’s house. Then, we got to share recipes and chat about food, all while accomplishing a monthly meal plan. To top it all off, I came home each time and filled my freezer to the brim with pre-prepared healthy meals. The perfect night out if you ask this mom.
How Does a Freezer Club Work?
Make a Meal Plan
Meet once a month or so to plan the next month’s menu and swap meals from the previous month’s round. Each member should bring 3-5 recipes ideas (here’s a huge index of healthy freezer meal recipes) and then the group decides which ones to try that month. At the end of each meeting, we grabbed our coolers and then the swapping began. It felt like Christmas!
Prep Your Assigned Meal for Everyone
Next, cook/prep your assigned meal for each family on your own time and put them in the freezer until you’re ready to swap.
To give you an idea of prep time, when I’ve made a meal for 6 families (that included mine), it usually took me about 2-3 hours from start to clean-up depending on the recipe.
Attach a label to the meal, including the name, date prepared, who prepared it (in case they have questions), and directions for what to do with it after thawed (i.e. “Bake at 350 for 20 minutes” or “Warm on low on the stove.”).
We have some super cute FREE printable Freezer Meal Labels. Use them again and again.
Swap Meals
We swapped our meals about once a month (at the same meeting in which we planned the menu for the next month). You can meet at a friend’s house for dessert and drinks, meet up for coffee or dinner out, or just run the meals by each others’ houses when you’re out (not as fun!).
Are you ready to start a freezer club? Intrigued at least? Then you will need to think through these…
Questions to Ask Before Starting a Group
If you have some friends interested in starting a Freezer Club, it’s important to set up some ground rules from the beginning to make things run smoothly and to avoid frustration later.
The bigger your group is, the more vital this becomes. Believe me. Our group learned this through trial and error, so I’m saving you a lot of headaches.
Here are some questions to get you started:
What are our top food values?
For instance, our group decided that we want to cook using “real food” ingredients and avoid processed ingredients as much as possible. We also try to use local or hormone-free/antibiotic-free meats. Other possible values: cost-effective, kid-friendly, healthy (and discuss what you mean by healthy!), or simply tasty. It’s important to have a discussion upfront with your group about what is most important to each of you when it comes to feeding your family.
How many meals will we make for one another each round?
When I was in a bigger group we usually made two meals every 5 weeks. Later on, we decided to just make one per month. You have to decide what works best for you in your phase of life.
How often will we swap meals?
Every 4 weeks? 6 weeks? It can change during busier seasons, of course.
How much will we spend on our meals?
Every group is different when it comes to figuring out meal cost, but it’s an important topic to discuss upfront. Here are a few options to consider:
- Everyone polices themselves. This is how our group operated. So, if I did a more expensive meal one month, I would plan to do a cheaper meal the next. As a group, we tried to rotate who did the salmon and steak meals, for instance, since they were usually more expensive. This option also allows people who are thrifty shoppers to use their talent and not feel constrained by meeting a minimum cost.
- Set a cost range that members should think of in terms of most months.
- Have everyone bring their grocery store receipts, tally up the group cost at your meeting, and divide them out equally. The upside is that cost is always even for everyone. The downside is that it takes a LOT of work and someone will inevitably forget their receipts or lose them. There are also the occasional complications of people who purchase a side of beef for the freezer or those who grow some of their own ingredients, for instance. Figuring out exact cost can become tedious. I wouldn’t personally recommend this method. But, hey, if you’re super administrative and love drowning in details as a group, then feel free! 🙂
How will we create our menu?
Will we choose our meals at a face-to-face meeting? Over email? Using a Google doc? Will each person be responsible for bringing at least four recipe ideas to the group to discuss and pick from, for example?
100+ Freezer Meals
We’ve rounded up our top freezer meal recipes in one place. This can be your go-to source for any freezer club or freezer party!
How many servings should each meal be?
Our group agreed upon four servings for each family, since the majority of freezer meal recipes make 4-8 servings.
We actually came up with our own guidelines for size of meals (see below). The reason we did this is that often recipes vary when it comes to what a portion size actually is. When in doubt, though, we tried to be generous with portions.
