Food Ideas to Freeze for When Baby Arrives

I will frequently buy 5-10 lbs of ground beef at a time and cook it all up... I then put the cooked/drained ground beef in freezer bags in meal size portions and put it in the freezer.

While it isn't a fully ready made meal, it DOES make meal prep much easier to just pull out a bag of ground beef already cooked and ready for soup, casserole, sloppy joes, etc......

I also will boil up a couple of chickens when they are cheap and take the meat off the carcass, cut into proper size (or shred), and freeze in 2-3 C amounts... again, makes meal prep so much quicker!

Start grilling, chicken, meat patties, pork chops,hot dogs, sausages( yes even Italian)..all of these freeze great.

Enchiladas freeze great.
Spaghetti sauce
Sliced honey baked ham in small packages.

Black beans, pinto beans freeze well.

Hamburger buns, hot dog buns, tortilla flour or corn all freeze great.

Shredded cheese freezes well

Keep rice, potatoes and fresh fruits and veggies available to steam in the microwave . We do not do well with frozen produce, we purchase it fesh weekly along with our milk and loaves of bread.

http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cookin...

If you have a slow cooker, this site has several recipes you can toss in a ziplock baggie... then just dump them in the crock pot in the morning, and it's ready for dinner. :)

I often double my batch of pancakes/waffles/french toast and freeze the left overs. Then just pop them in the toaster and they'll crisp up nicely. I actually froze cooked bacon once (I had no need for bacon but needed to use it up), and it turned out great after a few seconds in the microwave. Some soups don't freeze the best, especially if there is a lot of cream in them, so you may want to try some test runs now before making bigger batches. Muffins; a little search online will give you ideas on freezing cooked and uncooked muffins. Load them up with fresh berries that are on sale now so you can feel like it's somewhat healthy. You may want to make a batch of bran muffins and eat one a day after you've had a vaginal delivery. If it's just you and hubby, consider how many leftovers you can eat. You may want to buy smaller disposable aluminum pans at the Dollar Store to divide recipes into smaller portions. Google "freezer crockpot meals." That should pull up enough options to get some good meals going. You could also make up ziploc baggies with ingredients for a smoothie, so you'll only need to add milk. Also, be sure to have extras of staples in the freezer, like extra loaves of bread/cheese/deli meat... You can even do things like prep meatballs and freeze them for a variety of meals. Maybe you can ask some close friends/family to get involved and help you fill your freezer. Not that they'd help pay, but chopping/cooking/freezing takes a lot of time.

Congrats on the new baby's arrival! I'm at 25 weeks and already excited to get a new deep freezer so I can really stock up before baby #2 arrives. Last time I didn't and we ordered in way too much!

Laurie A. had some great ideas! I was going to say spaghetti sauce too. The next things that come to mind are meatloaf, chili, and shredded chicken ( left overs from a roasted chicken). Most soups freeze well. I'm not a big casserole person, but a casserole with egg noodles, ham and veggies might might be good.
Congratulations! And best wishes to you and your family :)

I made a tator tot casserole (my husband's favorite) and just waited to put the tator tots on top right before I baked it. I also browned hamburger and froze it in containers so that I could easily put chili in the crockpot and things like that. I made a big pan of lasagna. I really wish I would start doing that now - it was really nice to have meals to fall back on right after the baby came!

Hi AF, congrats on the soon to be addition! I have been finding freezer to crockpot recipes online and have copied and pasted a ton into word documents. If you, or anyone else, wants them, just message me your email and I'll send them to you. I'm going to start doing this next week with my 12 yo. Good luck!

Lentil soup is wonderfully comforting--goes great with bread or rice. Actually as Laurie said, pretty much any soup will freeze well (unless it's dairy-based). Quiche freezes well too--make a variety of fillings. Make batches of bean dips, such as houmous, black bean, navy bean, etc, and freeze them in small containers to take out when you need. Whole-grain bread (which can be stored in the freezer too!) and a nourishing bean dip is a major comfort food for me, and it's very healthy.

For sprucing up meals, you might want to stock a good variety of frozen vegetables; you can take out the amount you need from a bag and heat them up quickly. It'll make the meal more appealing if you have something besides the main dish (at least it does for me).

Good luck!

Chicken noodle soup, potato soup, really most soups freeze well. I have made homemade pizza (i prefer fresh ingredients over the packaged) and frozen it. I used to have a food saver system that was wonderful for preventing freezer burn, not sure i would do the pizza without something like this though. shredded chicken freezes well and can be used for many things that are quick.

You can freeze shredded meats to make meals. There are lots of things you can make. Tacos, stews, soups, over rice etc.

Sorry that's all I got :)