Food Is Love.
When our daughters were born, we were so incredibly blessed to have lots of friends bring us home-cooked meals.
And I have never appreciated cozy, home-cooked meals more than I did in that season. I was tired and hungry, and I felt so loved.
Having someone cook you a meal when you are exhausted, physically recovering, emotionally all over the place, and trying your very best to adjust to your whole new outlook on life with this tiny human in your arms (and probably a little spit up on your shirt) – it is incredible. It is nourishing, it is healing, it is LOVE.
These meals are easy and comforting, and also taste really good. They are some of my favorites to bring to new parents – because these people are tired, and hungry, and postpartum meals deserve to be flavorful, too!
And don’t skip the bonuses – the cookies, muffins, energy bites, etc. – because we’re not just bringing food, we’re bringing JOY!
Best Meals To Make For New Parents
1
Easy Crockpot Carnitas
Easy, delicious, crowd-pleaser! I love making this one because it’s easy to make, and easy for people to customize how they want to eat it.
Special Instructions
- For You: Cook recipe as directed, but skip the broiling.
- For Your Friends: Reheat on a sheet pan until warmed, and then turn the broil on for a few minutes to get it crispy.
What To Pack With It
- Tortillas
- Cilantro and limes
- Avocado or guacamole or a fun green sauce
- Salsa
- Rice
- Maybe a margarita mix! (alcoholic or non-alcoholic)
2
Wild Rice Soup
I can’t think of anything more life-giving than receiving a container of homemade creamy wild rice soup with some crusty bread. This is one I love to bring to people – it’s straightforward and always gets a lot of love.
Special Instructions
- None! Make as directed. It’s super straightforward.
What To Pack With It
- No Knead Bread
- Toasted Bread and Parmesan Kale Salad (or a salad kit)
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
3
Shepherd’s Pie
Tons of veggies in a thick, luscious gravy, topped with creamy mashed potatoes. Comfort food to the max – and this one works for vegetarians!
Special Instructions
- For You: Assemble everything in a large oven-safe pan, but don’t bake yet.
- For Your Friends: Bake in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes or until browned and bubbly.
What To Pack With It
- No Knead Bread
- Simple Green Salad (or a salad kit)
- Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Bars
4
Ricotta Meatballs with Crispy Topping
I have heard from many of you who have made this to deliver to friends. Homemade ricotta meatballs in tomato sauce, sprinkled with a crispy delicious topping. Super family-friendly – this is a great one for friends that might already have littles in the house!
Special Instructions
- For You: Bake the meatballs and cover with sauce. Mix up the panko topping separately, but don’t assemble it yet.
- For Your Friends: Sprinkle the panko topping on just before baking. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 5-7 minutes; broil for a few minutes at the end for crispiness.
What To Pack With It
- Avocado Kale Caesar Salad or a caesar salad kit
- Garlic Bread or cooked pasta (I vote garlic bread!)
- Party Brownies
5
Crockpot Chicken Bowls
After we had our daughter, a friend brought me prepped bowl ingredients and it was my absolute favorite of all the meals anyone brought me. This combo includes rice, chicken, cilantro pesto, all the good stuff. It’s PACKED with flavor to break up the monotony of that newborn haze.
This one works great for anyone who is dairy-free!
Special Instructions
- For You: Cook and prep all components of the bowls; store it all in separate containers.
- For Them: It’s a build-your-own adventure. Delicious.
What To Pack With It
The main components of the meal are the shredded chicken, yellow rice, and cilantro pesto, but these are the extras I’d pack alongside it:
- Pickled onions
- Sour cream or salsa
- Avocado
- Salad mix or Simple Green Salad
- S’mores bars
6
Sarah’s White Chicken Chili
My friend Sarah actually brought me this chili when our daughter was born, which is how it ended up on POY. Chili really feels like the ultimate postpartum meal – super filling, high in protein and fiber, endlessly comforting, and easy to ladle into bowls and reheat.
Special Instructions
- None! Straightforward and easy!
What To Pack With It
- Tortilla chips
- Cornbread
- Cilantro and lime
- Raspberry Crumble Bars
7
Mediterranean Quinoa Bowls
Another build-your-own recipe! This is perfect for a healthy and flavorful lunch that be scooped and served throughout the week. I love to send this with a rotisserie chicken or some other protein.
Another one that works well for anyone who is dairy free!
Special Instructions
- For You: Store everything in individual containers.
