Postpartum Freezer Meal Prep
Healthy and Easy Meal Prep Ideas
We are almost there! The countdown is almost running out and I’ve prepared almost everything that I can think of to get ready for our baby girl. The nursery is set up, the hospital bag is packed, the car seat is in the car and I also washed the last load of baby clothes. Now I have nothing else to do but to wait for her to decide to come, I decided to use this waiting time productively and prepare some meals for the first few weeks after coming home from the hospital.
I’ve heard from a lot of family/friends and I read in countless blogs and books that the first time with a newborn can get extremely hectic and there are so many new things that I’ll have to deal with. This won’t give me much time or energy to think about buying and cooking some healthy and nutritious meals. Living a healthy and balanced lifestyle is very important for me and thus, focusing on a clean low processed diet is one of the main ways to help me fulfill this type of lifestyle. I want to be best prepared for the first time with a baby even though I know that it is difficult to plan ahead every detail, but at least I will give my best and try.
Since I live in South Korea, it is actually very easy to rely on delivery food. The delivery system here is as far as I know the best in the world even before the Corona pandemic. Delivery services are extremely user-friendly, very fast and almost everything you can think of is available for delivery. The classics such as pizza and fried chicken but also soups, salads, sashimi, coffee, drinks, desserts, ice cream, groceries … This is all great news and I love to take advantage of this big offer on lazy weekends but usually, this type of food is highly processed, high in sugar and Korean meals are usually also low in fresh vegetables.
In this blog article, I am going to share with you some of the meal prep ideas that I put together. They mainly consist of whole foods, high nutrition, and no added sugars. I think these meal ideas are also a great option for everyone who likes to prep their food for a busy week and therefore are not only interesting for the postpartum period. For a more interactive view, you can also check out my YouTube video on “Nesting Vlog: Postpartum Freezer Meal Prep Before Baby” here.
Traditional Ragú alla Bolognese & Lentil Ragú (the vegan variation)
As probably most of you already know, in Italy you will not find the famous pasta with meatballs. However, a very popular Italian recipe is the Ragú alla Bolognese sauce which usually is referred to as pasta al ragú. It is a very easy sauce to make and freeze and can be used for pasta, and lasagne but also is very delicious eaten with tortillas. Also, the vegan variation with lentils instead of the meat is very easy to prepare and you can see how I prepared it in my YouTube video.
Self-made Hamburger
Hamburgers, if they are self-made with high-quality beef meat are also a very healthy food option that is very easily prepared in advance. They can be eaten with the bread or without with some vegetables on the side.
Italian Style Minestrone
The traditional Italian-style minestrone is a soup made of vegetables and sometimes with the addition of pasta, rice, or barley. It used to be one of my favorite dinner meals as a child during winter since it’s warming and provides a lot of energy. I decided not to make the soup itself since it is very quickly cooked but rather prepare, cut, and freeze all the vegetables in advance, as that is the part that takes up most of the time.
With the cut vegetables I will have also many options to prepare some other dishes such as a wok, curry, or stew by adding some beans, quinoa, couscous, or rice. All these recipes have the same base of vegetables and I can just experiment with different types of seasonings and flavors to have some nice variations.
