Guide to Postpartum Freezer Meals: 10 Things You Need to Know About Preparing Meals for Baby Season
Postpartum freezer meals are a lifesaver when it comes to feeding yourself and your family during the newborn weeks. Nourishing a baby (while running on minimal sleep) requires a lot of calories, and having healthy freezer meals and other foods prepared means you can focus more energy on recovering and snuggling your little one (and feel more like a human being in the process!)!
By the time I had my fourth baby last year, I’d learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t when preparing freezer meals for a new baby. From gathering the right supplies to learning how to save brain space to fitting extra cooking into the schedule and more, these tips and tricks allowed me to go about a month into postpartum without cooking hardly at all—and all with hardly any extra effort during pregnancy (because that takes a lot of effort, too!).
I hope these tips help you as you prepare to meet your sweet little one!
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How Many Postpartum Meals Should I Make?
Everyone is different, but preparing 1-2 weeks worth of postpartum meals—or about 7-14 dishes—is a good goal. If it’s your first baby and you have friends and family providing a meal train, 5 meals may be plenty. If you don’t have a good community and/or have other young children, you may want to aim for 3-4 weeks worth of meals.
Everyone is different, but I’ve found it takes about 6 weeks after a new baby to get into a good routine. With my fourth, we had 4 kids 5 and under, and it was totally worth it to spend a little extra time preparing beforehand in order to not have to think about dinner for weeks afterward.
I had 15 meals ready in the freezer, and with our church and family generously sharing some meals with us as well, we had a good month to get into the swing of things before I had to set aside time for cooking dinner
Especially if it’s your first baby, it’s difficult to really know what the postpartum season will be like until you get into it. If you can start planning early, you can make the season much easier, and your future self will thank you!
And if you don’t have much time left, don’t worry! Check out the list (especially #5) for some other ideas on how to make feeding yourself and your family easier with a new baby around.
Tips for Preparing Postpartum Freezer Meals
1. Start Planning Months in Advance
The weeks before a baby comes can go QUICK, and I’ve found that planning for a new little one is much easier when it’s started months in advance! For each baby, I’ve kept a list of what needs to be done and scheduled it out in the last 3ish months before the due date. Buying any items needed, making any necessary medical decisions, moving bedrooms or car seats around, and making freezer meals!
Start by going through your meals and listing any that would work well for the freezer, or search around online for postpartum freezer meal ideas that look good!
(If you don’t have months left, that’s okay! Even if you only have a couple of weeks left to prepare, you can still stock your freezer with lots of meals in a minimal amount of time. See #3 below!)
2. Gather Supplies
Keep must-have tools on hand so you can freeze a meal at a moment’s notice. My must-haves for preparing freezer foods include:
- 9×13 disposable pans. If you want to avoid aluminum, many thrift stores sell glass pans for just a couple of dollars apiece. I always snatch these up when I can and use them first!
- 8×8 disposable pans (for smaller servings or couples), disposable loaf pans (for meatloaf and breads), and disposable pie pans (I like using these for pot pies).
- Wide mouth quart Mason jars. These are perfect for soups, stocks, and broths.
- Aluminum foil, for covering pans.
- Black sharpies. The thick ones tend to work best on aluminum, and be sure to get black instead of a light color!
Tip: Write baking instructions directly on your foil so you don’t have to spend time searching through recipes to find out how hot or how long to cook a meal. You’ll thank yourself later!
3. Double Meals You’re Already Making
You do NOT have to set aside multiple Saturdays in order to fill your freezer with delicious meals for postpartum! If you’re like me and spending a whole day cooking sounds less than ideal, don’t worry!
If you start doubling just one meal per week that you’re already making around the beginning of your third trimester, you’ll have 12 freezer meals ready by the time your baby is born. Or do two per week, and you’ll have 24 meals! (Another way to get more meals is to triple a meal when it’s easy instead of only doubling it.)
I’ve found that doubling a meal I’m already making usually only takes maybe 10-15 extra minutes, instead of the 30-60 minutes it would take to make that meal simply for freezer use at another time. Plus, it hardly takes any brain space (and might even save money) to just buy double the ingredients that you’d need for a single batch.
Setting aside one, two, or three entire days for filling your freezer with 12+ meals (plus all the planning that goes into it!) can feel exhausting.
But if you have all your supplies ready (see step #2 above!), spending 10 extra minutes per week to double a meal is hardly noticeable.
4. Choose Meals That Reheat Well (& That Your Family Likes!)
Having a freezer full of some of your family’s least favorite meals is kind of the worst. Sure, frozen food isn’t always as exciting as juicy grilled chicken and fresh corn on the cob, but it’s worth it to try to find meals that you and your family are at least excited about.
Some of the best meals to reheat include casseroles, soups, and pot pies.
If you prefer foods that are more fresh, you could also cook a bunch of marinated chicken, cut it into bite size pieces, and freeze it in bags for things like chicken salads or burrito bowls.
5. You Don’t Have to Make Them All
You can easily increase your prepared postpartum meals without any extra work by adding your family’s favorite, easy pre-made dishes from the grocery store to your list of postpartum dinners.
