Postpartum Meals That Freeze Easily & Are Delicious And Nutritious should be in your lineup if you want to stay well-fed after delivering your baby! These meals are quick to make and will be satisfying when you’ve done so much hard work. Treat yourself to these meals, and desserts too! Recipes included!
Why Postpartum Meals that Freeze Easily & Are Delicious and Nutritious?
Mothers need to be mothered after giving birth too! So, while I will have help from my mom, I made some freezer meals to enjoy after delivery. The amount of nutrition needed to grow a baby is the same level for delivering and caring for the baby after. Whether breastfeeding or using formula, you still need all the energy you can get, mama!
Freezing meals in advance will help ease this requirement. There are many wonderful people in this world; if you know any, reach out and ask for help!
Important Factors in Postpartum Diet… and During Pregnancy
When making meals ahead of time to spend more time adapting to motherhood, remember to choose foods that are bioavailable for the body to absorb. Some things to think about when meal prepping for postpartum are:
- Animal proteins for easy absorption/ bioavailability, not plant proteins which restrict nutrient absorption.
- Collagen-rich foods such as slow-cooked meats and daily collagen powder
- Gelatin-Gummies to restore connective tissue
- Foods rich in DHA, such as Lamb
- Natural Sugars and carbs for energy
- Real Salt for minerals and vitamins
- Calcium from dairy such as raw milk, cheese, and yogurt
Essentially, this way of eating should be firmly established during the early stages of pregnancy. These foods all develop healthy mamas and healthy growing babies!
Postpartum Meals that Freeze Easily & Are Delicious and Nutritious:
1. Lamb Stew Soup.
This soup is easy to make because it doesn’t require hands-on cooking. Lamb is a great option to eat post-partum and during pregnancy. Click here for more information on how to raise sheep for meat!
Here are simple instructions to make the most nutritious lamb stew soup:
- Saute onions and garlic till light brown in the Dutch Oven or pot
- Add lamb stew meat to the Dutch oven so that the lamb turns light brown as well
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Pour water over the browned lamb, onions, and garlic
- Turn the heat to medium-high until the water boils
- Reduce heat to low and let it cook on the stove for 3 hours or until the internal temp is 160 F.
- While it is cooking, peel and cut potatoes and add to the stew
- Add tomatoes and cilantro for optional flavor
- Pour into a glass container and freeze
DHA In LAMB and Why It is Vital in Pregnancy and Postpartum
Lamb has a lot of DHA that helps build a baby’s brain health!
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation is recommended for women during pregnancy because of its neurological, visual, and cognitive effects.1 It is also shown to reduce pregnancy complications such as:
- Preeclampsia (PE)
- Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)
- Preterm birth (PT)
- Intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR)
- Postpartum depression (PPD)
2. Beef Liver Pot Pie
This delicious pot pie is packed with nutrients and yet so tasty. The sneaky liver is unnoticeable and will benefit a postpartum body very quickly.
Here are the instructions on how to make this dish:
- Prepare your pie crust using my Flaky Pie Crust Recipe.
- Cook your ground beef in a cast iron or stainless steel pan with onions and garlic
- Add in the cut liver pieces and let them cook
- Steam your choice of veggies and add them to the beef and beef liver mixture
- The choices for Add-Ins are plentiful. Add potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, etc.
- Cover the beef pot pie with the second half of the pie crust and secure the edges by pressing them together
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 F, or until the pie crust is golden brown
Beef Liver Benefits Why It is Vital in Pregnancy and Postpartum
Beef liver and chicken liver contain essential nutrients your body needs to grow a fetus. From early on in pregnancy, your baby needs folate to develop the brain and spine. “There are 328 micrograms (mcg) of folate in 4 ounces of raw beef liver.”2
High amounts of protein are needed too. “One 4-ounce serving of beef liver has 6 mg of the 27 mg of daily iron you need during pregnancy. The same amount of chicken liver has even more iron – 10 mg according to the USDA’s food database! Not only that, but the liver contains a type of iron called heme iron (iron from animal sources, like meat and eggs) that is easily absorbed by your body.”3
The only risk with eating beef liver is the amount of Vitamin A. There is a warning not to overeat because of Vit A toxicity. This was shown to be from mothers taking too many supplemental vitamins regularly. Vitamin A is essential for the development of the fetus, so don’t skip the beef or chicken liver.
With this kind of nutrition level, prenatal pills are a waste of time and money. Eating whole foods during and after pregnancy is critical.
3. Egg Frittata
Another nutrient-dense meal is this Amazing Frittata Egg Dish. Eggs are easy to make, delicious, and satisfying for a quick breakfast. This dish requires little to no time to make and freezes well for that postpartum nourishment.
