Packed with flavour and made with 8 simple ingredients, you’ll love this Freezer Tomato Pesto Beef Pasta! Each batch makes 6 individual freezer pasta meals!
Freezer Meals For One
As I mentioned in another post, a friend of H recently got into a minor accident and to make things easier for him, I made a couple of my favourite freezer friendly pastas and sent them his way.
These individual freezer meals are great if you’re meal prepping for yourself, another person, or a family of two. I usually find that I can’t finish a full one by myself so I like to split one with H and reheat a couple of sides and call it a day if I’m too tired to cook.
Why You’ll Love this Freezer Pasta
- It’s easy to make: it really didn’t take me that long to make. It only takes 8 ingredients!
- They freeze so well: nothing freezes better than pasta! These individual pastas freezes so wonderfully. I usually have them within 4 months of being frozen.
- They’re simple to reheat: just into the oven they go, straight from frozen! No thawing needed.
- You can easily scale up: make a larger batch for more individual pastas or get a larger container so you can get 2-4 servings per lasagna.
What You’ll Need For These Freezer Pastas
For the pastas, I froze mine in aluminum pans as to make it easier for him to reheat directly in and not have to wash dishes/return anything to me. The exact measurements of the pans I used are 6.6 inches x 4.6 inches x 1.7 inches. I couldn’t find the exact ones online but here’s the closest one I saw on Amazon.
- beef
- salt
- onion
- garlic
- pesto
- crushed tomato
- pasta – I used rigatoni pasta but you’re welcomed to use whatever you prefer.
- shredded cheese – I used a mix of mozzarella and cheddar. You can use whatever you prefer.
How To Make Freezer Tomato Pesto Beef Pasta
- On medium-high heat, in a non-stick skillet, add in the ground beef.
- Let the meat brown on one side, before seasoning with salt and breaking up the beef into smaller pieces with a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Add in the onion and garlic and saute until soften.
- Add in the pesto and can of crushed tomatoes.
- Stir to combine and let simmer while you bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta.
- Check the pasta box to see how long to cook until al dente and cook for 1 minute less than that.
- When done, drain the pasta and combine it with the meat sauce.
- Once combined, portion out the pasta into the individual containers, I layer cheese in the middle and on top.
- Let cool before covering and storing in the freezer.
- If eating immediately, bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.
How to Cook This Pasta from Frozen
Here’s how to reheat these individual pastas for one from frozen:
- Heat oven to 350F.
- Cover the top of the pan with foil to prevent the cheese from burning.
- Bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove the tin foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the middle has heated through.
Tips
- While I didn’t write the date of these freezer meals (as he was only getting 2 batches on the same day), I recommend you write down the dates, especially if you have many freezer meals you want to rotate through.
- Don’t over fill the pasta containers as it’ll be difficult stacking it in the freezer.
Recipe Variations
- Swap out the rigatoni pasta for another pasta of your choice.
- Ground beef can be swapped for ground pork, chicken, turkey, or a meat-less option such as lentils.
- Add some red chili flakes to add some heat to it.
- You can use fresh herbs or dried herbs for the meat sauce if you’d like but try to not overpower the pesto flavour.
Freezer Tomato Pesto Beef Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 lb beef
- 1 tsp salt, or more to taste
- 1 sweet onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups pesto
- 28 oz crushed tomato
- 4 cups rigatoni pasta
- 2-3 cups shredded cheese, or more
Instructions
- On medium-high heat, in a non-stick skillet, add in the ground beef.
- Let the meat brown on one side, before seasoning with salt and breaking up the beef into smaller pieces with a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Add in the onion and garlic and saute until soften.
- Add in the pesto and can of crushed tomatoes.
- Stir to combine and let simmer while you bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta.
- Check the pasta box to see how long to cook until al dente and cook for 1 minute less than that.
- When done, drain the pasta and combine it with the meat sauce.
- Once combined, portion out the pasta into the individual containers, I layer cheese in the middle and on top.
- Let cool before covering and storing in the freezer.
- If eating immediately, bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.
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