For example, we love Costco’s grass-fed hamburger patties! They take 10 minutes to cook and you can easily make a meal with some buns and frozen veggies.
Meals like this area great option for week 3 or 4 when you have the capacity to make a couple of extra dishes, but not enough time yet to cook a whole meal.
Or, choose dishes that only require a little bit of prep. For example, we like frozen meatballs with homemade sauce, so making a big batch of sauce ahead of time and freezing it into smaller portions makes a really quick meal.
You can even make seasonings ahead of time to make baked or grilled meats super easy. I like making a big batch of chicken thigh seasoning, so all I have to do is thaw the chicken, throw it in a pan, sprinkle it with premade seasoning, and bake.
The trick is adding all your ideas to your postpartum list (see #7) ahead of time so you don’t have to worry about coming up with meals on the fly (perhaps in the midst of a fussy baby and energetic toddler, and messy house, while running on minimal sleep).
6. Gather Easy Sides (think about season too)
Once you’ve made a list of meals to freeze, it’s helpful to stock up on easy sides that can mix and match with your freezer dinners. I like gathering sides that are easy to store and freeze and can go with many different meals. Things that don’t take many dishes to make or serve are also a bonus.
Some ideas include:
- Frozen veggies
- Easy-to-bake vegetables that store well (such as squash and baked potatoes)
- Applesauce or canned fruit
- Rice or quinoa
- Pasta
- Bread (I like freezing sourdough loaves in bulk to have on hand)
7. Write It Down (You’ll Need the Brain Space!)
This one and #3 are my biggest hacks for postpartum prep. I didn’t start making a detailed list of my postpartum meals until baby #4, and it saved me so much brain space in an already super busy season of life. Totally recommend.
What do I mean by a detailed list?
Instead of simply packing your freezer or keeping a general list of what you have (i.e. lasagna, chicken noodle soup, meatballs, etc.), write down exactly what meals you have on hand (and how many) as well as what sides you plan to serve with them and if there’s anything else you need to buy in order to complete the meal.
Here’s how my list looked:
Of course, you’re not married to the sides you wrote down possibly months before you’ll eat the meal, but the idea is there if you need it, and you don’t have to rack your thinking about what you should serve in the midst of the newborn days.
I also tried to write down any toppings I’d need to complete the meal. For example, I had a pan of frozen chicken quesadillas (second to bottom on the list above), but would need a tub of sour cream to go with them.
Writing down your meal plan for every meal means that each week of postpartum, you can quickly make a meal plan for the week and only have to buy a select few items that aren’t already in your freezer—with hardly any thought required.
8. Make Large Enough Batches to Have Leftovers
If you’re a family who eats dinner leftovers for lunch the next day (like we are!), be sure to make large enough meals that you don’t have to think about lunch for the postpartum weeks.
(And if you’re not a leftover family, you might consider trying it in this season of life!)
9. Don’t Forget About Breakfast (& Snacks)
In addition to freezer lunches and dinners, a little preparation for breakfast and snacks can go a long way.
I like to stock up on large batches of homemade granola and yogurt, homemade frozen hashbrowns, breakfast casseroles and egg muffins for the freezer, and easy, nourishing snacks like 10-minute date energy bars and healthy oat and apple muffins.
Whether you make or buy snacks and breakfast foods, having and preparing a list of options in advance will go a long way in keeping you and your family nourished and feeling good through the newborn daze.
10. Create a General Pickup Order for Staples
An extra tip to make life easy on yourself is to create a simple shopping list wherever you get groceries so that you can quickly make a grocery pickup order during week 2 or 4 or even 6.
Walmart (and I’m sure other grocery stores) lets you make personalized lists for easy ordering.
Add all your staples to your list so you (or your husband, mom, sister, friend…) can do a quick pickup without much extra thought.
Add milk, fruit, coffee, bread, or whatever items you need on a weekly basis, so all you have to do it add any extras like salad or sour cream for your weekly pre-made meals.
FAQs on Postpartum Freezer Meals
What’s the best way to store postpartum freezer meals?
Aluminum casserole dishes are perfect for storing frozen casseroles and meatloafs. Top with aluminum foil and use a permanent marker to label the dish and add baking instructions. Soups store well in glass jars—just be sure to leave 1-2″ for expansion so they don’t burst.
Favorite aluminum pans on Amazon:
- 9×13 disposable pans
- 8×8 disposable pans
- disposable loaf pans (great for meatloaf)
- disposable pie pans (great for pot pies)
How many weeks should you meal prep for postpartum?
Around the beginning of the third trimester (28 weeks) is a great time to start prepping postpartum freezer meals. Most women still have fairly good energy and plenty of time to stock up meals before the baby arrives. If you double and freeze one extra meal per week, you can have a good store of options ready in the freezer.
How long should a postpartum meal train be?
2-4 weeks tends to be a good amount of time for a postpartum meal train. Scheduling meals 3-4 days per week can be a big help to a family with a newborn, while more than this sometimes feels overbearing and tends to pack the fridge with leftovers.
