101 Recipes To Cook Now And Freeze For Later

Which kitchen appliances are absolutely indispensable? Before you start praising your pour-over kettle, Instant Pot, or air fryer, ask yourself if it really performs a function that couldn't be duplicated by a different gadget. When you come right down to it, there are just two appliances that we really, truly can't live without: the kitchen range and refrigerator-slash-freezer. Of the two, we'd actually cast our vote for the latter as being the all-time kitchen hero, since while it's great to be able to cook your food, it's even better to keep it from spoiling before you get around to eating it. The freezer, in particular, is an invention that revolutionized food as we know it today: ice cream, out-of-season produce, and bulk bargain buys of perishable items wouldn't be possible without the fabulous freezer.

In particular, the freezer is a boon to two groups of people: meal preppers and those cooking for one (so few recipes are for solo diners, after all). The following foods can either be prepared in advance or have any uneaten portions frozen for later. That way, you can reduce waste and you'll also have resources to make meals in a hurry ... well, as long as your kitchen also runs to that honorable mention appliance, the microwave. If not, you'll just need to thaw them longer. One note on freezer storage times: the USDA says foods can be kept in the freezer "almost indefinitely," so there's no need to worry about expiration dates.

If there's any dish that was made for the freezer – in fact, one that can't be made without it – it would be one with "ice" in the name, such as homemade ice pops. The summertime treats shown here are sure to be popular with busy moms, as not only are they incredibly easy to put together, but they're also very nutritious. The ingredients include nothing pureed fruit and coconut milk along with just a touch of honey to sweeten them up.

Recipe: Homemade Ice Pops

Planning a solo Thanksgiving? Nothing wrong with that! Just think of all the arguments you won't be having and all of the awkward questions that won't be posed – except, of course, for the dog asking "Are you going to finish that?" A turkey breast, of course, makes for the perfect entrée, while cooking it in the crockpot means you can go watch the Macy's parade and a football game or two while your dinner cooks itself. It's true that turkey breasts can still be pretty sizable, but there's no need to subsist on turkey sandwiches for days afterward. Instead, eat what you want, then slice and freeze the leftovers for later.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Turkey Breast

While you simply cannot have turkey without cranberries – there's probably a federal law about this on the books somewhere – there's no need to stick to cranberry sauce if that's not your jam (or jelly). Instead, why not accompany your turkey with cranberry muffins? Bake up a batch or two when cranberries are in season, then buy more cranberries, bake more muffins, and store them in the freezer so you can have them on hand all through the year.

Recipe: Cranberry Muffins

While we usually think of muffins as being sweet, savory muffins are also a thing. These egg muffins, however, aren't actually even muffins. According to Merriam-Webster, a muffin is "a quick bread made of batter containing egg and baked in a pan having cuplike molds." This recipe, while not any sort of bread, at least retains the last two elements of the dictionary definition, as it does contain eggs and is baked in a muffin pan. In fact, what you're making here are basically mini vegetable-cheese omelets. The great thing about these egg bites is that you can bake up a batch in minutes, then throw them in the freezer for a quick, nutritious breakfast on a busy morning.

Recipe: Egg Muffins

This hash brown casserole may sound like a breakfast or brunch dish, but the truth is, it works just as well at dinnertime as a side dish for roast pork or chicken. It's simple to put together, too, as you're starting with frozen hash browns from a bag. Add a can of cheese soup, shredded cheese, and onions, plus maybe some crumbled bacon if you're feeling fancy. Bake it up, eat what you want, then freeze the rest. For best results, though, it's suggested to let the casserole thaw before reheating it in the oven or microwave.

Recipe: Hashbrown Casserole

Homemade pierogies are a fun, if somewhat time-consuming, project that's perfect for a rainy weekend when you have a few hours to spare and happen to feel like spending them in the kitchen. The great thing about the pierogies you'll produce, though, is the fact that you need not eat them right away. Boil them up, then drain, dry, and freeze them. Once you thaw out the pierogies you can fry them in butter, adding the sauteed onions at this later point in the process.

Recipe: Pierogies

If you were a fan of HBO's "The Sopranos," you may recall a scene where widowed Bobby Baccalieri finally eats a baked ziti made by his late wife several months after she's passed on. The ziti, needless to say, had been frozen, as this type of casserole is extremely well-suited for preparation in advance. It's the kind of dish you'll want to have stashed in the freezer for happier occasions, too, such as when guests drop by. You could also take a pan to any of your kids who are away at college as Carmela Soprano did for her daughter Meadow. That'll earn you parent-of-the-year points, for sure!

Recipe: Baked Ziti

Making your own ice cream sounds like more of a science project than a cooking one as there always seems to be such a lot of work involved. All that churning, ice, and rock salt ... Or you could use one of those so-called "fun" ice cream makers that come in the form of a ball that you've got to toss around for half an hour, all the while praying it doesn't leak. Umm, yeah, but no. We'd much rather make this easy no-churn chocolate ice cream made from whipped cream, cocoa powder, and condensed milk. Whip the cream, stir in the other ingredients, then let your freezer do the rest of the work.

Recipe: No-Churn Chocolate Ice Cream

These chicken taquitos are a pretty easy last-minute meal as is, as all you'll need to do is mix some shredded chicken and cheese together with herbs, spices, and green onions. Roll them up in flour tortillas (the itty-bitty ones), then bake until the cheese melts. You know what's even easier, though? Making up a double batch and then freezing the taquitos to be reheated again when you want just one or two. While cooking the frozen taquitos in the oven might yield the best results, it's okay to use the microwave at times when you're prioritizing speed over crispness.

Recipe: Easy Taquitos

Whipped cream – we're talking the homemade kind, not the kind that comes in a spray can – can be pretty ephemeral stuff if you keep it in the refrigerator after whipping it. The cream will tend to deflate in a few days, gradually returning to its liquid state as the air evaporates. What you can do if you have leftover whipped cream is to scoop out spoonfuls of the stuff onto a baking sheet, then stick it in the freezer. Once the cream solidifies, store the frozen blobs in a Ziploc-style bag and keep them until you have another piece of pie or cup of hot chocolate in need of topping.

