Before I have babies, I usually try to prepare a few freezer meals that I can keep ready-to-go in the freezer for the 4th trimester ;). You never know how willing your baby will be to be put down, so I like having some options for some prepared dinners ready to go!

My sweet sister offered to help me because she knows how hard standing is for me when I’m pregnant. I get hip pain that completely incapacitates me, and it is especially aggravated after long periods of standing. We kept trying to get together to prepare freezer meals, but things kept coming up and it just didn’t happen.

I give you this background to explain why my sister invited me to join a freezer meal swap with her sisters-in-law. They periodically get together, and I’ve joined a couple times in the past. It’s so nice to have freezer meals for those really busy nights, or to have on hand to give to families who need a meal brought in during times of illness or hardship!

What we’ve done in the past is find a few recipes that everyone approves of, and then prepare them together. Depending on who is participating, we either have one person buy all the ingredients and we split the cost, or we divvy up the ingredients and everyone shops for and brings their assigned ingredients. It’s fun to get together to make the meals, because you can talk and spend time together, but it is A LOT of work, a lot of dishes- and there’s usually a kid crying ;).

Well, this time around my sister thought we should try a different approach. Our families are so big, it’s just impractical for so many women to get together. She suggested that we each pick a freezer meal to make on our own, at home. We would make enough for our family, as well as the other families (7 of us total), and then we’d get together for a freezer meal swap! We agreed to give it a go, and I have to say, it was definitely a success!

I think this approach was great for a few reasons.

1. It’s SO much easier making multiples of one dish instead of trying to make several different kinds. I made Creamy Italian Chicken, and I literally just had to blend a ton of cream cheese and cream of chicken soup together with Italian dressing mix and then split them up into 14 Ziploc bags with a couple chicken breasts each. It still took some time- but I was done within an hour, and prepped 14 meals (enough to bring two for everyone, including myself). You definitely can’t do that with 14, or even 7 different recipes.
2. You’re still able to have a variety of freezer meals. Yes, I made 14 meals on my own- but as tasty as Creamy Italian Chicken might be, I don’t necessarily need 14 bags of it. With this swap, I spent way less time on freezer meal prep, but I still have 7 different recipes to choose from!
3. I was able to make the meals on my own time. We were meeting on Saturday to swap, and I had planned to put the meals together on Wednesday to give myself some wiggle room. Good thing I did, because my baby was particularly fussy on Wednesday and I just wasn’t able to get the meals made. Because it wasn’t a scheduled event, I was able to be flexible with my timing and it was really helpful for me!
4. If you’re wise, you can save a ton of money! You can buy things in bulk or look for sales on particular items (if you plan your meal far enough in advance) so that you can get the most bang for your buck! Again, it’s just easier focusing on one recipe than several different ones.
5. It’s a chance to actually spend time together. Sure, if you get together to prep meals with friends, you’ll be chatting and spending time in the same space together. But that also means everyone is super distracted because they’re trying to prep food, follow directions, and tend children at the same time- so it’s definitely not the highest quality girl time. By swapping in this manner, you can make the meals when the kids are in bed, and then when you get together you only have the distraction of children, instead of also trying to prep meals. Of course, if you can get babysitters, or swap on a Saturday when husbands would be available to watch kids, you can also turn it into a party and go pick up some dessert!
6. Cook'n has a feature that allows you to change the serving size. This made it super easy for me to scale the recipe. And, when I made my shopping list, Cook'n automatically converted from recipe units (teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups) to store units (ounced, pounds, and gallons). This made it SO much easier to buy things in bulk when I got to the store. No more measuring madness!
7. Also, Cook'n offers a Freezer Meals cookbook with loads of recipes that freeze really well. This wonderful cookbook takes the guesswork out of it and gives me lots of options to choose from!

I think after swapping meals in this way, it’s a very high probability that we do it again. It really was just so much simpler- for us, at least. If you’re looking to boost your freezer meal storage, I’d encourage you to try it! Some things to think through:

1. Is everyone paying for their own ingredients, or do you lump all the bills together and split evenly from there?
2. Do you assign meals, or do you just let everyone pick one and hope no one brings the same one?
3. Are families big enough that a 9x13 pan is needed for casseroles, or are families small enough that you can split a recipe into two 8x8s instead?

Have fun with your freezer meal preppin’!