As I get older I find myself wanting less food at dinner time. I don't get satisfied with a salad only or cold food.

I have thinking maybe when I cook a whole chicken that I vacuum wrap and freeze 1/2 of the bird.

What I don't know is how well cooked meats freeze with the idea to thaw and warm up for another dinner.

Other then precooking and freezing correct portions are there any other strategies for small dinner meals?

Do you sous vide? If so, prepping everything and freezing what you won't eat is a great way to have stuff ready for meals throughout the week. You can simply take the frozen bags of food from the freezer to the water and not even worry about thawing ahead of time.

That seems to be the road I am going down.

So if you grill a chicken and freeze it. Do you cook the chicken most of the way or all of the way. My thought is more cooking will occur if u heat it up in a warm water bath. Also is there any neat that cook/freeze/reheat doesn't work out so much?

Everything is better when cooked in a bag in hot water...

FYI: jk. Seems perfect for this scenario.

Yes, you can freeze already cooked meats. Buy a mess of breasts, grill, freeze what you want for next week.

Soups are good for small meals and freeze well. Casseroles, lasagna, roasts, meat loaf, etc can all make small meals and will freeze well.

You could also go the other way with it and weigh/portion your meat and then freeze individual servings to cook later. Another option is to portion out a piece of meat and do different things with it over the week. Buy a whole chicken and split it in half, roast a half one day, later in the week smoke the other or make soup, etc. I like having some leftovers for lunch but my wife isn't big on leftovers so I like to keep them to maybe a one additional meal level.

I love using pork shoulder for all kinds of meals but those are massive so depending on the size when I get them from Costco I'll split it into 3 or 4 pieces and then freeze them. This will also cut down on waste, I hate throwing food away. If you do this you can try some different recipes instead of doing one large meal and eating it over and over.

We often get a huge pack of chicken thighs and grill them all then vacuum seal and freeze them in portion sizes for us.
Or, I'll buy a package of meat, cook what I want and freeze the rest in portions just right for cooking the next time. This is more what I do with beef.
We also make stuffed meatballs in large batches, freeze them on trays, then vacuum seal them in numbers of a size for the family to eat. They thaw over the course of a day in the fridge.
And I'd second the sous vide option. Seal it, cook it, freeze it all in the same portioned bag. Also good for heating up something you've frozen.

When you cook something, then cool it, then reheat it, you need to sometimes reheat it to higher temperatures than initially cooked in order for the food to be safe to consume. In my opinion, I'd rather portion the food out before cooking, freeze it, then cook it later. This can be inconvenient, but less so if you can do it sous vide.

Feel free to tell this to my wife, however, who reheats rice all the time. Your mileage may vary.

Cook and vacuum seal/freeze, then reheat with warm or boiling water next time you eat. I do this all the time with brisket, pork loin, etc. - no noticeable difference to me in taste or texture of the food and I've yet to have an issue with overcooking it, even if I've spaced out and let it sit in the pot reheating longer than I really should have.

FCBlitz said:

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As I get older I find myself wanting less food at dinner time. I don't get satisfied with a salad only or cold food.

I have thinking maybe when I cook a whole chicken that I vacuum wrap and freeze 1/2 of the bird.

What I don't know is how well cooked meats freeze with the idea to thaw and warm up for another dinner.

Other then precooking and freezing correct portions are there any other strategies for small dinner meals?

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Switch to game hens?