Recipe: Homemade Whipped Cream

So ubiquitous is bacon jam that you can now find the trendy condiment slathered all over fast food sandwiches and burgers. This bacon jam, however, is no ordinary version, as it also includes tomatoes. This means that it makes a great substitute for ketchup and it can even be used as a non-spicy alternative to salsa. Don't worry about making up a whole batch if you only want a little bit of tomato bacon jam, though, since it takes well to freezing. This means you can just stash any leftovers until you come up with another use for the stuff.

Recipe: Tomato Bacon Jam

Porcupine meatballs, which are named for the raw rice that gives them a spiky look, are a recipe that dates from the Great Depression when stretching the food dollar as far as it would go was a priority for everybody but Daddy Warbucks. Well, today's economy has many of us once more experiencing a hard-knock life as grocery prices rise to astronomical levels. Luckily the rice in these meatballs not only adds to their aesthetics but helps stretch a pound of ground beef to make four servings. And yes, as these meatballs' presence on this list would indicate, they can definitely be frozen and eaten when the sun comes out tomorrow ... next week, next month, or whenever.

Recipe: Budget-Friendly Porcupine Meatballs

As you've probably heard, what with social media freaking out over this latest food-related tragedy, the Klondike Choco Taco is no more. If you really, really miss this ice cream treat, you can always try your hand at a DIY version, but we're not going to lie – this recipe is pretty time-consuming and labor-intensive. Once you're done, though, there's no need to rush to eat all the tacos since they're meant to be kept in the freezer. This means that you can try to make them last until the real deal stages a grand comeback a la Twinkies, Cheez Balls, and Surge.

Recipe: Homemade Choco Tacos

Back in 1928, the Republican Party came up with a campaign slogan "a chicken in every pot." Well, what with the Great Depression looming on the horizon at the time, the prosperity this was meant to symbolize never came to pass – and 90 years later people may be feeling their feeling our great-grandparents' pain as times are hard once again. Still, if life does gift you with a bargain-priced chicken in your pot, you can always take a tip from your thrifty forebears and use it to make a chicken pot pie.

While this 21st-century recipe uses a few shortcuts such as frozen vegetables and refrigerated pie crust, you can make an even more economical pie by prepping your own produce and making a from-scratch crust. Once the pie is done, don't let a single bite go to waste! Stash any leftovers in the icebox and serve them up next time you're hungry for some old-school cheap eats.

Recipe: Old-Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie

Many sweet breads are of the quick type, but this cinnamon raisin bread is made with yeast. Baking it is going to take some time, what with the kneading and rising and all, plus you'll need to roll and shape the loaf around the cinnamon filling (the raisins go directly into the dough). You can, however, make this bread in advance as it takes very well to being stored in the freezer. Bake the loaf, cool it, then wrap it in foil and again in a sealable plastic bag. When you want to eat it, let it thaw for a few hours, then heat it up in the oven for a few minutes before you slice it.

Recipe: Cinnamon Raisin Bread

True shepherd's pie is made with lamb or mutton (hence the name), but quite a few recipes call for the cheaper alternative, ground beef, instead. With this one, however, we're using a combo of lentils and chickpeas to make for a flavorful, protein-packed, meat-free filling. This mashed potato-topped casserole is large enough to serve four people, but if you're dining alone, no worries – the leftovers freeze very well and can be heated up in the microwave. You can also freeze it prior to baking, then thaw it and cook it in the oven when needed.

Recipe: Vegan Shepherd's Pie

Making homemade ice cream? That's a big ol' nope for many of us due to all the work and special equipment involved. Sure, some TikTokers may act like churning your own ice cream is the most fun thing ever, but then, TikTok is its own version of reality. There is one type of DIY ice cream, though, that may not make for much of a video, but is pretty nearly effort-free: the no-churn kind. All you need to do is combine heavy cream and condensed milk then flavor the mixture with vanilla extract (or almond, mint, or another extract you like (you can also scroll up for a chocolate version made with cocoa powder). Whip the ingredients until they reach the stiff peak stage, stick the stuff in the freezer, and after a few hours your ice cream will be ready whenever you are.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream

While barbacoa is often thought of as a Mexican dish, it has roots in the Caribbean. Many of us, however, are most familiar with the dish in its American fast food form as served up by Chipotle. As chain restaurants go, Chipotle really isn't all that cheap, so if you're a fan of its barbacoa, you might want to try making a more affordable copycat version. This recipe makes a couple of pounds worth of meat, but the good news is, you can freeze it in single-serve portions and just thaw out as much as you need for your burrito, tacos, enchiladas, rice bowls, et cetera.

Recipe: Chipotle Copycat Barbacoa

Making your own mochi may not be the simplest of projects – despite this recipe being billed as "easy," a more apt (if wordy) descriptor might be "relatively easy as mochi recipes go." Meaning, it will still take some time and effort, although the upside is that making your own mochi dough gives you the opportunity to customize your ice cream mochi balls by using any flavors you like. Another good thing about this dessert is that, since it's ice cream-based, it is of course meant to be kept in the freezer so you can keep it on hand for whenever you want to eat just a single ball or two. This recipe makes eight pieces, but you could always double it if you want your mochi stash to last twice as long.

Recipe: Easy Ice Cream Mochi

Pumpkin bread is fairly easy to make as it is a true quick bread – just stir, bake, and go. While this recipe is for a pretty basic version, you can customize the bread with all manner of fun add-ins like chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, chopped walnuts or pecans, shredded coconut, or candied ginger. If you'd like to freeze your pumpkin bread for later use, you can simply cut off a slice or two at a time from the frozen loaf. If you like your bread warm, heat it up in the oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes. If you prefer it at room temperature, just let the slices thaw on their own.

Recipe: Pumpkin Bread

American goulash is nothing whatsoever like the traditional Hungarian meat stew of the same name. Instead, it's more of a school cafeteria-type dish: a casserole made from ground beef and elbow macaroni in a tomato sauce. The dish is both easy and cheap to make and is pretty much a one-pot meal what with the meat, starch, and vegetable components. And yes, any leftovers can be frozen to be reheated on the stovetop or in the microwave.

Recipe: American Goulash

If you have an Instant Pot, one thing you can do with it is to make soup, and this tasty turkey soup is a great way to make use of the leftovers from your holiday feast. Use the bones to make a broth. Then put the broth to good use by adding turkey meat, vegetables, and noodles. Even if your Instant Pot's on the blink, you can still prepare this dish in a regular old pot on your trusty old stove, although it will take a bit longer to cook.

