Good morning!
Instead of taking part in the normal What I Ate Wednesday post today, I wanted to revisit a lighthearted and (what turned out to be informative, thanks to the comments) post on meal planning last week.
In case you missed it, I don’t like meal planning. In fact, it overwhelms the casual planner in me and puts unnecessary stress onto my weekends. I’m just not into it.
Due to an ever-changing and anything-but-normal weekly schedule, I have always been one who “wings it” for dinner most nights. The older Scott and I get, however, the more I crave a regular dinner schedule with a plan of attack for meals at home on weeknights.
Last week, I asked for any tips you might have regarding meal planning, and I received an incredible response. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and help a sister out!
Per your request, I have complied your suggestions below with some of my own, and I hope you enjoy this (rather lengthy… sorry) post on meal planning!
• Don’t stress about making dinner every single night.
Start with planning 4 meals per week. Monday through Thursday can be planned ahead of time, but leave another night for leftovers, the next for something new you might feel like cooking over the weekend, and finally, a dinner out!
• Use part of a weekend day to plan out your week of meals.
Decide what you feel like making the next week, pull the recipes, make a list of ingredients you need, then make sure to grab everything during your weekly trip to the grocery store.
Sundays don’t have to be spent prepping food and meals for hours if that’s not something you are into. Instead, focus on having the ingredients you will need at home and on hand for later.
• Try loose meal planning.
Similar to the first point, start with baby steps. Plan out 3 meals a week to make on whatever nights make sense. Pencil in days to grab dinner out with friends or enjoy leftovers at home. You don’t have to stick to a set 4, 5, or even 6 night schedule!
• If planning out entire meals overwhelms you, go back to the basics.
I like to stick to the cardinal rule of including a protein, a starch and a few veggies in every dinner. If you aren’t one who likes to take the time to plan out whole meals (or… what I have been doing since I moved out of my parents’ house), stock up on plenty of options in the categories mentioned above.
Think ground turkey meat, chicken, fish, shrimp, steak, and specialty meats you might see on sale at the store. Think sweet potatoes, quinoa, rice, and noodles. And finally, pick up a variety of vegetables (spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, zucchini squash, mushrooms, etc.) both in the produce and freezer sections. I always have bags of frozen, organic vegetables ready to go!
• Freeze your leftovers.
Are you sick of eating that soup you accidentally made for twelve?
Stick it in the freezer and pull it out weeks or even months down the road when you’re ready to eat it again. If you happen to go crazy buying meats and notice they are about to spoil, stick those in the freezer too. Occasionally, I will intentionally make extra (veggie and meat loaded) spaghetti sauce to keep in the freezer to be able to whip out on nights I need to get something on the dinner table without much time.
• Prep your produce.
This is one I have been doing for years.
How often do you buy fruit or vegetables and let them turn before you get around to eating them? Prep your fruits and veggies! Taking a few extra minutes to wash, slice and place fruits like strawberries in sealed containers will make them so much easier to enjoy when you are in a hurry. I always have fresh produce on hand, but I am more likely to actually dig into it as part of a healthy snack or breakfast topping if it’s already prepped and ready!
• Try cooking in bulk.
On the contrary to loose meal planning, some people prefer doing it up big. Plan a few full double-recipe meals at a time, spend a good amount of time cooking them, then separate them out into single or double portioned (depending on your family size and needs) bags and throw them in the freezer. Move the bags to the refrigerator the night before you want to eat them to unthaw, and heat them up when you get home from work the next day.
Think about it… if you plan four meals this way, you could potentially make enough for four weeks worth of dinners at once. If you have the patience and time to cook in bulk, it can certainly prove to be worth it!
• Plan around what you have.
Every night doesn’t have to be an elaborate cooking event. Keep things simple and cost effective by basing your meals around what needs to be used up. Are there a handful of vegetables that are about to turn? Roast them. Need to use up that pound of lean ground beef or diced chicken?
Tacos are where it’s at!
• Pre-cook dinner time-suckers like meats.
If you’re not into cooking full meals ahead of time, but would like somewhere to start when you get home in the evenings, try to at least cook the meat ahead of time. This way, you can pull sides together and get dinner on the table quicker than you would otherwise.
• Casseroles. Learn to love them.
