Plan my cook day

Mac and Cheese for the freezer, sized for your family

It’s 6pm, the kids are hungry, and tonight’s dinner is already made. You cooked the leek mac and cheese in one big batch and froze it in containers, one dinner to each. Move a container to the fridge the night before, and that’s dinner.

Makes
4 portions
On the night
Nothing to cook
A portion
About 876 kcal
Plan my cook day

One afternoon of batch cooking, weeks of dinners.

Mac and Cheese

How to make it

Make it all ahead for the freezer.

Leek mac and cheese

Make ahead and freeze

Ingredients for 4 portions

Method

Prep and pasta

  1. Boil the kettle.
  2. Pour the boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, add a good pinch of salt and bring back to the boil.
  3. Halve leek lengthways, wash, then slice 5 mm thick. Peel and dice shallot into 1 cm pieces. Halve cherry tomato.
  4. Grate extra mature cheddar cheese for the sauce and extra mature cheddar cheese for the topping, and keep them apart.
  5. Boil pasta (macaroni) for 6 minutes until almost tender, then drain and divide between your containers, one meal to each.

Cheese sauce

  1. While the pasta cooks, melt salted butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the leek and shallot and fry for 6 minutes until soft.
  2. Stir in plain flour and cook for 1 minute.
  3. Gradually whisk in whole milk, then simmer for 3 minutes, stirring, until it thickens.
  4. Take off the heat and stir in the cheese for the sauce, dijon mustard and creme fraiche. Crumble in vegetable stock cube and season with black pepper.

Top and bake

  1. Mix panko breadcrumbs with olive oil and the cheese for the topping.
  2. Pour the sauce over the pasta in each container and stir to coat.
  3. Scatter over the breadcrumb mix and the halved tomatoes.

To eat now

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.
  2. Bake for 15 minutes until golden and bubbling.
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Nutrition

Per portion, leek mac and cheese
Energy
876 kcal
Fat
44.9g
Carbohydrate
81.8g
Protein
29.9g
Nutrition details
Energy
876 kcal
Fat
44.9g
of which saturates
26.5g
Carbohydrate
81.8g
of which sugars
16.5g
Fibre
6.4g
Protein
29.9g
Salt
1.9g

Estimated from ingredient data.

How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety

Mac and Cheese with leek mac and cheese Leek mac and cheese, made ahead and frozen. Leek mac andcheese
Make ahead and freeze

How it comes together

Ready for the freezer

  1. Make the leek mac and cheese

  2. Let it cool.

    “cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  3. Leek mac and cheese. Put the lid on the container.

  4. Label each container with the dish and the date.

No special kit. The leek mac and cheese works best in foil trays with lids. Any freezer-safe container does the job too.

Ready to eat

  1. The night before, move the leek mac and cheese to the fridge.

    “the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  2. Leek mac and cheese. Heat it in the oven until it’s steaming hot all the way through and golden.

    “it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed”, says the Food Standards Agency.

Nomstash plans the rest

  • Everything from one shop

    The food and the foil trays with lids on one shopping list, with an estimated cost before you go.

  • Sized for your family

    Say who’s eating and every container holds the right amount, growing as the children do.

  • No more UFOs

    Unidentified Frozen Objects, as the Food Standards Agency calls them. Each container says what’s inside and the day you made it.

  • A reminder the night before

    Nomstash tells you which container to move to the fridge for tomorrow’s dinner.

Plan my cook day

  • Already keep a freezer spreadsheet?

    Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.

    Bring in my freezer list

Make it a cook day

Add two or three more dishes to the same afternoon, and one shop covers the lot.

Batch cooking: cook once, eat all month

Freezing and defrosting safely

The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.

Sources

  1. Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
  2. Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk

Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.

Make mac and Cheese your first batch.

Nomstash plans the shop, sizes every container and reminds you the night before. Nomstash is in beta.

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