The Freezer Meals That Got a Former Line Cook Through Surgery

Before my hysterectomy, I spent a month filling my freezer. It ended up being the best decision I made.

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Published on May 9, 2026

A prepared lasagna dish next to bowls with components such as sauce and cheese mixture on a countertop — Credit:
alpaksoy / Getty Images

• Living with endometriosis can be physically and emotionally challenging, especially when managing a demanding job, but finding ways to cope, like cooking, can provide comfort and control.
• Preparing freezer meals and meal components ahead of surgery or major life events can be a practical and thoughtful way to support recovery or ease daily stress.
• Cooking projects, such as making sauces, soups, or par-baked pizza crusts, can serve as both a therapeutic activity and a way to ensure future convenience during times of limited energy or mobility.

I was diagnosed with endometriosis at 19. It’s a condition in which a kind of tissue that is usually only found inside the uterus grows outside of it, sometimes causing cysts or scars, or making organs adhere to one another. In some cases, it can lead to infertility or gastric issues, but it's generally characterized by intense pain surrounding menstruation, as well as chronic pain the rest of the month.

Around the same time as my diagnosis, I began working in restaurants. That's a profession where you’re on your feet for 10 or more hours a day — which was in direct conflict with a condition that had me doubled over in searing pain more than a week out of each month. Kitchen work with endo meant that I was crying in the bathroom before a double shift, forgoing prescribed medication because it made me too loopy to cook, and being written up for calling out when it hurt so badly I couldn’t stand up. After years of this, I finally gave up cooking professionally. My condition felt too volatile; some days I’d be fine, and some days my legs would shake, and I would hold back tears as I continued to plate order after order.

This past fall, I found a doctor willing to perform a hysterectomy. It was something I had been pursuing for more than 10 years. But with the unfettered rush of joy at the thought of having a pain-free life came deep fear and anxiety surrounding surgery itself. What if something went wrong? What if the surgeons got in there and found something else, like fibroids or cancer?

Cooking helped me manage my fear of surgery

In the month leading up to surgery, I was a wreck, which manifested in a constant cycle of panic and planning. To cope, I turned to what I knew: cooking.

Big home cooking projects have always been how I alleviate anxiety. Going through a breakup? Time to make bread. Work stress? Multi-day lasagna. Recipes with complicated or long processes in particular calmed my nerves. Recipes felt like puzzles; the process was predictable and comforting, and I felt a deep satisfaction putting the final piece in place.

The irony of electively spending all of my free time on my feet, cooking to calm my nerves about a surgery to address a condition that made it nearly unbearable to do so at my restaurant job, was not lost on me. But I leaned into it. Even as my hands shook from trying to stave off a panic attack, they also carefully folded the edges of pierogi and rolled meatballs. I might not be able to control the outcome of surgery, but I could control the level of seasoning in a red curry pumpkin soup and the right cheese-to-spinach ratio in a batch of stuffed shells.

But that’s not the only reason I did it.

My freezer became my meal prep secret weapon

During my recovery, I was going to be in bed for at least a month. It would be another month before I would be able to get back into my regular routine. From a practical standpoint, it made a lot of sense for me to spend my weekends prepping soup, pasta sauce, and whole meals to stash in my freezer.

I knew my recovery was going to come in stages. At the beginning, I’d need full meals I could pull from the freezer and nuke, but a few weeks in, charred broccoli pesto from the freezer could pair with boiled penne, half a can of white beans, and a sprinkle of Parmesan for an easy but slightly more involved meal.

Thankfully, surgery and recovery went totally as expected, and I encountered no issues. In the weeks that followed, my stocked freezer was a wonderful gift I gave myself. I ate everything I prepped, and on the days when it was time for dinner, and I was still waiting for the pain pills to kick in, I was immeasurably glad that past me had rolled enchiladas and portioned out individual frittatas.

Maybe you’re reading this with a surgery date coming up. Maybe you’re thinking this will never apply to you. The thing is, stocking your freezer with ready-to-eat meals and easy-to-throw-together components isn’t just for when you have surgery. Your sibling welcoming a new baby or your friend recently grieving a loved one can get just as much use out of frozen pizzas, par-baked pizza crusts, and preassembled breakfast burritos and egg bites.

Whether you’re anticipating a major life event or just want to give your future self the gift of a low-lift meal you made ahead of time, here are my top tips for freezer meal prep.

Think of your freezer as a time machine

In the summer, when my local farmers market is overflowing with sweet corn, I buy heaps of cobs, cut the kernels off, and freeze them on a sheet tray to use in soups, hash, enchiladas, and more. This goes for herbs too; basil pesto freezes beautifully with a layer of olive oil on top to prevent browning.

Always cook more than you need

If I have the oven on to bake tofu for dinner tonight, I may as well double it and also roast a few sweet potatoes for an easy weekday lunch. With anything that takes a long time — think all-day pasta sauce, chili, fresh pasta, quick breads — I almost always make a double (or triple) batch to stash in the freezer. It’s far less work to make two trays of stuffed shells at once than it is to make stuffed shells two times.

Future you deserves easy dinners

The most profound thing I’ve learned in my adult life is that you can make a huge batch of pizza dough, portion it into personal-sized pies, par-bake them for a few minutes, and then freeze them in a stack with parchment paper between each piece for homemade pizza night in the amount of time it takes to preheat the oven.

Prep is power

Arguably more handy than the full meals I prepped were the small components I stashed for recipes that required almost no prep. I really like a breakfast hash, so I made a huge batch of veggie sausage crumbles, along with portions of precut and sautéed peppers and onions, for when I only had the energy to boil potatoes.

I’m a vegetarian, so I made seitan, broke it into chunks, and with a bag of frozen veggies and my rice cooker, I had several hands-off stir-fry meals.

Caramelized onions are one of my favorite toppings for everything from pizza to omelets to mujadara. I bought a huge bag of onions, caramelized them all in an afternoon, and had an instant flavor boost for even the most plain, low-effort meals like boxed mac and cheese.

Feed your future self

Now, nearly seven months post-surgery, this whole situation feels like a world away. I think back to how stressed I was and all the panic and planning in the lead-up, and it almost makes me chuckle. Thankfully, surgery and recovery went totally as expected, and I encountered no issues. I count myself incredibly lucky that I was even able to get this surgery in the first place, let alone have it go off without a hitch. All of it — the stress, the tears, the hours spent stocking my freezer — was absolutely worth it to live the pain-free life I have now.