- Soups – 8 cups
- Pancakes/Waffles – x12
- Wraps/Burritos – x8
- Stew/Chili – 8 cups
- Burgers – 4 burgers (1/3-1/2 lb. per burger)
- Pulled Pork/Mexican Pot Roast Tacos/BBQ Beef/Asian Lettuce Wraps, etc. – Fill the pan using the recipe as a guideline (do our best to make what the recipe says is 4 servings), but if we come a little short we talk about it the next round and try to adjust.
- Chicken Breasts/Tenders – 1.5-2 lbs. when they are the main part of the meal.
- Pork Chops – 1.5-2 lbs
- Pork Tenderloin – 1.75-2 lbs.
- Steak – 2 lbs. per family, unless recipe states otherwise
- Ribs – 3+ lbs. per family
- French Dip – Enough for 4 generous sandwich servings plus 2 cups au jus per pan.
- Pastas/Casseroles – Fill an 8×8 inch pan.
- Salmon/Tilapia/Shrimp – 1.5 lbs per family
What kind of containers will we swap meals in?
We’ve done a lot of testing over the years, and these are our favorite freezer meal containers. Our group typically used gallon-size, BPA-free freezer bags (or you can use reusable freezer bags), but your group may also want to invest in the same glass dishes with lids to swap for casseroles.
Who will be the administrator?
The larger your group is, the more helpful it is to have one person be the administrator. This person will keep track of who is making what meal, keep the meeting moving along, send out email reminders, etc. You can even rotate who does this everyone once in a while.
How will we evaluate meals?
Our group determined early on to be really open to feedback each month. This is the only way to get better at what you’re doing and determine which meals are the very best freezer meals.
To evaluate, we decided to vote on a Google doc about the previous month’s meals and simply say if we want them again or not (or offer suggestions to make a meal work better next time, if we thought it had future potential).
It sounds hardcore, I know. But, we all understood that everyone has different preferences and that we all have flops from time to time. The advantage of evaluating is that you can remake the successful ones again and again. Evaluating each month also allowed us to create what we called our “Home Run List” of recipes to make again and again. Many of our Thriving Home best hits are iterations of these original home run recipes!
We Published Cookbooks to Help!
Using our 25+ years of combined freezer cooking wisdom, we have written two cookbooks just for you called From Freezer to Table and From Freezer to Cooker. In our first cookbook, we lay out the basics of freezer cooking, explain how to start a Freezer Club or throw a Freezer Party, and share 75+ of our favorite freezer meal recipes. In the second one, we created delicious freezer meals for the crock pot and Instant Pot.
Every recipe in our books is well-tested, made with whole food ingredients, and family-friendly. We know you’ll love these cookbooks!
Here’s a look inside From Freezer to Table…
Motivated to start a freezer club now? Questions? I’m happy to help! Please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to respond quickly.
*I am indebted to my friends Darcie and Carla (who is now on our team) for helping start, guide, and keep our freezer club going for so many years. This post would NOT be possible without their wisdom and friendship.
I would love a copy of the google docs as well. It’s a huge blessing not to have to reinvent the wheel! Thanks for sharing all your great tips and recipes.
May I also have a copy of your google docs? I’ve wanted to start a freezer meal group for a while but the organization part seems overwhelming. This will give me a great head start!
I would love your google docs if you’re willing to share. My friend and I have done two marathon freezer cooking sessions but we like the idea of this better, plus we have a working mom friend who always misses out because we do our marathon during the weekday. This way she could join in the fun too! Thanks for the detailed post and all the yummy recipe ideas. Already made starbucks sandwiches and they were great! I also made the chicken parm casserole last week. My kids weren’t as big of fans but my husband and I loved it.
Such great ideas! Do you have a link to the google docs? I have a group considering this idea and any tools would help us get things going. Thanks for sharing:)
Love the this Idea, Im going to start one too, any chance I could also get a copy of the google docs?
thanks so much for sharing this great Idea! 🙂
I would also very much love a copy of your google docs. I think Carla and I might be kindred spirits.
I’m on it!
Thanks for the great information! In the process of starting our own freezer club. Would you be able to email the google documents That you have made up, so I can have a starting point. Or are they on your page but didn’t see them. Thanks for all your hard work.