Recipe: Instant Pot Turkey Soup

If you're from Ohio, you probably know all about buckeye candy. So beloved is this treat that there's even an Ohio Buckeye Candy Trail highlighting the state's finest candy makers. If you're nowhere near the Buckeye state, though, the candies are incredibly easy to make at home. Mix up the peanut butter-slash-powdered sugar filling, roll it into balls, then dip each ball halfway into some melted chocolate. Not only can these candies be stored for as long as you like in the freezer, but there's no need to thaw them before eating.

Recipe: Easy No Bake Buckeye Cookies

This chicken potsticker recipe might seem pretty daunting at first glance, what with the 19(!) different ingredients it contains, plus, an hour's worth of prep time! Yeesh. Still, it could make for a great weekend project as it may be time-consuming but it's not at all difficult. If you make a big batch (and this recipe produces 60 dumplings), you can freeze the potstickers prior to cooking them and keep them on hand for future snacking.

Recipe: Spicy Chicken Potstickers

Is Almond Joy one of your favorite candy bars? Chocolate + coconut + almonds will make a classic flavor combo, all right, but it's not one that the Peter Paul candy company holds a patent on, nor should it be limited to candies alone. In this recipe, the coconut and almonds are added to chocolate chip cookies and the results are pretty awesome. These cookies can not only be frozen after they're baked, but you can also freeze cookie-sized balls of dough to bake at a later time.

Recipe: Chewy Coconut Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

While lobster bisque sounds like a fancy-schmancy thing to order when you're eating out, there's a chance that the restaurant may be telling lies about what's in your bowl. The shocking truth is, many eating establishments have been found using cheaper substitutes rather than using such a pricy crustacean in their soups. If you want to make sure that your bisque contains real lobster, you can always make it yourself. This recipe makes four bowlfuls, but the uneaten portion won't be harmed by freezing and thawing for later use.

Recipe: Easy Lobster Bisque

Cinnabon, interestingly enough, has managed to build an entire empire on a single product that is sold in just two locations: airports and shopping malls. If you're no longer a frequent flier or shopper but you managed to catch the Cinnabon bug back in the day when you still frequented such establishments, you could always take a crack at making your own. Sure, the recipe's pretty labor-intensive as yeast breads tend to be, but you can freeze the rolls either before or after baking them so you'll have them on hand for the next time a craving strikes.

Recipe: Copycat Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

If your only experience with split pea soup has involved the stuff that comes out of a can, you may not have been too impressed with it. This from-scratch version, however, is actually pretty tasty stuff and is also both hearty and budget-friendly. Freezer individual portions of the soup for a microwaveable lunch in minutes, or add a salad and a slice or two of crusty bread for a dinner that's fit for any meat-free Monday.

Recipe: Split Pea Soup

While many people discover matcha for its health benefits, they keep coming back to it for the flavor. Even if you find matcha to be a bit earthy-tasting in tea form, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how well it works as an ice cream flavoring. No need to worry about churning the ice cream, either – this recipe is for the super-easy shortcut kind so all you'll need to do is whip heavy cream along with condensed milk, matcha powder, and other flavorings. Put the sweetened matcha whipped cream in the freezer, wait a few hours, and voilà! You'll find it magically transformed into ice cream.

Recipe: Quick Matcha Ice Cream

These chicken "muffins" aren't muffins in the traditional sense, as they aren't chicken-flavored quick bread or any kind of bread at all. Instead, they are just personal pan-sized meatloaves, with the pan in this case being a muffin one. Cook up a batch of them, then pop them out of their muffin cups and into a Ziploc-style bag and stash them in your freezer to be microwaved at a later date.

Recipe: Ground Chicken Meatloaf Muffins

Perhaps the easiest type of pie to make is one with a pudding filling in a crumb crust, at least if you use store-bought pudding mix. With this recipe, however, the chocolate pudding is made from scratch. It's actually not as difficult as you might think and makes for a real upgrade from the kind that comes out of a box. If you'd like to give this pie a try, don't worry about not being able to eat the whole thing in a few days. Eat a slice or two, then just wrap up the leftovers and stick them in the freezer for as long as you like.

Recipe: Chocolate Cream Pie

Got leftover ham? A great way to use it up is to make a casserole such as this quick and easy one made from egg noodles, cheese, frozen vegetables, and canned soup along with a few cups of chopped ham. If you want to make it in advance you can freeze it before cooking it, or else you can freeze any leftover casserole in single-serving portions to make for a super-quick meal at some later date.

Recipe: Cheesy Ham And Noodle Casserole

Ice cream sandwiches might sound like a pretty "blah" dessert to serve if you're throwing a party, at least if most of the guests are over the age of 6. This recipe, however, will let you show off all your culinary skills as the chocolate cookies are homemade and so is the caramel sauce that's used to top the ice cream. What really puts these frozen treats over the top, however, are the Milky Way bars that are embedded in each sandwich.

Recipe: Chocolate, Candy, And Caramel Ice Cream Sandwich

Gyoza are cute crescent-shaped Japanese dumplings that are typically prepared in one of two ways: either steamed or fried. This recipe is for the latter kind, and the gyoza are stuffed with ground pork, cabbage, onions, and mushrooms. While the dumplings are best eaten warm, you can freeze them before or after they're cooked. The pre-cooked kind, as well as the uncooked ones, are to be reheated again in a frying pan although the former won't need as much cooking the second time around.

Recipe: Authentic Fried Pork Gyoza

Smoothies are pretty nutritious what with all the fruit, yogurt, and milk that go into them, but since when has that ever been a selling point with kids? Oftentimes when kids hear something is supposed to be good for them, they automatically assume that it's going to be nasty, so a smoothie may not be received as enthusiastically as a milkshake would be. If you pour that smoothie into a popsicle mold and freeze it, though, that transforms it into a fun-to-eat treat on a stick – stealthy healthy, that's the way to do it!

Recipe: Strawberry Smoothie Popsicles

Making homemade pickles might seem like a complicated process due to all the boiling and brining and canning and whatnot. Did you know, though, that there's a relatively easy way to make pickles in your refrigerator? It's true – all you need to do is cover your sliced cukes in a salt and vinegar brine (with or without sugar, as you please), then let them sit in the fridge for 24 hours. At this point, you can either eat them right away or store them in the freezer for later use.

