The Secret to Easy Postpartum Freezer Prep: A System, Not a Sprint
The rhythms I use in Efficient Kitchen started when my second was 8 months old and made this my easiest postpartum yet.
In case you missed it, I had a baby towards the end of 2025. The birth of my second child prompted the method that I have used since for Efficient Kitchen. He was only 8 months old when I started meal prepping and planning every week and our family has followed that method for four years now.
If you have any food allergies, you know that you can’t just eat anything. You are most likely going to need to cook it for yourself.
With this pregnancy, I wanted to stock my freezer for postpartum with meals for myself and my kids to make my life easier. It truly wasn’t a whole lot of extra effort since I am already in the rhythm. I just doubled or tripled anything I made, so I could eat on it in the last month of pregnancy and postpartum.
I grow super huge babies so I knew that I would need to have everything made before the last 6 weeks. It was no surprise that this baby was huge- she was 11 pounds. It was so hard to cook and eat anything towards the end. Standing on my feet for long periods were hard and I had pretty bad nausea and heartburn from the pressure of the baby. (Cooking was not my favorite in 2025 ha!)
With that, I had a fully stocked freezer for myself and my family and was able to eat on it the first six weeks. I’ll list out all the recipes that I used, the cooking schedule that I did and how I froze and stored them.
I’ll have my cooking schedule printable that I like to use for batch cooking and preparing for holidays at the bottom for paid subscribers.
What I Actually Did
It didn’t feel overwhelming because it wasn’t a separate project—it was just an extension of my normal rhythm. I normally look ahead and follow my motto:
Cook when you have time so you have food when you don’t.
Well I had time to cook before the baby came, and I wanted to have really good food prepared for myself and the kids to make life easier for my husband and myself.
Step 1: I made a list
Everything I wanted to cook—nothing fancy, nothing complicated.
Step 2: I made a schedule
I spread it across October and November, based on our weekends and real life commitments. I did most of it over four cooking sessions. A great rhythm is to chop everything and get your soup going, then start getting your oven time going. Even better have a spouse chop while you start mixing together anything that needs to bake. Two is better than one and you can knock it out really quickly.
Step 3: I planned for help
My husband handled kitchen cleanup because I knew I wouldn’t have energy for both cooking and cleaning.
Planning matters more than recipes ever will.
Recipes I Made
Turkey taco soup X3 (by far my favorite for a winter birth)
Cal’s meatloaf* X2 and whipped parsnips X2
Cornbread muffins X2 (recipe coming)
Sheet pan pancakes X2 (now my go-to for meal trains)
Simple. Familiar. Freezer-friendly. Family-proof. I needed recipes for not just me but also for my kids. Everything needed to be easy to heat up or eat with one hand.
*Definitely get my friend Callie’s ebook of recipes from her grab and go store! The meatloaf is in that paid book. Her recipes are amazing!
Tools I Used
Souper Cubes (2 cup + 1 cup molds)
Vacuum sealer bags (Souper cubes now has ones that perfectly fit their portions!)
Ziplock freezer storage bags
Parchment paper
How I Froze Everything
Froze meals overnight in Souper Cubes for individual portions
OR froze in a single layer on baking sheets with parchment paper
Transferred to bags once frozen
Labeled and vacuum sealed everything the next day
No chaos. No wasted food. No mystery meals.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t about freezer meals.
It’s about systems.
It’s about cooking when you have time so you have food when you don’t.
It’s about removing friction from the hardest seasons of motherhood.
It’s about feeding your family without feeding burnout.
This is the heartbeat of Efficient Kitchen.
And this freezer prep?
It’s just one real-life example of what sustainable rhythms actually look like.
Let me know if you have any questions below! I’m happy to answer or do a follow up post.
