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Tips for when you want to take a meal to a friend in need. I’ve collected suggestions from all over to help you be a blessing. Meal ideas, too!
People are in need all around us. Moms with new babies, friends with health issues, families facing all kinds of challenges and struggles.
Sometimes it’s something big, like a cancer diagnosis. Other times it may simply be that you notice that your friend has been overwhelmed lately.
Do you ever feel at a loss for how to help? Enter: Food.
I am my mother’s daughter, and I show love through food. And clearly I’m not the only one, as I found lots of resources online giving tips and suggestions for meal ministry.
I’d like to share some of the best ones I’ve found.
Tips When You Want to Take a Meal
Cooking for Others: A Guide to Giving Sympathy Meals … at Simple Bites Here you’ll find practical advice for making and delivering meals. From communicating, meal ideas, packaging, and other ways to show care.
Mommy Meals: Bringing Food to Friends in Need … at Peanut Blossom. If you’re organizing a group to bring meals to someone, this site has lots of suggestions. She shares scheduling sites, a long list of meal ideas, and other tips. One of the best tips was to decide as a group what meals should include, so the family knows what to expect. For example: Main dish, side dish, and dessert.
DIY Stress-Free ‘Take Them a Meal.’ … at Living Porpoisefully. This is a sample meal with some great ideas. One thing I loved was that she added some items for the family for breakfast the next morning. How thoughtful!
Taking Meals to Grieving and Celebrating Families … at Unique Gifter. My favorite thing here is that she includes a list of other ways to bless families, things like mowing the lawn or cleaning around the house. After we had our second son, a friend hired cleaners to come and it was a huge blessing.
Tips for Taking Meals to Families in Need … at Life is Sweeter by Design. Along with lots of other tips, she reminds us that even if you’re not much of a cook (or just don’t have the time) you can still be a blessing. Either picking up takeout for the family, or giving a gift card is much appreciated.
Be a Blessing
One tip that showed up on just about all of the sites was to bring your meal in disposable containers. When in crisis, it is an added stress to have to remember to clean and return someone else’s dishes. Depending on the meal you’ve brought, this will also allow them the freedom to stick it in the freezer for another night if they want. A freezer meal to pop in the crock pot on a crazy day can be a real God-send.
Another idea you might not think of is to include paper plates, too, so they don’t have to do any dishes.
Make sure, too, that the meal doesn’t require much effort on their part. If they’re in need of groceries, that’s a different thing all together, but just bringing a bag of ingredients doesn’t really help them out with dinner. Think: Heat and serve.
A few recipes I’ve taken to friends have been:
- Creamy chicken and rice soup
- Other soups
- Lasagna (or veggie lasagna)
- Chicken pot pie
- Pulled pork
- Meatball subs– meatballs in marinara with buns and cheese (Costco has the best meatballs!)
- And any variety of casserole.
The last piece of advice I would offer is this: If a friend in crisis asks for help, drop everything and do it.
A friend of mine who lost her husband, and was left with three children under the age of 5 opened my eyes to this years ago. She said that at the funeral, so many people said ‘If you need anything, let me know.’ But when she asked for help (humbled to do so, of course) and time and again they were too busy…she gave up asking.
Having been on the receiving end of having to ask for help…I get that! I’m sure you do too, but we still forget sometimes. This is our reminder to be conscious and be gracious.
What are your favorite meals to take to a friend in need?
These are all such great foods to give to a friend! I think this weekend, I will cook for one of my friends who is always so very busy and kind. Thanks!
I can guarantee they will appreciate it! 🙂
It is such a simple thing to do for someone but I hadn’t thought of doing it. Thank you for the reminder, and also for including some recipes. The chicken soup looks absolutely delicious, wonderful for comfort food.
What a nice idea for a blog entry and quite honestly a idea I will be sharing in a future blog as well….
Fantastic!
Great tips for how to make this act of mercy a reality, Susan! Thanks!
I like doing dump chicken recipes for the crockpot…there’s so many different choices you can do, it takes no work for them, and you can write the instructions right onto the freezer bag. Most of them are delicious!
What a great idea! And most of those are in Ziploc bags, I think, so they store really nicely in the freezer and don’t take up a lot of space.