- For Your Friends: It’s a build-your-own!
What To Pack With It
- Cucumbers
- Olives or feta
- Rotisserie chicken or air fryer chicken
- Hummus
- Pita or naan
- Chocolate Caramel Oatmeal Bars
8
Best Easy Pasta Salad
Especially ideal for families welcoming summer babies! Veggies, carbs, protein, lots of flavor, no reheating necessary! And gets better with a few days in the fridge.
Special Instructions:
- For You: Toss half the dressing with the pasta salad so it can absorb and flavor everything; send the other half of the dressing for them to add fresh.
What To Pack With It
- Rotisserie chicken for extra protein
- Strawberry White Chocolate Cookies
9
Lemon Rosemary Chicken Soup
I cannot think of something more bright and nourishing than this chicken soup. It’s packed with nutrition but also feels like a warm comforting hug.
Special Instructions
- For You: Make as directed, but hold the spinach (send it separately).
- For Your Friends: Reheat and add spinach in just before serving.
What To Pack With It
10
Cauliflower Walnut Meat
My favorite part of this cauliflower walnut meat (besides taste!) is that it freezes and reheats beautifully for future meals. It stays crumbly in the freezer so you can reach a measuring cup into a big frozen bag and just throw a cup at a time into a skillet to reheat!
Special Instructions:
- None! Easy peasy!
What To Pack With It
- Tortillas or cooked rice
- Avocado or guacamole
- Salsa
- Pickled onions
- Margarita mix (alcoholic or non-alcoholic)
- Golden Grahams Bars
Bonus: Stock Their Freezer!
There are two recipes that I love to bring to new parents that are perfect for stocking up their freezer for breakfast and lunch. They are a LIFELINE and are such a wonderful little bonus to receive.
- Meal Prep Breakfast Sandwiches: Sandwiches with eggs, bacon, spinach, and cheese, wrapped up and stored in the freezer to reheat in the oven or microwave.
- Chipotle Turkey Burritos: This makes a huge batch of burritos are not only delicious, but healthy too (ground turkey, sweet potatoes, greek yogurt, tons of veggies!). The perfect one-handed nutritious lunch.
If you want to dive further into prepping freezer meals for yourself or friends, check out our full list of 22 healthy freezer meals to make.
Baked Goods And Other Treats To Bring
Another happy surprise to bring along: a sweet one! Whether it’s muffins, energy bites, or even just a big bowl of fresh fruit, adding a little something extra is just a huge day-brightener. Here are some favorites:
- Mixed Berry Muffins with Sugary Tops
- My favorite blender muffins (pumpkin, banana, carrot, zucchini, or apple)
- Carrot Cake Coffee Cake
- Pistachio Loaf
- Energy Bites
Favorite Disposable Containers
One rule I live by for delivering meals to new parents: NO DISHES.
So I always deliver meals in disposable containers for easy cleanup. Many of these come in large packs / large quantities, but they’re useful to have on hand for just about anything (for example, sending leftovers home with friends), so they’re worth it to keep stored and ready to use.
Links below are affiliate links!
Containers For Soup
- Paper Soup Containers (preferred): I love these because they’re not plastic and transfer well to the freezer if needed.
- Plastic Deli Containers: These come in lots of different sizes! They’re great for soup and toppings.
Containers For Casseroles
- Foil Roaster Pans: These are great for larger casseroles, like the shepherd’s pie.
- Foil All-Purpose Pans: These are good for smaller casseroles or other meals to be reheated, like the ricotta meatballs. Also for dessert bars!
Miscellaneous All-Purpose Containers
- Ziploc Bags: An obvious choice! Great for storing cooked meat like the carnitas or cauliflower walnut meat.
- Mason Jars: Okay, so these aren’t disposable, but everyone can use another mason jar in their arsenal. Use these for sauces, dips, or toppings like the pickled onions!
- Plastic Deli Containers: Another shoutout for these, which come in so many sizes that make them perfect for sauces, toppings, and more.
Tips and Tricks For Delivering Meals
- Start A Meal Train: If your friend just had a baby and it hasn’t yet been started, put together a Meal Train for them! This allows yourself and their friends and family to coordinate meal delivery in a really easy, simple way.
- Include Instructions and Ingredients: Provide clear, written instructions on how to reheat the meal and serve it, as well as the ingredients that are in the recipe.
- Note Diet Restrictions: Some new moms may have specific diet restrictions outside of their usual habits, so be sure to ask about anything new to know what to bring!
