Pantry Challenge: 8 Easy Freezer Clear-out Meal Ideas

3. Orzo meat sauce, roasted veggies, and breadsticks

For tonight's dinner, I'm trying to clean out the fridge and pantry. We already had one lone potato, so we are adding that with some carrots, broccoli, and onion, and we're just going to roast them all in the oven to go along with our orzo meat sauce dinner.

I had just enough orzo to make this recipe since there was a little bag in the pantry that was just hanging out. We also had some already cooked ground beef that was in my freezer. So we're just heating it up and adding the new ingredients.

While we let this simmer and get all the flavors together, I am going to look in my freezer to see what bread options we have that we could do as a side.

I got these breadsticks at my friend's bakery outlet. And we're just going to heat those up, and then we're going to add the cream cheese into the orzo pasta to thicken it up a little bit. And once that is thick, we will go ahead and dish it up.

4. Korean beef bowls

I wanted to use up some more of the frozen pre-cooked ground beef that I had in my freezer. Plus, we had all the ingredients on hand for Korean beef bowls and one more head of broccoli that needed to get used up.

So we're going to steam that broccoli, heat up the meat in the microwave just so that it's not completely frozen anymore, and then we will start making the sauce.

We also had some pre-cooked rice in the fridge that needed to get used up. So we're going to heat that up and serve this along with the broccoli.

5. Beef ravioli and breadsticks

For tonight’s freezer challenge, we are going to use the rest of the breadsticks, and we have a few bags of ravioli.

So we're going to grab one of those, some frozen corn, some ground beef that's also in the freezer, and a jar of pasta sauce to make some ravioli with breadsticks and corn on the side.

I just heated up the breadsticks in the oven, had the ravioli cooking on the stove, and got the corn cooking in the microwave. And this came together so fast.

6. Instant Pot chicken

We are going to cook this whole chicken that I had defrosted in the fridge as part of the freezer clean out.

It was taking up quite a bit of space. So let's cook this up in the Instant Pot with a bundle of spices. And then we're going to have a nice farro and veggie salad on the side.

I roasted my veggies in the air fryer at 360 degrees for about eight minutes. And then I shook them around, put them back in there for another couple of minutes until they were crispy, and then served them alongside the chicken. This was super good.

8. Barbecue chicken sandwiches

I have some Buffalo Wild Wings barbecue sauce that I got on clearance. And I figured along with the buns that I have in the freezer and the leftover chicken that I had from the chicken dinner we made last night, we would make some barbecue chicken sandwiches.

This meal came together in less than 10 minutes, and it was really good. I just let these buns sit out on the counter for a little bit, so that they wouldn't be frozen anymore.

And once they were ready to go and the chicken was done, we just put it together and had our chicken sandwiches and corn. Super easy dinner, but also really tasty.

Freezer, fridge, and pantry challenge

And that’s a wrap on my latest freezer, fridge, and pantry challenge.

If you have certain things that you keep on hand all the time so you can make quick and easy pantry meals, share them down below. I'd love to hear what you keep stocked in your kitchen.