One of my favorite freezer cooking recipes is also one of the easiest–Smashed Potatoes. When I find potatoes on sale, I stock up, and then I use this really easy recipe to convert them into the perfect freezer side dish. Mashed potatoes go with about any meal, and freeze surprisingly well. My trick to making them super easy is to leave the peel on, and use the microwave to cook them, speeding the cooking process and eliminating some of the cleanup afterwards.

This is my recipe for mashed potatoes. I prefer to keep them simple, but you can add any flavorings or spices you like. You can even make mashed sweet potatoes with this technique. The one tip I’ll give is to never add sour cream to them before freezing–trust me, sour cream is not pretty when frozen. Save that for after thawing. I use evaporated milk in my recipe because it tastes like cream without all the fat, but you can use regular milk if that is what you have on hand. I prefer to leave the skins on in my mashed potatoes for a few reasons: one, it’s healthier. The majority of the potato’s vitamins are in the skin. Two, I like a chunky mashed potato, not the whipped kind. Three, well…to be honest, it’s a heck of a lot easier. And when I’m doing a Big Cook for the freezer, I’m all about the easiest method to great food.

• 5 lbs of baking potatoes
• 1 cup of evaporated milk 
• 2 tablespoons butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Divide the potatoes up into meal size portions, whatever that looks like for your family. For us that is three cups of mashed potatoes per meal, which I scoop into a plastic freezer container. It is now ready for the freezer! Each five pound bag of potatoes will yield me 8-10 meals of side dishes. It takes about an hour to complete, but only about twenty minutes is actual hands-on cooking time–the majority of the hour is spent with the potatoes “baking” in the microwave. To thaw for eating, simply remove from the freezer and warm on the stove or in the microwave for a few minutes. Super simple and a huge time saver!