Recipe: Easy Spicy Freezer Pickles

While bread bowls have been around since the Middle Ages, they really became trendy in the '80s. Still, they have stayed in fashion for 40-plus years thanks to chain restaurants like Panera. If you like the idea of eating your soup out of a homemade bread bowl, these are no more difficult to bake than other yeast breads. Once baked, these bread bowls can also be kept in the freezer and thawed out any time you want a bowlful of bread-encased soup.

Recipe: Homemade Bread Bowls

We usually think of frozen yogurt as an ice cream-like treat, but yogurt is actually a surprisingly versatile ingredient. Here it's also found in frozen dessert form, but instead of being soft and creamy, it takes the form of a hard, candy-like bark flavored with honey, pistachio nuts, and fresh berries. Yogurt bark is very convenient to have on hand since it can be stored in the freezer to eat whenever you want a healthy sweet treat.

Recipe: Easy Frozen Yogurt Bark

Black bean soup is healthy, hearty, and very easy to make – simply open a few cans of beans, tomatoes, chiles, and broth and you're halfway home – all that's left is to sauté an onion, add some spices, and mix everything together. Once the soup is done, you can leave the beans whole, blend them into a smooth soup (let the soup cool first unless you're using an immersion blender), or go half-and-half for a soup that's semi-chunky. You can also freeze any uneaten soup to be reheated later in the microwave or on the stove.

Recipe: Easy Black Bean Soup

The icebox cake is a retro recipe that dates back to the days when refrigerators were a trendy new gadget. While most icebox cakes are made with thin, wafer-like cookies, this recipe calls for chocolate sandwich cookies. These give it a somewhat chunkier texture, as do the strawberries it includes, but the smooth whipped cream ties everything together. While this cake requires at least a few hours in the freezer to gel, the main steps only take 10 minutes. After it's frozen, thaw it out whenever you're ready to eat a slice or two.

Recipe: Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake

The combination of chicken and rice is one of those nearly universal dishes, with versions found in almost every culture all over the globe. Here, however, we're giving those two ingredients the good old American casserole treatment, mixing them with cheese and vegetables before baking everything in a cream sauce. As with most casseroles, this will last a good long time in the freezer. It can either be frozen whole before you cook it or in individual serving sizes after it's done.

Recipe: Hearty Chicken And Rice Casserole

Birria, the Mexican beef stew that turned into an unlikely TikTok star and thus earned trendy food status in recent years, does take some time and effort to cook, and our recipe also makes rather a large amount. Once you've cooked the meat, though, you can always divvy it up between a few pint-sized freezer bags and keep it on ice, as it were, for the next time you want a tasty taco filling. Or burrito filling, enchilada filling, nacho topping, baked potato topping ... you get the picture. Anywhere you might want some spicy shredded beef, this stuff will do the trick.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Birria De Res Tacos

Cranberries are an interesting fruit in that the grocery business pretty much assumes we're only going to want them in fall and winter. This means that they are often quite hard to find at other times of the year except in juice form. Still, those bags of fresh cranberries freeze beautifully with no prepping required, so we like to buy a few whenever they're in season and keep them for year-round use in recipes like these great-tasting cranberry bar cookies. In fact, the cookies, like the fruit they're made from, also keep well in the freezer, so you can bake up a double batch for Thanksgiving and keep the rest of the cookies on hand for your spring and summer cranberry cravings.

Recipe: Cranberry Crumble Bars

Bourbon chicken is a mall cuisine classic, one that's often served by Chinese food booths and whose moniker has an explanation you might not expect. The name doesn't come from the booze as this isn't an essential component of the recipe. Instead, the dish was named for Bourbon Street in New Orleans as it's said to have been created by a Chinese restaurateur in that fair city. This particular recipe, however, incorporates a few twists on the food court favorite as it does include alcohol in the sauce and its seasonings are kind of a Cajun/Asian mashup. This recipe makes two servings, but if you only want a single portion the remaining bourbon chicken can be frozen for a later meal.

Recipe: Sweet And Tangy Bourbon Chicken

Hand pies not only make for a very cute dessert (who doesn't love mini food?) but a very convenient one. Not everyone needs a full-size pie, after all, but if you bake up a batch of these self-contained, non-messy, personal-sized pies they can be kept in the freezer and thawed out one at a time. As a bonus, this recipe doesn't even require you to do any messy deep-frying as the pies are instead "fried" via the hot air method.

Recipe: 20-Minute Air Fryer Apple Pies

Turkey breasts are a great way to enjoy the great flavor of roast turkey even when you don't have a large, Norman Rockwellian family to gather around your table and gobble up their share of a behemoth bird. In fact, this quick-cooking garlic- and herb-seasoned roast is perfect for solo diners. Not only does it make less than a pound of meat (no bones!), but the leftovers can be frozen for later use.

Recipe: Garlic And Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

Remember the Viennetta from the '90s? That store-bought ice cream cake actually did return to store shelves after a nearly 30-year hiatus, but it's only available in a plain vanilla version. Kind of unfair when you realize that overseas these things are available in coffee, mint, and chocolate flavors. Still, with our DIY version, you can tweak your homemade ice cream with different flavor extracts and/or stir in chocolate chips, crushed strawberries, cookie crumbs, or any other add-ins you wish. Keep your from-scratch Viennetta in the freezer to impress drop-in guests, or slice off a piece every time you'd like a little elegant indulgence.

Recipe: Creamy Viennetta

Lasagna is one of everyone's favorite pasta dishes, but tbh, it's kind of a pain in the rear to put together. This lasagna-esque casserole, however, is made with tortellini instead of the typical long, flat noodles. These cheesy tortellini are topped with meat sauce, spinach, and still more cheese and the whole thing cooks up in a single pot on the stovetop. While we wouldn't try freezing this dish before cooking as you can do with a traditional lasagna, the leftovers can be frozen in single-serving portions and heated up in the microwave when needed.

Recipe: 30-Minute Tortellini Skillet Lasagna

The secret to great soup stock starts in the freezer – whenever you have meat or vegetable scraps or bones, freeze them until you have a sufficient amount, then take them out to make stock. This shrimp stock, as you may have guessed, is made from shrimp shells, and if the shrimp came with their heads on, you can toss those in, as well. Once the stock is cooked and strained, you can also store the final product in the freezer and keep it until you want to make shrimp bisque, pasta sauce, gumbo, or any other soup, sauce, or stew that could benefit from a little fishy flavor.