All you need is 6 eggs, cream, and add-ins of your choice for flavor. Click here for the full recipe.
The Benefits of Eggs During Pregnancy and Postpartum
Eggs are powerhouses full of protein, choline, DHA, folate, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B12, selenium, and iodine. Don’t skip out on those pasture-raised eggs. Click here for more recipes that use a lot of eggs.
Because I have backyard chickens, I ate eggs every day of my pregnancy with my first baby! Learn how you can raise chickens for this reason as well.
Eggs have all 9 essential amino acids, therefore, I recommend eating eggs throughout pregnancy, and postpartum to help with breastmilk composition. One egg contains 20% of a nursing mother’s daily choline needs. “Evidence is mounting about the benefits of eggs for child nutrition and potential benefits for women during pregnancy and birth outcomes. Maternal consumption of eggs during lactation may also enhance the breast-milk composition of certain nutrients, thus contributing to the nutrition and potentially also to the development of breastfed children.”4
4. Steak or Lamb Chops with White Rice
Raising this lamb from start to finish has been the best thing I have ever done. It was perfect timing to have my two sheep processed while I was pregnant so that I could feed my growing baby in my womb with perfect nutrition. They were processed Feb. 2024, and we are eating the meat 5 months later. A perk of raising your sheep for meat is that you know how they were raised, treated, and what they were fed. I am so happy to be enjoying the fruits of my labor and sharing them with my family and friends.
Cooking steak or lamb chops is fast and easy. Add garlic and butter as your staples, with rosemary for flavor. Also note that anytime you eat protein, you must pair it with a carb to digest the protein well. I like white rice as my side with these meats, or organic pasta!
Benefits of Red Meat During Pregnancy and Postpartum
If you can get local, grass-fed ruminant meats like lamb or beef, this would be the most beneficial protein you can eat while pregnant and postpartum.
During pregnancy and after, your body goes through so much, that providing the right
- proteins
- amino acids
- folic acid
- iron
- vitamins like B12 and B9
- and healthy fats
For this reason, meat is the perfect food, containing high biological value proteins with all the essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals and good fats that are used to support the child’s growth and development. These include all B vitamins, especially vitamins B12 and B9, and folic acid, which are important for forming red blood cells, the nervous system and the proper development of the foetus’s spinal cord. The requirement of vitamin B12 in pregnancy increases up to 2.6 µg per day, and that of folic acid increases from 400 to 600 μg per day to allow normal development of the baby and avoid affecting the maternal reserves.
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Postpartum Desserts That Freeze Easily & Are Delicious And Nutritious:
More Postpartum Meals That Freeze Easily & Are Delicious And Nutritious include desserts too! Let’s not forget about the sweetness of life:
This Homemade Cherry Pie 🍒 🥧 will remind you of summer fun and give you the energy you need to take care of the beautiful new baby!
A Blueberry French Toast Dish with warm maple syrup will be a great way to start your day as a new momma!
Try making this Coconut Birthday Cake and freezing it for that special day of delivery. Singing them Happy Birthday 🎂 for the first time will be a special celebration.
Postpartum Lunches That Freeze Easily & Are Delicious And Nutritious:
Some easy meals may seem unhealthy, but with simple swaps that can be turned into a healthy postpartum meal. Some examples are enchiladas and pizza! 🍕
For starters, Sprouts sells beef pepperoni a better alternative to pork pepperoni. Using homemade pizza crust dough, real mozzarella, and organic tomato sauce, you can’t go wrong in making this simple, yet yummy dish.
Enchiladas are excellent for flavor…and by adding steak in there, you can have a decent amount of protein with cheesy goodness on top. I made these green enchiladas with this organic sauce to make things easier.
Happy Postpartum!
Let me know in the comments if you tried any of these recommendations or recipes. I would love to know if this has helped new mothers like me prepare for their postpartum journey.
- Jiang, Y., Chen, Y., Wei, L. et al. DHA supplementation and pregnancy complications. J Transl Med 21, 394 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-023-04239-8 ↩︎
- Mishan, Meredith. “Eating Liver During Pregnancy: Should You?” Nourishing Conception (2023). https://nourishingconception.com/eating-liver-during-pregnancy-should-you/ ↩︎
- Mishan, Meredith. “Eating Liver During Pregnancy: Should You?” Nourishing Conception (2023). https://nourishingconception.com/eating-liver-during-pregnancy-should-you/ ↩︎
- Lutter, Chessa K et al. “The potential of a simple egg to improve maternal and child nutrition.” Maternal & child nutrition vol. 14 Suppl 3,Suppl 3 (2018): e12678. doi:10.1111/mcn.12678 ↩︎
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