I used to spend twelve dollars a day on lunch and tell myself it was cheaper than therapy. By Friday that was sixty dollars, and by the end of the year it was over three thousand dollars, which is a number I did not want to look at. I tried meal prep twice and quit both times because eating the same chicken and rice five days in a row made me want to cry. The freezer stockpile method fixed that.

Cook big, eat different

The problem with classic meal prep is monotony. The freezer method is different: cook a double batch of whatever you are already making for dinner and freeze half in single servings. Over a few weeks you build a stockpile of different meals, and lunch becomes picking from a menu instead of eating the same thing all week.

What freezes well and what does not

Learn the winners and losers early and you will not waste containers on regret:

• Freezes great: chili, soups, stews, pasta sauce, curry, shredded meat, casseroles, and rice dishes.
• Freezes okay: cooked chicken if it is in sauce, burritos, and dumplings.
• Freezes badly: lettuce, fried food, creamy sauces that split, and plain boiled potatoes.

My five dollar lunch formula

When I make dinner, I portion the extra into containers labeled with the name and date, and I freeze it the same night. A batch of chili for dinner gives me three lunches for about two dollars each. The occasional store rotisserie chicken becomes two days of shredded chicken bowls for less than the cost of one takeout sandwich.

The rules that keep it from failing

Three rules keep the stockpile from turning into a freezer full of science experiments. First, only freeze food you actually liked the first time. Second, label everything with a name and date. Third, eat from the stockpile one day a week minimum so it rotates instead of accumulating. I aim for four homemade lunches a week now, and the one takeout day feels like a treat instead of a habit.