We’re nearing the end of the ‘4th trimester’, and we recently ran out of our store of freezer meals, too. When it came to deciding what to make, I honestly had a bit of a difficult time. Todd and I are both quite picky, and freezer meals are more limited in what recipes are out there, so it’s hard to to find enough meals that we’d want to eat. While looking, I was also feeling a bit unhappy at the thought of preparing all new dishes––that I’d not had before––for us to survive off of for weeks. Then the thought hit me: why not find recipes we already enjoy, and freeze those? We did:
2 chicken & wild rice casseroles
2 chicken pot pies
2 chicken pesto puffs
2 sloppy joes
2 roasted vegetables
2 spinach & sausage quiches
Unfortunately, we did not prioritize meal-making, so we didn’t get meals made before baby arrived. It was actually okay for the first two weeks, but then Todd became a bit burned out, understandably.
Hot tip: prioritize it!
We did during my first pregnancy, and it was very useful. After Todd’s paternity leave, when my mom came out to help, she was kind enough to whip up everything. In the end, it took us about 3 weeks to get through the freezer meals (getting food from a restaurant once a week, and eating leftovers).
Having meals that we already knew and loved made things feel normal. Plus, we never had to wonder how a dinner would turn out.
When it comes to deciding what freezer meals to have on hand postpartum, I would suggest you pick meals you know you like, and are willing to eat a lot of. I’ve always been v e r y hungry breastfeeding, and can eat a t o n of food, especially those first couple of months. Going this route also makes prep simpler, because you can simply double or quadruple a recipe, instead of making 10 different meals.
Also, remember that the meals don’t have to be totally finished when you put them in the freezer. Our chicken pot pie, and chicken puffs required the addition of puff pastry. We didn’t freezer our quiche in a pie crust, but assembled it like normal after the filling thawed. For one of our vegetable meals, we blended the veg into soup, instead of roasting it. Just do the ‘heavy lifting’—the cooking, the mixing—and assembly and baking are usually pretty simple steps that anyone can do later.
That’s how we did freezer meals (thanks, again, Mom!), and it worked out well.
What are some of your favorite freezer meals?