I don’t make enough casseroles. If you think you aren’t a fan, I highly doubt you have given them a fair chance. Here are a few of my favorites!
» Skinny Pizza Pasta Casserole
» Chicken and Cheesy Vegetable Casserole
• Slow cookers. Learn to use them.
Just like casseroles, I don’t use my slow cooker half as much as I think I should.
Recipes that literally only require throwing a few ingredients into a Crockpot, turning it on, and cooking it (untouched) for hours until its ready to eat do exist. This Chicken Crock-Pot Recipe is proof!
I have a ton of slow cooker recipes on deck to try out, and I know that a lot of you are in love with yours too!
• Don’t forget about the successful meals of your past. Remake them!
Gather anywhere from five to ten recipes you know your family loves and continuously rotate them. Add a new one into the mix every week or so, and you will eventually have plenty of go-to meal options to satisfy a variety of tastebuds.
• Mix up what you do with your leftovers.
Last night’s steamed cauliflower can become the next day’s mashed cauliflower. If you make a meal like pulled barbeque sandwiches, get creative with the leftover meat. Make lettuce wraps, tacos, or keep it to place on top of a salad the next day.
• If you make a meal that requires random ingredients, make it again a few times.
Repeating recipes that call for a special trip to the store and several servings left over might be worth making again the next week. And, if it’s awesome, the week after that too. Get the most out of your trips and money invested in cooking at home!
• Constantly keep an “all out of” grocery list.
This is one habit Scott got me hooked on when we got married. I love it.
Any time you run out of something, even if it is something as simple as ketchup or baking soda, put it on your grocery list right then and there before you forget to. This way, you’ll most likely be stocked with the staple items you might need to throw a recipe or dinner together later on.
• Take it to the grill.
Weather permitting, grilling can actually be quite enjoyable. I can’t tell you how many times I have run by the grocery store to pick up some type of meat to throw on the grill, then accompany it with a big salad and a side or two. That’s pretty much all we did in Florida.
One of my all-time favorite meals on the grill to make with Scott is super simple: chicken and steak skewers with sliced peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Boil a pot of rice, serve it under the skewers, and call it a day!
• Create a balance in your meals.
Spice up your meal plans with a variety of your favorites. Include a slow cooker night, a Mexican food night (like tacos), an Italian night (like pizza, lasagna or pasta), a night to grill out, and throw in breakfast for dinner every once in a while. Growing up, I remember my family going by a similar pattern and it always worked out really well for us.
Also, breakfast for dinner was always the best. I’m just throwing that little side note out there.
• Get a food steamer.
This extremely early blog post on steaming vegetables is one hundred percent embarrassing, but it’s worth a mention, nonetheless. I forget I own a bomb veggie steamer all the time. We have the , but you can find similar ones for a steal online , , , and .
It may sound lazy, but let’s face it… we all want to be lazy sometimes.
Do yourself a favor and invest in a food steamer! If you have a grill (see point above), or even get one with a divider, you can have dinner in minutes with little to no effort.
And while we’re on the subject…
• Get an onion (fruit & veggie) chopper
Now that I know they exist, this is one kitchen gadget that I will never go without. Instead of dicing and crying for what seems like forever while chopping onions, cut one into quarters and let an onion dicer do the rest. It’s so much quicker and a lot less painful.
After years and years of use, the plastic on chipped and broke. We replaced it the very next week! The cheapest I’ve seen them is the Onion Chopper Dicer at Walmart, but you can find them at most kitchen and home stores like .
• Ask your family for meal ideas or requests.
Who doesn’t love coming home to a dinner they specifically requested? Filling them will plan out at least one if not most of your meals for the week, and you can rest assured knowing that your dinner will without a doubt have fans.
• Keep recipes you would like to try handy. Go for adding a new one into your planning once a week.
Snip magazine articles, bookmark recipes you find on blogs or online, and (hello!) use Pinterest. Enough said.
• Get a dry erase board and plan your meals out around events and nights you know you won’t be home.
I saw a good friend of mine do this and thought it was so smart. Choose to label a day with a recipe or keep it open to recipe 1, 2, 3, etc. for the week, depending on how structured you like your planning calendar to be.
She was detailed in planning Monday with one dish, Tuesday with another, and that really worked for her and her family.
