Delicious Pantry and Freezer Cleanout Meal Ideas

Now that I have got everything out of the freezer, I am going to reorganize it using these amazing stackable bins from Amazon. I need to make sure I do not stack too much on top of them so I can easily access everything at any time.

First, I will group things together by category. I have all the smaller bread items on the top shelf, as well as some more loaves, a big pack of rolls and some pizza dough, which we will definitely need to keep in mind for upcoming dinners.

On the bottom shelf we have a ton of mozzarella and parmesan cheese, which could be great for a pizza night. We should get some pepperoni and some other toppings. I stacked the bread shelf on the cheese shelf, which works great for the space I have. You can stack all four of the shelves together, but I normally stack them in pairs for easier access.

In another bin I have all of the sausage, bacon and meatballs, and then a little stack of pizzas. I also have a miscellaneous bin for Go-Gurts, burritos, some chicken wings or thighs, drumsticks and green beans.

There is also a separate bin just for butter. Finally, there are a couple of big bags of tater tots and then some chicken breast.

I did pull out a roast out of this freezer that will be part of the meal plan, so I set it out to thaw. I also found some ground beef which I am going to use as part of the meal plan as well, so I have set it aside, too.

Now I am going to wipe out the bottom of the freezer without breaking off too much of the ice and put everything back in.

Here it is reorganized and looking a lot better. I can actually see what we have and now that I have reorganized my stackable bins I know what is on the bottom and I can easily pull these out and grab what we need.

On the top, I have the butter and the miscellaneous items in sliding bins, which is super convenient.

While cleaning this out, I made a list on my phone of the food items that we have. That way we can go ahead and plan some dinners for this week to use up some of the items that we have in our kitchen.

Now that we have gone through the pantry, fridge, and freezers, we are going to come up with a meal plan using things from all parts of my kitchen.

Of course, this will require me to get a few things at the grocery store, but the bulk is going to be the pantry staples and things we already have in the house.

We are not going to be planning anything for the 11th because we are having a Super Bowl party with some friends instead of dinner.

For Monday, I am going to go with something easy, so we will do some nachos and use tortilla chips, ground beef and cheese that we have that need to get used.

For Tuesday, we will make some chili with the leftover taco meat and that will be a good way to use up some of my frozen beans that I have.

And then on Wednesday, we could just do barbecue chicken in a crock pot with some of the buns that we have in the freezer. This will also help us use up the barbecue sauce because for whatever reason we have so many bottles of it.

For Thursday we will do some Hawaiian haystacks to use up some of our rice, some more of our frozen chicken, and also chow mein noodles, the crunchy ones that need to be used before they go stale. We will just have to buy a couple of things for this, like olives, bell peppers and maybe some other fresh toppings for that dinner.

On Friday we could do meatball subs to use up some of the bread that we found and the rest of our meatballs. We also have some frozen spaghetti sauce and cheese, which will go nicely.

We normally have dinner with my parents either on Saturday or on Sunday, so we will probably do a leftover day this Saturday, and on Sunday we will make roast and potatoes, and my parents will make some sort of side to go with it.

Pantry and freezer meals

With this meal plan, we will not have to get too much from the store, and there is definitely going to be a lot of progress in getting this freezer cleaned out.

I hope I have inspired you to take a look at your freezer and pantry and do some freezer and pantry meal planning, because this is such a great way to both save money and use up the things you already have and free up space in your kitchen for new food.

How often do you clean out your freezer and pantry? Do you plan your menu around it? Share in the comments!

Next, check out these 6 Fun and Affordable Dollar Tree Dessert Ideas.