I’m not sure how helpful they will be, but I’m glad to email them to you. Beware, they are VERY detailed. 😉
Just wanted to say thank you for the advice. I am getting started on this with a friend and I hope it is successful. I’m excited.
I do have one question. In books that I’ve been reading about this some people say to stop the cooking time short in order to not over cook your food during reheat. What are your thoughts on this? Did you follow this rule or have an overcook problem?
Hey Rachel – Thank you so much for sharing this! I am inspired to get a group started with my friends! I noticed in an earlier comment that you talked about doing a post sharing everything you put in your Google docs. Any chance you’ve done that yet? If so, can you tell me how to get to it? Thanks again…you’re awesome!!
Hi Claire. You’re right I did mention that, but then I realized that the google docs we have may not be as helpful as i thought. I’m not sure if they are transferable to others or not. But I will gladly email them to you! Maybe they will give you a starting point. I’m glad you found the post helpful and please reach out if you have any other questions. I’m happy to help.
With motivation and guidance from your post, we are starting a busy moms freezer club. I am wondering a little more about the portion sizes you recommend for the meat in a recipe. Can you provide more info on amounts of meats in each dish that would keep it fair for everyone? Thanks!
Sure! I copied and pasted straight from our original Google doc about our portion sizes. I hope this helps and let me know if you need anything else.
Soups – Gallon Bags – 8 cups
Pancakes/Waffles – 12
Wraps/Burritos – 8
Stew/Chili – Bags or Pans – 8 cups
Burgers – 1/3-1/2 lb. per burger, 4-6 burgers
Pulled Pork/Mexican Pot Roast Tacos/BBQ Beef/Asian Lettuce Wraps, etc. – Fill the pan using the recipe as a guideline (do our best to make what the recipe says is 4 servings), but if we come a little short we talk about it the next round and try to adjust.
Chicken Breasts – 4 per family (1.5-2 lbs.) when they are the main part of the meal. If it is cut up in pasta, use whatever the right portion would be based on the recipe if it’s in a dish.
Chicken Strips – equal to 4 breasts (1.5-2 lbs.)
Pork Chops – 4 totaling 1.5-2 lbs
Pork Tenderloin – 1.75-2 lbs. per family
Steak – 2 lbs. per family unless recipe states otherwise
Ribs – 3+ lbs. per family – baby back
French Dip – enough for 4 generous sandwich servings plus 2 cups au jus per pan (little over half of pan)
Pastas/Casseroles – Fill the pan
Salmon – 6 oz. per serving or 1.5 lbs. per family
Tilapia – 6 oz. per serving or 1.5 lbs. per family, approx. 7 fillets
Shrimp – 1.5 lbs. per family
Thank you!!! This is perfect!
Hi Mid-Mo Amanda! I went back and looked at all the Google docs that my highly administrative (and that’s even an understatement) friend, Carla, created for our group. I might have to do a post and share all that we’ve put together there. But for now, here are the docs we had for our bigger group to keep things running smoothly. Do NOT let this overwhelm you. You definitely don’t need to have all this to start a group.
– Freezer Club Guidelines – your values, quantity/serving size guidelines, preparation guidelines (what to trade your meal in, how to label it, do not include dry pasta/rice, etc)
– Home Run List – this was an excel document where we listed all the recipes and placed an “x” next to it if we wanted to have it again; the list was sorted by the most amounts of votes, so we always knew which recipes were our favorites
– We also had everyone create a Google doc in our Freezer Club folder with the recipes they prepared typed out and any special notes about their preparation. Many people went so far as to create a shopping list for the next person. This kept all of our recipes in one convenient location, so we could access them again and again.
– Monthly Meal Plan – This had everyone’s name on it and what two meals they were assigned, in case anyone forgot during the month. It was also a good reference so we could vary the menu from month to month.
I hope that helps some. Did that answer your question?
I came across this idea on Pinterest and really want to give it a try. Thanks so much for sharing! Any tips on creating Google docs to start out with? Also happened to notice you are from Mid-Mo, as am I 🙂
I started a freezer club in my little group of friends this winter. We do ours a little differently, because the group varies each time and the size of each family is drastically different. We meet once a month or every two months at our church kitchen (most of my group members belong to my church) one evening and put together our meals.
