While welcoming your first child into the world is a joyous occasion, any experienced parent can tell you that the journey is anything but easy.
Caring for an unpredictable newborn round-the-clock is already tiring, what more caring for yourself?
When it comes to juggling family life and chores, we’re big fans of healthy freezer meals that we can heat up in a jiffy to sustain ourselves on the go.
All you need to do is prep them one day of the week, and you’ll have a week’s worth of freezer meals that you can simply warm up when meal times roll around.
We’ve always got a handful of our favourite go-to recipes and food products on hand for when hunger strikes, so we thought we’d share them here so you can give them a go too.
Here we go!
1. A Low-Calorie Take On Swedish Meatballs
Love the quintessential IKEA bestseller, Swedish meatballs? You can now make a healthier version of that by swapping beef for turkey meat. Christine, the blogger behind Jar Of Lemons has a delicious turkey Swedish meatball recipe that’s easy to make, easy to freeze, and makes the perfect comfort food that’s still healthy.
2. This Tastes Like Pizza Minus The Extra Calories
Before you cave into the trap of convenient pizza delivery, hold back — here’s a recipe that will give you all the pizza flavours you crave, but with better health benefits.
Kelli Shalal of Hungry Hobby shares this healthy recipe of pizza-stuffed bell peppers that has Italian chicken sausage, pizza sauce, and is topped with oozy fresh mozzarella.
Prep them in advance and store them in either ziplock bags or, if you have space in the freezer, a disposable aluminium pan. Doing the latter allows you to pop them onto your crust and straight into the oven when you’re hungry.
3. Baked Potatoes With Broccoli And Cheese Never Tasted This Good
There’s nothing quite as comforting as a warm, baked potato laden with creamy cheese to make you feel better after a long day.
It also doesn’t sound unhealthy, but Randa of The Bewitchin Kitchen has a magical recipe freezer-friendly recipe that’s actually healthy. The secret? Chopped broccoli.
Since this recipe calls for the potatoes to be baked twice, all you need to do is bake them once, and freeze them in disposable aluminium pans. When you’re ready to have them again for your meal, simply slip the entire tray into your oven for the perfect guilt-free comfort meal.
4. The Delicious, Healthy One-Pan Freezer Recipe You Need
Love freshly cooked meals over reheating frozen meals? Don’t worry, Jar Of Lemons has you covered with this super healthy, one-pan recipe.
All you have to do is marinate the chicken in the sauce overnight, add the fresh veggies just before meal time the next day and voila! You’ve got a hot, healthy meal ready for you to dig into.
5. A Pre-Packed Frozen Meal That Actually Tastes Good
Surprise, surprise. Frozen supermarket food has come a long way, and it now has far healthier options than you can imagine.
One healthy option to consider is So Cal Kale & Bean from Luvo that has mushrooms, white beans, red beans, raisins, kale, carrots, onions, and broccoli served over red rice.
All you need to do is pop it into the microwave, et voila! A healthy meal (minus unused food ingredients going to waste), done.
6. The Chimichurri Bowl That You Don’t Have To Make From Scratch
Yet another supermarket frozen meal that can be quickly popped into the microwave is the Kashi Chimichurri Quinoa Bowl, a plant-based meal that’s full of whole grains, kale, and zucchini.
For that extra flavour kick, the people at Kashi have even added in an Argentinian-inspired sauce that’s bound to get you inhaling the dish.
7. An Aromatic, Slow-Cooked Coconut Curry
If you have a slow cooker at home, why not put it to good use by whipping up this amazing three-ingredient coconut chicken curry from Hungry Hobby?
To begin with, you only need to freeze the chicken, mirepoix, coconut milk, and a store-bought sauce together.
Once you’re ready to prep it for a meal, all you have to do is empty the ingredients into your slow cooker and let it go on its own for six to eight hours. Imagine all that free time without even needing to tend to your cooking!
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