Recipe: Simple Shrimp Stock

Apple pie a la mode is really two desserts in one, but if you don't have the appetite (or want to expend the calories) for a slice of pie plus a scoop of ice cream, you may wish to try this ice cream that tastes like an apple pie. It even contains crushed graham crackers to simulate the pie crust! What's more, unlike an apple pie (but entirely like ice cream), you can keep it on hand in the freezer to have a scoop whenever you please.

Recipe: Apple Pie Ice Cream

Can you cook your Thanksgiving turkey in an Instant Pot? Well, maybe, if you have a very small turkey and/or a very large pot, and you also don't mind foregoing the crunchy skin that many people may feel is the best part of the bird. What you definitely can use your pricey appliance for, however, is to cook a boneless, skinless turkey tenderloin as this is the type of cut that won't be harmed by moist heat. This recipe makes a pound and a half of meat, but should you have leftovers you can always freeze them for future turkey sandwiches.

Recipe: Instant Pot Turkey Tenderloin

Bagels with three ingredients? Sounds like a gimmick, but you'll be pleasantly surprised if you do decide to give them a go. All you do is mix plain yogurt with self-rising flour, and you can even make a DIY version of the latter by adding baking powder and salt to all-purpose flour (although that would technically make these 5-ingredient bagels). Form the bagel dough into ring shapes, put these rings on a cookie sheet, and sprinkle them with the third ingredient: everything bagel seasoning. Bake the bagels, eat them, then keep the leftovers in the freezer. Yes, it's as simple as that.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Everything Bagels

Candy corn is a pretty polarizing Halloween treat – while it does have its fans, it also has numerous detractors that decry its sickly sweet flavor. Even those who love the stuff, however, would be hard put to claim it offers any nutritional benefits, but the opposite is true of these candy corn-colored popsicles. They are made with nothing more than coconut milk, orange juice, and pineapple juice, and in fact, resemble their namesake candy only in their color scheme. These healthy popsicles aren't just for Halloween but can make for a good-for-you summertime snack as well.

Recipe: Best Candy Corn Popsicles

What's the best thing since sliced bread? A loaf of bread that you slice – and bake – yourself. Yes, it's a yeast dough, but you do not need any kind of special equipment or hard-to-come-by ingredients to make it. In fact, once you master the art of baking your own bread, you might just want to have a loaf or two in the freezer at all times and skip buying the stuff from the grocery store.

Recipe: Homemade White Bread

Ice cream is something we all crave from time to time – or maybe most of the time. But it's mostly just carbs and fat and not very nutritious. Moreover, what's considered a single serving size is pretty darn skimpy – who eats just 4 ounces at a time, anyway? For a healthy, easy frozen treat you can eat a big bowlful of, we present this ice cream substitute made from mashed bananas and peanut butter with a crunchy peanut topping.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Beef and broccoli is a popular takeout order, but if you lack the inclination or funds to order out, you'll find that it's simple enough to make from home. With this recipe, you'll be using your slow cooker, so that means you can set it and forget it. A batch of this beef and broccoli makes four servings, but if you don't need that much and don't feel like having leftovers the next day you can always freeze them to enjoy at your leisure.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Beef And Broccoli

Fudge can be a tricky candy to make, especially if you don't own or have never mastered the knack of reading a candy thermometer. This means you'll be left messing around with a glass of water and trying to tell the soft ball stage from the hard crack. Or ... you could always make fudge the easy three-ingredient way by melting chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk and stirring in some vanilla extract. You could also make it four-ingredient fudge by stirring in some nuts as pictured here. Eat what you want, then freeze the rest of the fudge for later.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Fudge

Taco fillings in a pie crust? It's actually not as weird as it might seem. Hand pies, hot pockets, and similar pastries are made with savory fillings, so why not a taco pie? Tacos in pie form are actually quite a bit less messy than the kind on hard shells and, what's more, you can also freeze the leftovers or even keep a couple of frozen taco pies on hand as a quick meal solution.

Recipe: Easy Baked Taco Pie

Dairy Queen's popular Dilly Bars are actually pretty simple as frozen treats go since all they are is ice cream on a stick with a chocolate shell. What makes them especially fun to eat, however, is their distinctive circular shape. This copycat recipe retains the roundness. You'll be using store-bought ice cream but letting it soften (without melting) and spreading it in a flat layer and using a cookie cutter to make circles. Add popsicle sticks, dip the ice cream in melted chocolate, then stash the bars in the freezer until you want to sample your DIY DQ treats.

Recipe: Copycat Dairy Queen Dilly Bars

Making risotto the traditional way can be a very labor-intensive process. Add liquid to the rice, stir, and cook until it's absorbed, then repeat, repeat, repeat ad infinitum. Lots and lots of time on your feet in front of a hot stove, exactly what you don't need after a long day's work. This shortcut risotto, though, only requires about 10 minutes of stove-top time as most of the liquid is absorbed while it bakes in the oven. This technique may be simple, but it works! And yes, you can freeze the leftover risotto and just heat it up in the microwave when you want it again.

Recipe: Easy Baked Risotto Recipe

"Easy as pie" is a phrase that's always struck us as somewhat of an oxymoron – with most pies, the process isn't exactly what you might call effortless. That's not the case with this quick pie, though, as it starts with store-bought crust and the filling is made from pudding from a boxed mix. To finish things off, you'll be using pre-whipped dairy topping from an aerosol can or a tub. Can't get much simpler than that! There's no need to worry about eating it within any specific time frame, either, as long as you keep this pie in the freezer.

Recipe: Chocolate Lover's Pudding Pie

While each year brings out a new batch of must-have kitchen gadgets, we're fans of the good old crock pot, an appliance that's as convenient as it is unglamorous. Slow and steady, it will cook your honey and garlic-sauced chicken to perfection and keep it warm until you want it. After you've eaten your meal, freeze the leftovers in serving-size microwaveable containers, then make use of that other indispensable appliance to heat them up again.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken

Fresh peach cobbler is a wonderful thing, true, but it's one you can only enjoy when stone fruits are in season. What's more, there's all that peeling, slicing, and stirring together the biscuit dough to make the topping. This quickie cobbler, however, is more like a dump cake. Pour canned peaches into a pan, top with a box of cake mix, then cover the cake mix with pats of butter. Bake it, eat it, and freeze the leftovers; it doesn't get much easier than that.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Peach Cobbler Recipe

Arroz con pollo simply means "chicken and rice" in Spanish, but this recipe involves a bit more than just those two named ingredients. The chicken and rice are cooked in a sauce made from tomatoes and white wine and flavored with onions, crushed red pepper, and other spices, and the dish is finished off with a few cups of peas. You'll get 8 hearty servings from the pot, but once you're done eating, you can always freeze the leftovers and zap them back to life later in your marvelous microwave.