I am the administrator and each month we choose meals 5-8 depending on how much prep goes into each meal. The first month, 5 people gave me a recipe. The 2nd time, I chose all 8 of the recipes- all were crock pot recipes. I then sent out an email to the group members (Facebook group) with the recipes.
About 2 weeks before our meeting day I send out a grocery list with all the ingredients needed if you were to do all the recipes. Some families choose to do only some of them and others (like me) double certain recipes so they have more. Each person in the group is responsible for bringing all the ingredients they need for their meals. This includes the groceries and containers (mostly ziplock bags) to store the meals. I really like doing it this way, because I am a bargain shopper and stock up, so I try to shop my cupboards and freezers and not buy much if I can help it. But others in our group don’t bargain shop– so it’s nice that we each can use our own budget to make the meals.
The day of the cooking we meet in the evening at the church and we each put together our family’s meals. Last time we made 8 different meals in about 2 hours (start to finish including clean up). Then we each take our meals home and freeze them!
Friends of mine belong to a large cooking group at a local (to them) HyVee grocery store, where they make all the meals for the whole group in one evening and then swap the meals. The store actually does their shopping for them, as I understand it and they just put everything together. Not the most frugal way to do it, but I know my friends feel like it helps them eat healthier and probably in the long run saves them money, because they eat out less.
Wow, what a cool idea. I imagine the community factor makes this fun for your group at church, too. Thanks for sharing two more unique ways to save money by cooking with friends, Emily!
Emily, I’m having a hard time understanding how you guys cook your meals. I understand you each bring your own ingredients but how do you cook them? Do you still swap meals?
We make our meals on our own at home–enough for each family. Then, we swap meals at the meeting. Does that make sense?
So does the cost of the meals not matter? You do a one meal for one meal kind of trade no matter the cost?
Another great question that I should probably go back and address in the questions portion. It is important to discuss cost upfront with your group. However, I don’t have a tidy answer based on my experience. Everyone in our group shopped differently. Some were bargain grocery hunters and didn’t spend as much because they were better at finding sales and buying in bulk. Others of us were last minute shoppers. We decided we didn’t want to penalize people for being better shoppers. So, we never made a hard-fast rule about how much to spend per meal, although a suggestion was about $8-10 (our meals cost more because of the local/organic meat and produce). What we tried to do was mentally keep track of the kind of meals we prepared each time and rotate who did the more expensive meals. So, for instance, we always had salmon on the menu. But Wild Salmon was one of the more expensive meals, so we rotated who did that one each time. Or, if I did a more expensive meal one month, I would be sure to bring cheaper meal ideas the next month. Bottom line: discuss it with your group and try to come to a consensus initially. You may have to tweak what you decide, but it’s nice to have a starting place. In the end, if you stick with your Freezer Club and rotate who does what kind of meals, it will all even out eventually. Remember, you’re saving money just by cooking this way.
What do you do about foods people don’t like or are allergic to? For example, I can’t stand green peppers. If a food has green peppers in it then the entire dish is ruined for me (if you pick them out, the flavor is still there). Do your groups have a list of foods not to use or foods not to put in one member’s items?
That is a question that came up a lot in our group. Some people liked olives, some didn’t, for example. There are a few ways to handle this: 1) We would just verbally talk about that at our meeting, if a recipe came up that someone knew their family wouldn’t like. Sometimes a person said, “I’ll just make 5 meals with olives and 2 without and put your names on the ones without olives.” If a member is willing to go the extra mile, great. 2) If it was a huge hassle to change the recipe for a few members, then a lot of times we’d just pass on that meal. 3) Another thing to consider is that the bigger your group is, the more you have to compromise sometimes. So, at times I might just say, “oh well, we’ll just pick out or eat around the olives” on this one since everyone else likes olives. 4) Lastly, it would certainly be helpful to have a list of foods you want to avoid in a Google doc or on a sheet that everyone has.
Love this list. I’d like to include a link back to this post for a book I’m writing for moms who have just had a baby. OK with you? Do you want to include anything other than a link in the book?
Thanks so much!
Monica
Sure, Monica. We’d love to be a link in your book. Thank you for asking! You’re welcome to use the top image, too, if you’re like. We’ve also got a post with 60+ freezer meal recipes that could be helpful for new moms, too.