You have seen all the Get Started posts this far, and you are loving the idea of having your freezer stocked with meals for your busy family, but what if you just don’t have time for a huge cooking day, or don’t even like to cook? Group OAMC might be the answer for you! Over the years I have participated in a few different variations of the Freezer Meal Swap and loved coming home with a variety of meals to put in my freezer and pull out over the course of the month.
Benefits of Doing a Group Meal Swap
- Variety of meals that you may not have chosen, but end up loving.
- You only have to prepare 1 meal, less stress and brain power on your end.
- You CAN prep in a few different settings, maybe doing 2 meals at a time spread across the course of the week.
How to Start Your Own Freezer Group Swap
- Email or contact a few friends and see if they have interest in doing a swap. I’ve seen some people start a Google group or Facebook page for their meal swaps to keep track of things in one place as opposed to an email chain.
- Meet and pick out a menu or a few recipes that you all would like.
- Designate one person to cook each recipe and provide servings to that person.
- Using the OAMM recipe cards provide you with an advantage since we do the math for YOU!
- Keep it small for the first run and see how people like it then get bigger as you go. We promise you’ll get addicted.
- Pick out a swap day to exchange meals. Sometimes it’s fun to meet at someone’s house for lunch and bring your coolers to load full of goodies.
- Make sure to specify to the whole group if there are any allergies or food aversions in your house while going over the recipes.
- If you have extra meals that your family didn’t enjoy you have the blessing of extras for families in need – new baby, surgery, death, illness, and other circumstances.
- Have a de-briefing session a few weeks after the swap to see what people did and did not like and go over what could be done differently. Don’t do it right away!
Here are a few videos on how Kelly did a group swap cooking day with some co-workers:
