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One of the best things I did to prepare for Noah’s birth was to put meals in the freezer to pull out when needed. I was blessed with my mom’s help after the birth, as well as my mother-in-law’s, and church ladies brought food, but my own freezer meals were nice to pull out during the in-between times, or on occasions a month or two later when we were just not having a great day and didn’t have time to make supper! Knowing how handy those freezer meals turned out to be, I resolved to do some meal prep this time around as well.
This post isn’t an exhaustive list of what’s in my freezer – just a smattering of things I made recently. Unless Baby comes in the next few days I hope to make some snacky stuff next! Check out the bottom of this post for some other freezer meal and make-ahead snack suggestions.
Please note that the following meal ideas are not all THM friendly. As I mentioned in my most recent life update post, in this stage of life where I’m usually pregnant or nursing and trying to keep things quick and easy, I do shoot for healthy food but I’m not stressing the details. Regardless of what sort of diet you implement, I hope that some of these flavor combinations will inspire you…or amuse you at the very least.
I’m not the sort of person to commit to a full day of prepping meals for the freezer. I’ve found that I prefer to just make a big batch of something for dinner and put half in the freezer for later. However, on this particular occasion I was doing multiple things at once, resulting in the chaos pictured above. Our rental house has kind of a small kitchen and I quickly run out of counter space, especially when there are large pans of food sitting around! Normally I try to be a neat cook, but sometimes it feels easier to just pile everything in the sink and do one giant clean-up later.
TIP: make sure you rinse things out and soak dishes as you go. The cleanup goes so much faster if stuff isn’t dried on! I also find it helpful to chuck all the silverware and utensils into a big (already dirty) bowl with some water so they’re not hiding here, there, and everywhere and falling down the drain while I’m trying to load the dishwasher.
Cheesy Beef Enchiladas
On this day I made a gigantic batch of the cheesy beef enchiladas from Hope’s Table. (This is a newish cookbook filled with traditional Mennonite cooking. It’s not THM, but I pull it out a lot for fellowship meals and company. And some things like salad dressings and main dishes can easily be adapted.) I made them recently for a fellowship meal and Ryan loved them so much that he requested I make some for him to take to work to share. I also knew of a family with a new baby who could use a meal, so I made enough for the hospital, that family, and a pan for our own freezer.
These are definitely not THM, but they could be adapted. I used low carb tortillas to make ours, and you could top with plain cheese instead of a flour-thickened cheese sauce. You could also try using the cheese sauce from my mac and cheese recipe.
Spinach Lasagna
That same day I made spinach lasagna for our dinner + a pan for the freezer. This is a simple recipe my mom concocted, probably very similar to Trim Healthy Mama’s Lazy Lasagna.
Only me being me, I didn’t do this exactly like the recipe. I had recently seen a video touting the wonders of using lentils and mushrooms to replace part of the meat in a lasagna or something similar, so I decided to try it. For two 9×13 pans of lasagna I used only 1 pound of sausage and then cooked down lentils (only all I could find at Aldi were dried green peas which are NOT the same thing and had their drawbacks) and mushrooms and various other veggies in tomato sauce to use in my spinach lasagna.
It worked. Sort of. Would have been better with lentils. The green peas are a little larger and don’t break down as well and I think they have a stronger flavor than lentils do. Live and learn. Definitely a concept I would experiment with more in future though.
TIP: freeze your spinach first, then let it thaw completely and squeeze out as much liquid as possible before using it in the lasagna. This helps with the watery nature of veggie lasagnas.
Also, cottage cheese works great in lasagna and adds a nice protein boost!
I don’t think there was anything about this that wasn’t THM friendly, but it would be a crossover due to the combination of carbs (lentils/dried peas) and fats (sausage, cheese).
Yes, that’s play dough on the floor. Real life, folks. Also, I find it helpful to make a note on the freezer meal if it’s supposed to be served with something else from the freezer – in this case, Spanish rice.
Refried Bean Enchiladas
These were very simple. I can’t remember what all I threw into the filling, but probably…
- canned refried beans
- diced onion and green pepper
- canned chipotle peppers in adobo (chopped)
- salsa
- seasonings
I wrapped this up in low carb tortillas. Yes, there are a lot of those in this post. They make fast and family friendly freezable fare.
I think I made a quick topping with some sour cream and adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers (which made these enchiladas a little too spicy for the children and borderline spicy for me) and spread it over the top. Topped that with some pepper jack cheese.
Will I be able to eat this kind of thing while nursing? That remains to be seen. Ryan loved them at least. I can always heat up some soup for myself if beans and spice don’t agree with Baby. I have quite a bit of soup in the freezer.
Again, I think these were basically THM friendly but a crossover.