Recipe: Arroz Con Pollo

These no-bake cookies get their flavor from Nutella, as their name implies (although you could always use a generic chocolate-hazelnut spread in place of the brand name one), but they get their bulk from rolled oats so you'll actually get some fiber when you eat them. The recipe also calls for almond milk, although the cookies aren't vegan since they contain butter, and Nutella itself is made with milk powder. This means that you can sub in dairy milk if you don't have the almond kind on hand. If the cookies aren't going to be eaten right away, you can also store them in the freezer to help them keep their shape.

Recipe: Easy No Bake Nutella Cookies Recipe

The McDonald's McRib sandwich is the perfect example of a planned scarcity ad campaign – McDonald's builds demand by publicizing the fact that the sandwich will only be around for a "limited time," although it always seems to be back before you know it. Still, if you're a fan of this sometimes-elusive sandwich, you can just say no to manipulative marketing by learning to make your own. In fact, if you keep a batch of the faux-rib pork patties on hand in the freezer, you'll be able to make yourself a DIY McRib every time Mickey D's pulls this item off the menu for the umpteenth time.

Recipe: Copycat McDonald's McRib

Are artisanal ice cream sandwiches a thing yet? If not, you could always start the trend. These homemade ones start off with fresh-baked chocolate cookies, but when it comes to adding the ice cream filling, that's where you can really let your imagination run wild. Use peppermint or pumpkin, mint chip or mochi, or any other kind of ice cream you like, and maybe even mix in chopped cookies, candies, or cake crumbs to further customize your creations.

Recipe: Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

While cake and ice cream is a classic combo, it's also one that requires a plate, fork, and spoon and must be eaten while sitting at a table to avoid making a mess. Ice cream that includes cake batter, however, is a double-duty delight and a popular Coldstone Creamery creation. If you're not in the vicinity of this ice cream establishment and you happen to have your own ice cream maker, you can always try your hand at this DIY version. The ice cream itself is made from scratch, but at least the cake batter comes from a box mix to save you a little time.

Recipe: Copycat Cold Stone Creamery Cake Batter Ice Cream

Carne asado may have a Spanish name, but it's been influenced by Chinese and Filipino cooking. While the history of the dish may be difficult to piece together, that's not true of this recipe. It's a fairly simple preparation in which chunks of pork are spiced, simmered, then seasoned with lime juice and cilantro. The resulting meat can be used in tacos, burritos, rice bowls, and many other applications and you can always store it in the freezer until you decide how you're going to put it to use.

Recipe: Easy Pork Asado

We often think of gingerbread as being a winter holidays-only flavor, and gingerbread people are featured on greeting cards, wrapping paper, and Christmas decorations. The actual ginger cookie flavor, however, is something that can be enjoyed year-round in the form of ginger snaps, cookies that are as seasonally appropriate in the summertime as when there's snow on the ground. This holds true for this ginger cookie-flavored ice cream, as well, and it would also go great on top of a slice of pumpkin pie when fall rolls around

Recipe: Gingerbread Ice Cream

During those dark days in recent history when most restaurants had to shut their doors, some brave souls still ventured out to work the drive-thru windows at the few chain restaurants still open for business. Many customers lined up to place their orders and enjoy a little taste of normality in a world gone mad, but others figured out how to recreate some of their fast food favorites at home. The McMuffin, as they found out, isn't too difficult to duplicate in your own kitchen, and it's still worth doing even now that most of us are out and about once more. As a money-saving quick breakfast hack, make up a whole batch of these sausage/egg breakfast sandwiches, freeze them, then heat them back up with just 60 seconds in the microwave.

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin With Egg

Haupia, a frozen treat from Hawaii, is a pudding made from coconut milk (the kind from a can) and thickened with arrowroot powder. Instead of being scooped up with a spoon, though, haupia is cut into squares that can be eaten straight out of the freezer plain or with a fruit topping. If you do want something soft enough to eat with a fork, though, you can keep haupia in the refrigerator where it will have a more pudding-like consistency.

Recipe: Authentic Hawaiian Haupia

Salmon patties, not to be confused with Krabby Patties, are a Depression-era dish that dates back to the days when canned salmon was dirt cheap. It's not all that inexpensive these days, to be sure, but in this recipe, a single large can of the stuff is expanded with breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, and other ingredients to make eight small patties. Serve them on slider buns with a few sides and you may be able to get three or four servings out of a batch, not bad for a budget-stretcher.

Recipe: Easy Salmon Patties

"Squid Game" may no longer be on the air – or perhaps it's back for another season, depending on when you read this – but dalgona candy is a Korean treat that predates the show and can still be enjoyed even when it's no longer trending on TikTok. The candy is made with nothing more than sugar and baking soda, although some caution must be employed in melting the former to make sure it doesn't crystallize or even burn. The baking soda is used to aerate the sugar, which gives the candy its honeycomb-like texture, while the cute designs come courtesy of cookie cutters.

Recipe: Copycat Squid Game Dalgona Candy

While the word barbecue typically tends to imply a meat-heavy meal, barbecue sauce can actually make a great way to sneak some "stealth veggies" into a casserole and entice meat lovers to eat them. This dish is made with chicken and cheese in addition to the barbecue sauce, but healthy sweet potatoes form the starchy casserole base and there are also onions and bell peppers in the mix. If you're the always-prepared type, and/or you like to be the good neighbor who always has food on hand for a community crisis, this is a great casserole to keep in the freezer. Not only is it likely to please a wide range of recipients, but it also makes for a fairly healthy meal you can feel good about sharing.

Recipe: Veggie-Packed Barbecue Casserole

If the thought of a fresh apple turnover is tempting but futzing around with pie crust sounds like a pain, have we got the recipe for you! The hardest part of making it is to peel and slice the apples, and you can probably even skip the peeling step and just call the dish "rustic." When it comes to the turnover casings, all you'll need to do is thaw out some frozen puff pastry, fold it into triangles around the apple filling, then brush it with a beaten egg. While these turnovers are best when fresh out of the oven, you can freeze them before baking and just heat up one at a time when you're in the mood for dessert or a treat to have with your morning coffee.