Great Meal Planning Blogs/Websites:
Also, check out Amy and Katie’s posts on Meal Planning. Thanks for sharing your links, ladies!
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Phew… now that’s a list! I hope you took something away from this huge compilation of tips.
Feel free to leave more in the comments section!
Brittany
Great tips! I try to stick to 2-3 meals per week so I don’t get overwhelmed. Aim low and never get disappointed, right? 🙂
Heather
That sounds like a great goal to me!
Katie @ Live Half Full
Thanks for sharing my post! Good luck with your meal planning and let me know if you have any questions!
Heather
Thanks, Katie!
renaissancerunnergirl
Thanks for all the tips! I try to plan meals over the weekend, but end up cooking way more then than I do during the week.
Heather
Sometimes you just can’t help what happens to so-called plans. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can!
Jill at Champagne for Everyday
These are such great suggestions! My planned meals are always SO boring. I need to spice it up!
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Pretty Little Grub
Lots of great tips! I’m definitely more of a loose meal planner. I plan weekday meals but not so much weekends and allow for changes to come up.
Erin @ Her Heartland Soul
Mmm tacos! I love the idea of freezing soup! I need to do that more often!
Heather
Such a great thing to have on those cold nights in when you don’t feel like cooking anything 😉
Desiree
Something that works for us is to have certain things for certain nights – Pasta Monday, Taco Tuesday, Salad Wednesday, Leftover Thursday, Pizza Friday are generally how it goes at my house. I usually had a soup/casserole/slow-cooker day in the winter and a grill day in the summer. It is really open for interpretation because you can have ANY kind of pasta dish on Monday, chicken/fish/beef/steak tacos or taco bowls on Tuesday, ANY type of salad on Wednesday and so on. We usually end up cooking extra protein on Tuesday and use it for Wednesday’s salad. Thursday is to just clean up the fridge before Pizza Friday. I normally leave the weekend’s unplanned because we are out and about a lot and I don’t want food to go to waste. It has seriously changed the way I look at meal planning. I don’t have to get all crazy and fancy if I don’t want to, but it still gives me room to tweak.
Heather
I love the themed days! And always appreciated Pizza Fridays growing up 😉 Thanks for sharing!
Amy M4gic
Wow, this is a comprehensive list of tips. I thought I had meal planning down, but I now have about 20 new ideas to improve our system. And thanks for the link love! My appreciated 🙂
Heather
I’m glad you are able to take some things away from this. And no problem, loved the post!
Jen@jpabstfitness
Great tips! I’m a mom to 4, so I live and breathe by meal plans…but then I have a night like last night where we had to take the baby to an emergency dr appt and the dinner i was going to make got bumped to tonight. I usually plan for 4 meals for the week.
Heather
Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear about your little one! I hope everything’s okay. Mom to 4 – wow, I can see how a plan is important!
Ashley @ A Lady Goes West
I agree that you shouldn’t get too stressed about it and just do what you can. I need to make better use of my slow-cooker, that’s for sure!
Heather
Agreed. I have no idea why I always overlook it! There are so many easy recipes I need to try!
Courtney {Alkeks Abroad}
I love meal planning! It’s seriously the highlight of my week, sitting down with my good friend Pinterest and looking at new recipes to try. Maybe I am a weirdo though. One thing that has helped me organize since I do get most of my recipes from Pinterest is creating a secret Meal Plan board where I move over the four or five recipes that I plan on making during the week. Then at the end I move them to Made It and Loved It board if it’s a winner or delete it if it’s not. Then anything I didn’t get to sticks around for the following week. It makes it a lot easier to make grocery lists and to find the recipe at night when I go to cook, I don’t have to sort through a board of 300 pins.
Diane
These are all great tips. I’m SO BAD at meal planning and I’ve been saying for over a year that I want to get better. Usually I’ll come home from the gym and start thinking about dinner then when I don’t want to cook at all and have nothing good to eat. I have some kind of mental block in between wanting to be better at meal planning and actually doing it. I think I need to take baby steps. Thanks again for the tips!
Heather
Haha, I’m the same way. That’s the worst! Baby steps are key for me too. Best of luck!
Suhana Morgan
Hello Heather,
These are some great tips you discuss. I appreciate your hard work. What types of slicer is long-lasting?