How can I determine if a casserole can be made ahead of time and frozen or refrigerated?

Question

I work a lot, but want to start making more homemade meals for my husband. Are certain ingredients or ingredient combinations not safe to be held in the fridge or freezer? How long can they be left in the fridge safely? Any basic guidelines for a young busy wife?

Answer 1

Trial and error. Make it freeze and reheat it. Only way to know for sure. You may want to start by freezing left overs.  

Answer 2

I never had a casserole recipe that I couldn't freeze.  Pasta ones freeze really well.  I guess if there were hard cooked eggs in it, it wouldn't probably work too well but go ahead and do anything else.

Answer 3

Just about anything is okay to make ahead and refrigerate, or freeze.  Nothing weird will happen.  Stuff usually lasts for about 5 days in the fridge.  In the freezer, it usually lasts a couple months.

Vegetables need to be cooked or at least blanched before they're frozen.  And mayonnaise can't be frozen.

Assembling ahead of time is fine.

It's a lot easier than you think.

Answer 4

any cream based casserole will separate when reheating. any casserole with breading/stuffing of any kind will mush out.  you need to stick with hearty casseroles with pastas, thick cut vegetables, legumes, beans, whole grains...  only way to make it and freeze it and make it re-heatable and edible is to assemble your casserole with cold ingredients and freeze.  in other words, cook the pasta, grains, etc. seperate.... then assemble.... then freeze... then heat and serve.

Answer 5

Once your casserole is cooked, it can be refrgerate for several days, and frozen for weeks.

Many people will tell you they are often better the following day as the flavours tend to amalgamate overnight.

Answer 6

THe question isn't food safety when it comes to freezing casserole, it is food quality.  The texture of food can change when frozen.  SOme things get mushy or change color.

In general, if you are going to freeze a casserole containing pasta, you want to under the cook the pasta a bit so that it doesn't overcook when re-heating.

You can keep a thoroughly cooked casserole in the fridge for a week but after three days the quality may diminish depending on the ingredients.  Once again, a casserole containing pasta will get mushier and mushier while it sits. If the dish contains tomato sauce the acidity of the sauce helps to inhibit bacterial growth.  

Casseroles in freezer last two to three months.

Good luck.