Recipe: Easy Apple Turnovers

These bean burritos, while they are inspired by the ones served at Taco Bell, have nothing about them that just screams "fast food." They consist of refried beans, sauteed onions, and shredded cheese wrapped in flour tortillas and can make for a relatively healthy meat-free entrée, especially if they're paired with something green like a salad (or perhaps guacamole). The burritos can also be frozen to make for a quick meal option as just popping them in the microwave will take them from their cryogenic state straight to your plate.

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Copycat Taco Bell Bean Burrito

Dessert for breakfast? Well, maybe on a special occasion – and any occasion on which you stir chocolate chips into your pancake batter is bound to be pretty special. While these chocolate-enhanced pancakes are shown with regular pancake syrup in the photo, you could also replace the syrup with a squirt of whipped cream or a sprinkle of powdered sugar or even double down on the chocolate by using Hershey's syrup instead.

Recipe: Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes Recipe

Back in the 19th century, Brunswick stew may have been prepared in a large iron cauldron over an open flame. Well, times have changed, and so has this stew. For one thing, it's more likely to be made with leftover rotisserie chicken and a tub of store-bought pulled pork than with whatever unfortunate critters wandered within shooting range. With this recipe, we're making the stew even more modern by using the ever-popular Instant Pot, a favorite appliance of the early 21st century. Once cooked, this stew can also be eaten at a later date thanks to the marvels of modern food-freezing technology.

Recipe: Instant Pot Brunswick Stew

While the phrase pina colada typically refers to a cocktail made from pineapple juice, coconut cream, and rum, the literal translation of the words is "strained pineapple" and quite often pina colada-flavored desserts omit the rum and just focus on the tropical fruit flavor combo. Such is the case with these pina colada popsicles made from canned pineapple chunks, canned coconut milk, and sweetened shredded coconut. They come together in minutes, plus a little time in the freezer, and this recipe makes about 10 frozen treats.

Recipe: Pina Colada Popsicles

Smothered steak? Why so violent? If you'd prefer gentler terminology, you can instead think of this steak as being comfortably blanketed in a tasty onion gravy. After you've browned the steak and vegetables, this dish cooks up nice and easy in the crockpot, then it's back to the stovetop to make the sauce once the meat is done cooking. Should you have leftovers, you can always freeze them, gravy and all.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Smothered Steak

If you want to celebrate the arrival of autumn with a seasonally appropriate breakfast while also adding a little extra fiber to your diet, then pumpkin waffles are what you should be making. Flavor them with pumpkin pie spice and top them with butter and syrup, or omit that particular seasoning and make savory waffle sandwiches with turkey and cranberry sauce or carnitas and pepitas. While you're at it, whip up an extra batch of waffles, too, so you can store them in the freezer and reheat them in the toaster as a pumpkiny alternative to your morning Eggo.

Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Waffles

Marinara sauce is an amazing topping for spaghetti. Just add some parmesan cheese and maybe a side salad and some garlic bread and you'll have a magnificent meal that can be ready in mere minutes, especially if you've made your marinara in advance. Marinara can also be put to good use in other pasta dishes or used as a pizza sauce and you can even stir in a generous helping of chili powder to transform it into enchilada sauce. As versatile as this sauce is, you may want to keep some on hand in the freezer at all times.

Recipe: Fast Marinara Sauce

If there's any part of a meal that should always be fun, that would be the dessert course, and what could be more fun than super-sized foods? Take, for example, this enormous ice cream sandwich, which is meant to be sliced up like a pie unless you've got an appetite to rival that of the late, great Andre the Giant. While this mega-cookiewich might seem like one of Aldi's more whimsical special offers, it's actually something you can easily make at home with a couple of rolls of refrigerated cookie dough and several cartons of ice cream. If you'd like to gild the lily, you can even add a layer of Nutella as the recipe developer did, or you could always mix in your own favorite ice cream toppings instead.

Recipe: Giant Ice Cream Sandwich That Supersizes Dessert Time

Long before people started adding bacon to cookies, milkshakes, and chocolate bars, many of us already had an inkling that this salty substance works well with sweet flavors. After all, who hasn't poured syrup all over their pancakes only to have a side of bacon wind up in a puddle of the stuff? For a similar, if less-messy flavor experience, you can also bake your bacon with a sprinkling of brown sugar. Once it's cooked, you can keep your brown sugar bacon in the freezer to have on hand whenever you'd like to add some salty/sweet bacony goodness to BLTs, burgers, salads, and, yes, milkshakes.

Recipe: Crispy Brown Sugar Bacon

While Panera advertises a Fresh Baked Goods Feast, if you order soup, it's more likely you're actually eating frozen. Nothing wrong with that if the soup still tastes good, but it is kind of pricey for something that's just freshly thawed. For a cheaper, fresher version, try making your own broccoli cheddar soup from this copycat recipe. If you don't eat it all in one sitting, you, too, can freeze the leftovers, and they will probably taste even more Panera-like once you reheat them.

Recipe: Copycat Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup

If you want to bake a fresh peach pie, then you'll need to do so when these fruits are in season. Unlike certain fruits like apples and strawberries, stone fruits may not be available in the supermarket every day of the year. When it comes to eating fresh peach pie, though, you can do that in the middle of winter as long as you've had a little foresight. Bake the pie in summer, freeze it, then eat it any time you want to reminisce about warmer days or look forward to the ones that lie ahead.

Recipe: Fresh Peach Pie

If you've never tried making pasta from scratch, it may be because you envision it as a complex process that requires all manner of special equipment. Well, there's no pasta machine necessary if the pasta you're making is gnocchi. While the potato dough does take some time to make and shape, the whole process can be done by hand. Cooked gnocchi should be eaten right away, but you can store the uncooked ones in the freezer until you plan to use them.

Recipe: Potato Gnocchi

If you've ever been to a fair, festival, sporting event, or another venue where there was a concessionaire selling cinnamon-roasted nuts, you'll know that the only thing more amazing than their scent is the flavor when you eat them warm out of the paper cone. There's no need to wait for a special event to taste these delicious nuts once more, though. To make them at home, all you'll need is a bag of nuts, some cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla to season them with, and the secret ingredient: an egg white that helps those seasonings to stick. While these nuts are best straight out of the oven if you want to eat them as a snack, you can also save them in the freezer for use in cooking or on salads.

