- 1
Before you start
Pick things that freeze without sulking
Stews, chillis, curries, ragù, braised beans, rice dishes with fat in them. All fine. Anything built on a crisp texture is not: roast potatoes come out of a freezer soft, and a dressed salad comes out as soup.
Dairy sauces split when frozen and come back together when reheated slowly, which is fine at home and awkward at a desk. If the meal is for a work microwave, keep the cream out and add it at the end.
- 2
Hour one
Double the pot, not the number of pots
One large braise, one tray of grain, one tray of roast vegetables. Cooking two completely different meals takes twice as long and produces the same ten dishes. Cooking one meal twice as large takes about twenty minutes longer.
The variety comes later, from what you add at the point of eating. The same braise is a different dinner over rice, over polenta, or in a bowl with a spoon of yoghurt.
- 3
Hour two, first half
Cool it properly before it goes anywhere
Hot food in a sealed container steams itself, and the condensation that forms is what makes a reheated meal watery. It is also the fastest way to warm the whole fridge.
Spread it out, leave the lids off, give it half an hour on the counter. A shallow glass dish loses heat much faster than a deep one, which is the practical argument for the flat rectangular shape over a tub.
- 4
Hour two, second half
Freeze flat, stack later
Fill to about three quarters. Food expands as it freezes, and a dish filled to the brim will push its own lid off overnight or, with glass, put a strain on the walls that no dish should be asked to take.
Lay them flat in a single layer until solid, then stack. Stacking while still liquid is how you end up with two dishes frozen to each other and a lid that will not come off.
- 5
The night before
Move one dish down a shelf
Frozen to fridge overnight, fridge to microwave at lunch. A dish thawed in the fridge reheats evenly and needs about two minutes. A dish taken straight from the freezer needs eight, and the outside will be boiling before the middle is warm.
Borosilicate glass handles the temperature change, but it handles it better with a gentler gradient. Take the lid off first. A sealed lid in a microwave builds pressure and that is how a lid stops sealing forever.