Spanish Rice
I made this to go with the refried bean enchiladas. I did use white rice because I have been loving white rice during this pregnancy. I still use brown rice most often, but once in awhile I treat myself. 😉 Again, I’m not sure what all went into this but I think I toasted the rice in a pan in some olive oil before adding Mexican seasonings, onion and green pepper, tomato sauce or leftover marinara that needed to be used, and water or chicken broth for the rest of the liquid. Cooked until the rice was tender and the liquid absorbed. The bottom got pretty toasty if I recall correctly, but those crispy rice bits are the best part.
Made with brown rice this would be a THM E if keeping the oil to a small amount and using water or fat free chicken broth. Without as much oil you lose some of the charm of Spanish rice, though.
Kale & Tortellini Soup
OK, so pasta is something I am NOT tempted with. At all. But Ryan brought a leftover unopened container of Italian tortellini pasta salad home from work and I wanted to make use of it somehow, so soup made sense. The pasta salad had sundried tomatoes and kale and parmesan cheese and an Italian dressing on it. I fleshed it out with some broth and cream and mushrooms and who knows what all else that needed to be used up from the fridge. Turned out pretty good!
Not THM, although you could do something similar with chickpea pasta.
Samosa Veggie Patties (and “Enchiladas”)
I wrote about these in my spring life update post after giving an update on where I’m at with THM and the types of foods we eat regularly, so I’ll let you check it out there instead of repeating myself.
Chicken Leg Quarters with Sweet Potatoes
I use a lot of bone-in chicken these days because it’s cheap and you get all the added collagen/gelatin from the skin and bones free of charge. In this case I dumped 8 chicken leg quarters in my biggest roaster and topped with the remainder of a jar of sauerkraut, a can of pineapple rings in juice, and a bunch of a seasoning blend that my sis-in-law gave me for a hostess gift. On top of the chicken I laid thick chunks of sweet potato and a bunch of peeled carrots. Baked until the chicken was done.
Half of this went into a pan for the freezer and we ate on the other half for many days. The children really liked the chicken! Hadassah loves sweet potatoes mashed with butter, salt, and pepper. Noah, not so much. He prefers salad (which he will literally eat by the fistful) or raw veggies, or green beans.
The chicken released a lot of juice, and after refrigeration that broth set up so firm from all the natural gelatin that I couldn’t bear to throw the leftovers away. I used it to cook some lentils to go with the samosa patties above – real lentils this time.
All of this would be THM friendly, minus the pineapple juice from the can (which seems like a waste of perfectly good pineapple juice). Probably a crossover from the dark meat chicken (fats) combined with the carbs from the pineapple, sweet potatoes, and carrots.
Other Freezer Meal Ideas
TIP: most things freeze pretty well. Dairy can get kind of watery once thawed. Starches like rice or pasta can go kind of mushy. Baked goods get a little more dried out. I’m not that picky in the postpartum season…haha.
Not for the freezer, but I will definitely be making an extra batch of my staple homemade granola!
What are your ideas?
Have you done freezer meal prep? What are your family’s favorite meals that freeze well? Do you have a favorite energy or protein bar recipe? Comment below and share so we can all get some ideas!
Check out my cookbooks for tons of family friendly recipes!
Abigail says
I loving having food in the freezer for after Baby comes! I’ve done a number of the ideas you mentioned, plus pizza/pizza crust, cookies, marinated chicken, etc. Cooked meats (burger, chicken, etc.) are great too since it’s easy to cook some rice and veggies, put it in a wrap, or add to a soup or salad.
Congratulations on your coming little one!
I enjoy reading your posts! Thanks for taking time to write them! As a Mom of three young children, I know life can be very busy with more important things than writing posts for us to read. 🙂
Briana Thomas Burkholder says
Those are great ideas! That reminds me of a great gift that a lady at our church in Ohio gave us after Noah was born: several quart bags of already-cooked hamburger and sausage. Having meat already prepped makes throwing something together a breeze!
Linda says
Love all your photos of the little ones. Happiness with your new baby. Have all your cookbooks. Like you are venturing out of THM a little. Looking forward to seeing your next email.
Vanessa says
I froze soooo many meals for my May 2020baby as I knew there wouldn’t be a meal train due to covid. I froze a lot fewer for my 23′ baby, but they were so helpful I did do some, but more soups as she was a fall baby. Breakfasts were frozen protein egg muffins, pancakes, regular muffins, bananna/ pumpkin/apple breads. Lots of breakfast rice, or rice pudding from leftover rice.
“Dump” meals in gallon freezer bags for the crockpot that need noodles or rice on the side included a couple of meals each of chicken con queso, crack chicken, broccoli beef, Italian chicken, chicken parmesan, beefy spaghetti sauce, garlic & lemon chicken, stroganoff, chicken teriyaki, chicken fried rice, cranberry chicken.
Pre assembled dishes like meatloaf, enchiladas, meatballs, lasagna, salmon patties, burgers, ham & cheese potato bake, baked ziti, tatertot casserole, tuna noodle casserole or meatzza
Briana Thomas Burkholder says
Thanks for all the great ideas!! Wow – you were super prepared!