Recipe: Easy Cinnamon-Glazed Pecans

When you need to make dinner in a hurry, there's nothing like a good stir fry as long as you have the ingredients on hand or are prepared to improvise if you don't. For this quick chicken recipe, you can swap out the vegetables if you need to, and even use peanuts in place of the cashews. If you're into meal prepping or simply happen to have leftovers, you may be glad to know that this dish freezes wonderfully and can be reheated in the microwave for an even speedier dinner at a later date.

Recipe: 15-Minute Cashew Chicken

While many lasagna recipes call for ground beef, sausage, or even pepperoni, meat need not be an integral part of the dish. At its most basic, all a good lasagna really needs is the layers of noodles, marinara sauce, and cheeses (ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan). With this recipe, however, we're adding an extra element that not only adds flavor but packs a pretty powerful nutritional punch: spinach. As with most lasagnas, this dish can be frozen either before or after you cook it, whole or in single serve portions.

Recipe: Easy Spinach Lasagna

Tom Brady, the football player who may or may not be retired on any given Sunday, seems to be carving out a post-playing career in the nutrition field. One of his best-known recipes is a cream-free, sugar-free ice cream substitute made from cashews, coconut, cacao powder, and mashed avocados that is meant to be a nutritious alternative to everyone's favorite frozen dessert. Our avocado ice pops are just as healthy as Brady's ice cream, but are both sweeter and creamier as the mashed vegetables are blended with yogurt and honey. We've also added some fresh lime juice to boost the flavor a bit, too.

Recipe: Avocado Ice Pops

Instant Pots, like slow cookers, really excel at cooking soups. One advantage the former appliance offers over the latter is that the soups can be prepared more quickly, and the chicken broth in this recipe should be done in about an hour and a half in addition to the amount of time it takes for the pot to heat up. Once the broth is done, store it in the freezer until you need it for a sauce, soup, or other recipes.

Recipe: Instant Pot Chicken Broth

Macaroni and cheese made with elbow mac and neon-orange powder is anything but fancy. If you swap those ingredients for long, flat noodles and parmesan, though, then you've upgraded your mac 'n' cheese into something that merits a more highfalutin name: fettuccine Alfredo. The one downside to this dish (or to mac 'n' cheese, for that matter) is that noodles in cream sauce tend not to freeze well, so this doesn't bode well for the leftovers if you mix all of the sauce and fettuccine together. What you can do, however, is to keep the sauce and the fettuccine separate until you fix your individual plate. That way, any unused sauce can be frozen and later thawed out to top fresh pasta.

Recipe: Easy Fettuccine Alfredo

Wheaties may claim to be the breakfast of champions, but the breakfast of Le Champion - superstar wrestler Chris Jericho - comes from Cracker Barrel. On an episode of "Fast Foodies," he disclosed that his favorite chain restaurant meal is their Momma's Pancake Breakfast with fried apples. The show's own chefs did their best to recreate those apples, along with the pancakes, sausage, and eggs, but we're pretty sure Y2J would appreciate our copycat version, as well. (Pro wrestler tip: try pairing it with "a little bit of the bubbly.")

Recipe: Copycat Cracker Barrel Fried Apples

Pork and cabbage are a dynamic duo well-known in Eastern European cuisine, but they've been known to pair up in Asian dishes, as well. In this instance, these two old friends are meeting up in the filling of gyoza, the crescent-shaped Japanese dumplings. These dumplings hold up well in the freezer, but you're going to want to lay them out on a pan or plate for the initial freezing. That way, when you transfer them into a Ziploc bag or other airtight container, they won't stick together and can be separated easily when you want to heat them up again.

Recipe: Savory Fried Pork And Cabbage Gyoza

Granola bars are meant to provide a healthy option for snacking on the go, but store-bought ones are often full of sugar and other undesirable additives. While more nutritious options are available, these often tend to be very expensive and have a flavor somewhat reminiscent of nibbling on a block of wood. These homemade granola bars, however, are not only good for you, but also taste good, too, with ingredients including almonds, coconut, nut butter, honey, and rolled oats.

Recipe: Easy Granola Bars

One of the hardest parts about cooking a lasagna is trying to work with those floppy noodles – or, indeed, to get them out of the cooking water without tearing them. This lasagna, however, makes use of no-cook noodles to make for easier layering. It also uses store-bought sauce, and if you want to hit the shortcut trifecta, you can even go with pre-shredded mozzarella instead of shredding your own. (As Paris Hilton shares in the inaugural episode of her cooking show, box graters are just "so brutal.") Once you've gone through the hassle of cooking the lasagna, however, you can portion it out in single-size freezer containers and just zap it back to life the next time you get hungry.

Recipe: Easy Lasagna

Three-ingredient cookies that are actually cookie-like? We don't blame you if you're skeptical, as many recipes with a similar gimmick turn out to be made with oddball ingredients and/or come out with some kind of strange texture that's only vaguely cookie-like. These sugar cookies, however, are just cookies paired down to the basics: flour, sugar, and butter, which really are all you need to make a batch of great-tasting cookies minus fluff and fillers such as flavoring extracts, spices, and mix-ins. Plus, if you're practicing portion control, you'll be glad to know these cookies can be kept in the freezer so you can eat them as slowly as you please.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Sugar Cookies

The type of mole sauce that many of us are familiar with comes from Mexico and is made from a number of ingredients including, interestingly enough, chocolate. Make no mistake, though, this sauce isn't the kind of thing you'd want to use to top your ice cream, as it's not at all sweet but instead 100% savory. You can use mole on chicken, or you might also like it in various Mexican dishes such as enchiladas, burritos, or nachos. If you're undecided on what to do with your mole, though, you can always freeze it until you figure something out.

Recipe: Authentic Mole

If you're a fan of superfoods, you're probably going to love these chocolate quinoa bites since they include not only the named grain but also the equally trendy goji berries. According to the internet, these amazing ingredients do everything but boost your credit score (or maybe even that, who knows). They do, however, taste better if you combine them with melted chocolate, and if you go with the high-cacao kind, you'll have a superfood trifecta. These candies were meant to be eaten cold, so you can just keep them in the freezer until you're in the mood for a super-healthy snack.

Recipe: Chocolate Quinoa Bites