Preparing for postpartum and feeling a little overwhelmed about what to prepare for your freezer? Here’s what I’ve stocked my freezer with to make my life much easier once baby arrives.
As a food blogger, it’s no surprise that one of my favorite things to do is eat delicious food. Today, I’m sharing nutritious and delicious meals that I’ve prepared for once baby is here.
These recipes are super easy, and my goal is to have healthy and convenient options in the freezer that my husband can get on the table without a ton of effort.
You’ll find videos of me prepping these meals if you prefer seeing how easily it all comes together before giving it a go!
Postpartum Freezer Meal Tips
Before we get to the recipes, let’s go over a few tips to make postpartum meal prepping easier.
Think About Your Space
My style of prepping is a little different than what some of my friends have done. Instead of cooking everything, I only cooked a few meals. For my other meals, I’ve only prepped the ingredients to go in the freezer, so my husband can essentially add everything to a pot and cook.
I prepared my freezer meals this way to take the space of my freezer into consideration. By preparing the ingredients, I was able to prep 5 to 6 servings of the soup into one freezer-safe container instead of multiple smaller containers that’ll take up more space in the freezer.
Make sure you keep in mind just how much space you have and the containers you use, as you want to make sure they’re stackable to use the freezer space efficiently.
Label Everything!
I label my meal preps with the name and date they were made, so I can make sure to eat the oldest items first. I also like to add the reheating or cooking instructions to it (or on a sheet of paper taped to the freezer), so my husband can prepare the meals without having to ask for the instructions. You can get freezer tape and freezer markers to write on but I just used painter tape and a sharpie that I had on hand. Whatever gets the job done! Plus, my husband can simply refer to this blog post if anything rubs off in the freezer haha.
Consider Your Containers
Think about how many dishes you want to deal with postpartum. I used a mix of containers that are disposable and reusable. For recipes like pastas and lasagnas that I plan on reheating in the oven, I used disposable aluminum trays so I don’t have to worry about bringing glass to room temperature before placing in the freezer.
Consider Your Portion
Make sure you are portioning your freezer meals according to how you will be eating them! Since it’s just my husband and I, I portioned things like lasagna and pasta into 2 to 4 portions so we will be able to finish the meal in a day or two without getting sick of it. I use Souper Cubes and small aluminum trays as well as the meal prep containers from Ikea.
Postpartum Meal Prep Ideas
Breakfast Recipes
- Sheet Pan Eggs – these are freezer-friendly, so you can prepare them ahead of time to add to breakfast sandwiches or enjoy on their own with some fruit or bacon. Thaw overnight and reheat.
- Breakfast Sandwiches – I made some breakfast sandwiches with sausage patties (you can buy them pre-made or homemade!). You can also check out my breakfast sandwich post or copycat sausage egg and cheese mcmuffin post. You can thaw breakfast sandwiches overnight and reheat or reheat them from frozen in the oven.
- Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Bagel Sandwiches – you can thaw overnight and reheat or reheat from frozen in the oven.
- Cottage Cheese Egg Bites – these fluffy egg bites freeze and thaw well! Thaw overnight and reheat.
Soup Recipes
Like I mentioned earlier, I prep not just the meal itself but also ingredients! I like to make soup kits by prepping the ingredients and my husband can thaw and cook or cook directly from frozen.
There are store-bought versions I’ve spotted at H-Mart and similar grocery stores, but they require you to add your favorite toppings/add-ins. This method is pretty much the same, but with the toppings frozen, and you just have to add liquid!
We will serve these soups with jasmine rice and because we have a rice cooker, having freshly cooked rice is a hands-off process. If you don’t have a rice cooker and don’t want to bother babysitting a pot on the stovetop, you can freeze cooked rice and reheat from frozen.
- Pork Kimchi Stew – I doubled this recipe to make 2 soup kits and used cubed pork shoulder instead of pork belly. What I did was season the pork and put it in a ziploc bag so it could be thawed separately. That way, if my husband wants to cook the pork and then add the frozen veggies to the pot to simmer. I’m using large 3.1L (3qt) Ikea containers, but they’re a bit large and can hold twice the amount I put in (which is perfect if you have a larger family!). Each freezer soup kit also fits into 1.8L (61oz) Ikea container as well. My husband will either simmer with approximately 5 cups of water or anchovy stock.
- Soybean Stew – I doubled this recipe as well to make 2 soup kits. Instead of adding potatoes, I used taro as raw cubed potato pieces don’t freeze and thaw well, and the cooked taro’s texture is close. I also hold off on zucchini. If my husband wants some fresh zucchini to add to the soup, he can grab some from the store to add to the soup when it simmers. Again, it’ll be made with approximately 5 cups of water or stock.
- ABC Soup – I doubled this recipe and cooked it ahead of time to freeze. The potatoes are my favorite part of ABC soup, so I went with cooking the soup to ensure the texture holds up when thawed (compared to freezing raw potatoes). Plus, this recipe involves blanching the pork first, so it’s a bit more work to make this via a soup kit.
- Tofu Stew – I did a play off my sundubu ramen. To make two soup kits, you’ll mix together 2 pounds of ground pork, 2 tablespoons of gochugaru, 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of Korean fish sauce, and some salt and pepper to taste. You’ll also need to dice up 1 to 2 onions, 4 to 6 stalks of green onions, 2 tablespoons of minced garlic, 1 cup of aged kimchi, and 2 tubes of soft tofu.
Dinner Recipes
For these dinner recipes, I cook them in advance so they can just be thawed and reheated.
- Bulgogi (Korean BBQ Beef) – I doubled this recipe and cooked it so it can quickly be thawed and reheated in the microwave.
- Spicy Pork Stir Fry (Jeyuk Bokkeum) – I doubled this recipe as well and cooked it and it will be thawed and reheated like the bulgogi.
- Ravioli Lasagna – I baked them in these small aluminum trays so they can go straight into the oven to reheat! You can also bake them in your regular baking dish and cut it up and store in the trays if you prefer.
- Individual Freezer Tomato Pesto Beef Pasta – this one’s super easy to make with kitchen staples and I like that the pesto is a nice change in flavor than just regular tomato sauce for my freezer pasta meals.
That’s everything I’ve prepared for the freezer based on how much room I have available. I’m very lucky that I also have an upright freezer. I tried my best to prep what I thought I would be craving after the baby comes and would be too much effort to make in the moment.
If you are also prepping your freezer for postpartum, make sure you are being kind to yourself because I definitely was exhausted after preparing these freezer meals! I also stocked it with some of my favorite Costco pre-made items like Hampton House Spicy Crispy Chicken Breast, Ajinomoto Pork & Chicken Japanese Style Gyoza, TFF Siu Mai, etc to take additional pressure off my body to cook everything from scratch.
If you would like more ideas of recipes that would be perfect for your freezer postpartum, I have a whole category of freezer-friendly recipes ranging from breakfasts to dinners to desserts that you can pick and choose from!
Bonus: some of my favorite freezer-friendly desserts are my crunchy peanut butter cups, protein peanut butter cups, and chocolate covered raspberries. Enjoy!
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