From meat macaroni, to mac and cheese, to lasagna, comforting pasta dishes are popular with the whole family on weeknights. To get a little ahead on your meal prep, here are some tips to know what you can make a few days earlier and what you can (or can’t) freeze for later.

Prepare time-consuming dishes

Pasta dishes are usually quite quick to make and you can often prepare the recipe’s ingredients while the pasta cooks. These dishes are usually much better served on the day of. But if you want to cook in batches, choose dishes that require several steps, such as lasagna or pastitsio, to really save time, and without losing taste and texture!

Follow the rules for freezing pasta

Not all pasta dishes freeze easily. Once thawed, pasta tends to become grainy and crumbly. Certain things must be done beforehand so that a pasta dish is still at its best once reheated.

1. So that pasta doesn’t dry out and doesn’t get freezer burn, it must be well coated with sauce.
2. Make sure the pasta is very compact in your freezer dish so that as little surface as possible is in contact with air.
3. Avoid cream- or egg-based sauces, such as Alfredo sauce or pasta carbonara. It risks separating.
4. Tomato-based sauces like spaghetti sauces and bolognese sauces tolerate freezing very well, as do sauces made from braised meats.
5. Freeze individual portions that will thaw much faster, whether for lunches or quick dinners.
6. Do not freeze pasta that does not contain sauce, such as pasta with garlic and oil or pasta with pesto, for example.

Bet on the sauce

Since pasta only takes about 10 minutes to cook, it’s best to cook it at the last minute and simply add your sauce. In your batch cooking session, prepare large amounts of sauce that you can separate into jars and freeze. Sauces of choice are those that take a long time to cook, such as Burgundy sauces based on red wine, braised meat sauces or tomato sauces.