First, make the alfredo sauce.
Alfredo Sauce Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
- 1 quart heavy whipping cream
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- 1 T. minced garlic
- 1 T. Italian herbs seasoning
- 1 t. salt
- 1 t. pepper
- 2 c. grated parmesan cheese.
- Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and sautee until tender. Add heavy whipping cream, cream cheese and whisk until smooth. I usually cheat and break out my favorite tool, my immersion blender. Add the italian herbs, parmesan, salt and pepper while whisking.Â
- Bring to a simmer and continue to cook for about 3 minutes, until it starts to thicken.
Next, divide the cooled alfredo sauce between 4 gallon-sized freezer bags. Then add the following to the freezer bags, also divided evenly between the four of them:
- 2 lbs boneless. skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips. Go ahead and add it raw. *Hint: Chicken breasts are easiest to cut when slightly frozen.
- 2 16 oz bags frozen broccoli florets
Squeeze the air out of your bags before sealing them, then label your freezer bags and write the following cooking instructions:Â Squeeze contents from bag into crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Boil 1- 16 oz package of pasta to accompany this sauce.
The night before you need to use a freezer meal, move it from the freezer to the fridge, where it will thaw enough by morning that you can squeeze it out of the bag into your crockpot. My kids think it’s a treat to get to be the person who ‘chooses’ dinner and don’t mind that they are also responsible for cooking any accompaniments, such as the pasta in this meal.
This would be a well-appreciated gift for a new mom or an ill friend, or kids away at college, provided that you live close enough to drive it, as it wouldn’t survive the mail.
Hi! If I don’t have a crockpot, and already froze the meal as you described above, how would you recommend cooking it?
Thanks!
Hi Kate! If you don’t have a crockpot, you could cook it in the oven. Just thaw the ziploc of alfredo sauce in the fridge, then dump the thawed sauce into a 9×13 baking dish and bake it at 350 until your chicken is done all the way through. If the sauce is completely thawed, it would probably be about 20 minutes. It would take longer if the sauce was still icy. You could just take a piece of chicken from the center of your baking dish and cut it in half to see if it was done all the way.
A cube of butter? Is that a tablespoon or a quarter/stick? Thanks!
A cube of butter is a stick of butter, or 1/2 cup, or 8 Tablespoons. đŸ™‚
When do you add the 2 cups of grated parmesan?
Sorry I missed that! I add the parmesan to the sauce at the same time as the spices.