I’ve taken food to a man I know who is 70 years old. He is a someone I consider an acquaintance but I know he doesn’t eat properly . I think I’ll bring him something for Easter.
How kind! I read the greatest idea for bringing food to the elderly living alone. Since they don’t often eat a whole lot, you can freeze small portions in ice cube trays and then pop them into plastic bags. They can take out a few cubes of whatever to heat up. Obviously it’d work better for some foods over others, but I thought it was clever.
Thank you for including our DIY Stress-Free “Take Them A Meal” in your wonderful collection of tips, ideas, and advice! We’ve learned even more through your post, and are so glad to be a part of it. 🙂
Live porpoisefully,
The Taylors
You are so welcome! Thanks for stopping by. Your tray looked so inviting, with the lemonade, chocolate kisses, fresh fruit and all. Who wouldn’t like to receive that?! Great ideas.
Great ideas. I use http://www.mealtrain.com to coordinate meals for folks. Pinning to refer to for meal and other ideas. Thanks!
Several of the articles I linked to mentioned Meal Train. What a great resource when organizing a group!
This is a great reminder to reach out to friends in need! I just had my first baby about 2 months ago and three friends brought food for us. It was so kind and very much appreciated! I plan to pay it forward and do the same for a friend who lost his wife recently.
First, Congratulations! And know that it gets easier. 🙂 Second, you make a great point that remembering how others have shown kindness to us can prod us to do the same. Blessings to you and your family–
Good post. And yes a meal can mean alot to someone in a difficult time. For me personally having baby meals sent from people at church are so nice! And someone brought us a meal over the time my husband lost his mom last year. I have been able to do some for others too. Thanks for sharing this at Family Joy Blog linkup.
Good tips here! Thank you for sharing these!
Blessings,
Patty
Before we moved 100 miles away, I used to cook, portion out, and freeze meals for my uncle who is a disabled Vietnam vet … he was always so very thankful and it made my heart so happy to help him on his limited income – feeding someone, in my opinion, is a huge way to show the love of Christ, and of course a great opportunity to be a witness. Visiting today from The Art of Homemaking link up
My family roots also shows love through food. Recently a friend broke her foot and couldn’t put weight on it. We took Baked ziti, salad, dressing, green beans, garlic toast slices, strawberry bars for dessert, Iced Tea & coffeecake for breakfast. Our second meal was Pork Tenderloin with fresh blueberry dipping sauce, Ina’s Summer Garden Pasta, Fresh cut up fruit (from produce), loaded Oatmeal Cookies for dessert, Iced Tea & Sausage Cream Cheese Quiche for Breakfast. Our third meal was Chicken Pot Pie, Orange Fruited Jello, lighter than air chocolate roll with whipped orange cream , Iced Tea & Baked Blueberry Oatmeal Bars & Vanilla Yogurt for breakfast or snack. We used throw away pans. They were more than appreciative for how we went above and beyond. After reading lots of posts it made sense to include everything. There are three adults in the home and we always checked on what day they could use a meal
That all sounds amazing!! We notice when people go above and beyond (like you mentioned) and it matters. It makes us feel valued and loved. It’s the difference between feeling like someone’s ‘good deed’, or something they felt they had to do, and feeling truly cherished and cared for. What a lovely service to your friend and her family!
Hi, I’m Cindy from Sunny South Africa. I often cook meals for family and friends. I would normally do a main, salad or veggie and dessert with drinks. I’ve never thought of including something for breakfast. I will definetly do this in future.. May you continue to be blessed as you bless others.
Thanks for your visit, Cindy! Blessings to you as well. 🙂
Even if you just bring a frozen meal from the grocery store its helpful to take some of the “disposables” also. Paper plates, plastic silverware, cups, paper towels , a pack pf toilet paper, zip lock bag or containers for leftovers , or trash bags often needed as extra company drops by to visit the new baby or offer sympathy in a loss. Even a jug of tea and bag of ice for the freezer is appreciated. Last year I attended multiple funerals in a very short amount of time and brought the “disposables” instead of more food, it was all very much appreciated. If you don’t cook do the disposable list!
Great suggestion! I think it just means so much to people to simply be thought of and remembered. And a wonderful reminder that even when time is short, we can help out!