- Add Special Extras: A lot of times when I bring people a meal, they comment specifically on the “extras” – the dessert, baked goods, fresh fruit, etc. I highly recommend grabbing one of these extras to package up as well!
- No-Contact vs. Visiting: Some new parents want to say hi and visit, and others might just want you to drop it off and run. Check in with them to see what they’d prefer before delivering the meal!
Your nephew is the cutest little thing! I could just eat him.
I won’t though…don’t worry!
I also am not a mom…and I don’t know anyone with babies. So…I guess i’ll eat all the things myself.
But, this is going to be a great list for a lot of folks…great post Lindsay! Pinned 🙂
Hi Lindsay, I’m new to your blog and thought I’d drop a comment to say hello!
I became a mother to Elsie last May and both my sisters delivered meals to us in the first few days after Elsie arrived. It was such a lovely gift! They made lasagne, cottage pie and sausage casserole among others, all were cooked and just needed heating through. They were also DELICIOUS! I’m stealing some of these recipes for myself though (hello chicken, quinoa and broccoli casserole!) x
So nice to hear that Grace! Happy (almost) First Birthday to baby Elsie!
Being that I’m due next month, ALL of these look like amazing meals that I’d love to receive! But I might not wait and go ahead and make a couple for the freezer 😉
Congrats, lady! 🙂 How exciting!
Did u make any for the freezer? I’m also due soon and would like to know which ones froze well! Thanks!
I am due in a month and wondering the same thing, do any of these freeze well? Can they all be made ahead of time and frozen?
My sister is new mum and I love to make her a big plateful of crick pot, sticky honey soy chicken wings wings; sides of green veg and rice. For the sweet treat we both indulge in spooning ice cream straight from the tub ^_^.
I have got to try some of these baked dishes at home; they look phenomenal and I want to eat them even though i do not have kids.
Awwww such a cutie!! I see no baby here but I want to make all these dishes fast!
you nailed this post right on the head! (1) with the adorable baby picture and (2) i definitely wish someone would have made me each and every one of these things when i had my baby! perfect!
Anyone is so lucky to have you as a friend or a family member! This was refreshing to read this morning b/c I live in Chicago. Sometimes I think these things are lost (and maybe they are in the “city life”, apartment living culture) so it’s refreshing to see that people still do this! Happy Friday – thanks for your wonderful posts & delish recipes all.the.time.
PS Frozen is out on redbox! =^.^=
You made us the spicy sausage posole from your blog after I had my first kiddo and it was awesome (as were the baked goods :)).
I almost included that recipe in here! But I felt like I needed to balance the spicy! 🙂
Great roundup! Love these ideas. I totally want to try the skinny spinach lasagna!
I always make Chicken Tamale Pie for everyone who has a new baby! 🙂 (and it’s on the menu for us next week, haha!)
Good call! I wish I would have made an extra for myself this week. 🙂
My “baby” is 2 now, so those meals from friends are long gone, but still remembered fondly. We enjoyed everything everyone brought. So much so, my husband said, “You should have a baby every month!” Um, yeah, not happening.
One suggestion I have is to consider bringing something a few weeks after baby is born. So many people bring meals in the first few days, but it’s nice to get something a few weeks later too. The parents are still tired, but the shiny newness has worn off and all those initial meals are eaten.
My favorite meal to bring is Ina Garten’s Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/herb-roasted-turkey-breast-recipe-1943552
And, if I’m really close with the family, I’ll prep it at home, bring it over in a disposable roasting pan in the early afternoon, and throw it in their oven. That way, they can eat a fresh hot meal and their house gets the benefit of the yummy roasting aroma. (And, I don’t have to deal with the potential of cooked food leaking all over my car, which it inevitably does.) I add in a salad, some prepped veggies to throw in a steaming pot, bread and dessert.
One last tip – those meals that come with dessert were always my favorites!
So true! Thanks for the comment Heather!
Thank you for this post! It looks like it must have taken forever to put together…I had totally forgotten about some of these recipes (Healthy Mexican Casserole, mostly), and they’d be perfect to make for another chilly weekend.
No, but really, there are babies EVERYWHERE lately! (I know 3 people who had babies this week alone!) Most recently I brought green chile/chicken enchiladas to a friend with a new baby. I brought them unbaked and she just popped them in the oven.
I love this list! Same thing in my world – babies, babies, babies. It’s nice to have new ideas of meals to bring friends!
I often also like to bring a couple healthy snack type items for moms who are nursing…something easy for them to snack on since they tend to be hungry more often! My go-to’s are chocolate almond date balls and 3-ingredient banana oatmeal cookies.
Elsa’s coming up on three months old, so we’re just coming out of the meal-receiving! We were so blessed after her births and Owen’s to have people bring us some fabulous home-cooked meals. Some thoughts:
1. dessert. always bring dessert. that new mama wants to inhale the entire pan of brownies.
2. I always loved when people brought us anything non-casseroley too. One of my very favorite meals was when someone brought us deconstructed smoked pork wrap fixins’ – there were tons of fresh veggies. One time someone brought us a fruit salad and I ate the whole thing in about 5 minutes while Eric looked on. So now one of my go-to meals is to bring the ingredients for a deconstructed salad – everything in individual baggies – usually with some marinated, grilled chicken for some protein, bread, and of course, some cookies.
3. disposable cookware is awesome. To not have to keep track of whose dish is whose – to have no dishes to do – love disposable cookware in the first weeks post-baby.
4. Finally, if you want to win meal-giver of the year, I think the best gift to a new mom is granola bars. Homemade or a couple boxes of storebought. I feel like the first few weeks after I have a baby, I’m starving, and I usually only have one hand to work with – so I eat granola bars like they’re going out of style.
Great post, Lindsay! Your baby-having friends are blessed to have you in their lives! (Also, I hope I can bring you a meal in the event that there’s ever a Pinch of Yumlette 🙂 )
You really should start capping my comments at 100 words. Sheesh.
OH MY GOSH you just coined the future name of our future baby. Pinch of Yumlette. I love you.
Hmm, someone has babies on the brain, or maybe it just because of that adorable nephew.
Man your friends and family are lucky. Really, when it comes right down to it, it really is the thought that counts. But for new parents specifically I would add a fruit salad. You wind up with a lot of quick and unhealthy meals at first (pizza) so healthy stuff is awesome. Your muffins are perfect, because sadly sometimes you don’t have time to heat anything up. And you wind up dropping food on the baby’s head so it is better if it isn’t hot:)
If the parents have an older child, you will really be awesome if you bring some kid-friendly food. Especially because people aren’t as excited after the first child.
Great idea Andrea. So true about the other children in the family.
Hmmm…. That’s it. No more ordering takeout for new parents. I’m out of excuses.
Stunning pics as usual. Mouth watering.
These are also great ideas for someone who is sick. I just brought a meal to a sick friend (my minestrone soup). I love your idea of adding some sweets – nice touch!
Love this post! Sharing!
This is so perfect! I just started a meal ministry board in Pinterest and I’m trying to get more involved with bringing meals to people who need them, so this is AWESOME!
Is Charlie wearing a Duke hat? It looks like a Duke hat. I have a special place in my heart for Duke because three of my nephews were all treated at Duke Children’s. Amazing place if you’re talking kids and saving their lives! 🙂
For taking friends meals, takethemameal.com is the coolest. You can set up a schedule for drop offs and see what meals others have provided so the poor family doesn’t end up with 15 lasagnas. Love it!
Is this post going to lead into any announcements coming up?!?! 😉 I do agree though – it seems like EVERYONE is having babies!!
I wondered if anyone would wonder that. 🙂
Just awww! Your nephew! So cute!
All these meals would be perfect to bring to a new mommy! What a wonderful, thoughtful post! I’m visiting my bestie who is having a baby next month and I decided that, since she isn’t too mobile, I’ll just make her a ton of meal and stock her freezer!
This is SO fabulous, Lindsay! You are the sweetest, most thoughtful, incredibly generous person every to make so many meals to give away. Everybody loves you already, but now 1000x as much! We haven’t had any babies in our family for a while (thank goodness, seeing as I’m the eldest and SO not ready to have kids anytime soon!), but we have had plenty of grandparents in and out of the hospital this year, and it’s been a godsend when their friends have made food for my grandparents to eat during their recoveries. The world needs more wonderful people like you!
Haha thanks Amy! You’re too kind! So nice to have people serving through food in our hard times, right?
You make everything looks so yummy! I am making the baguette pizza as we ‘speak’ and bookmarking few more even though i have no new baby in the house 😉
Haha – awesome! 🙂 Treat yourself right.
Yes Now we start treating yourself