10 Tips to Make Meal Planning Easier

It’s the middle of January and you’re ordering a pizza for your family for dinner—and you’re not the only one! You started off the year with good intentions, hoping that you could finally get it together and keep your family on the healthy track while keeping your monthly food budget under control. The good news is, it’s not too late!

Planning ahead is the key to keeping you and your family on the right track! Your biggest hurdle will be deciding what to eat! Here are 10 tips for meal planning:

1. Compile a list of meals that your entire family loves

This may take some time, and even some searching on the internet to remind yourself of things you haven’t made in a while. Creating this list will help you come up with ideas to fill each week. I try to have different meals for each day of the month, but you might want to start out just having different meals each day of the week.

2. Decide if you want to meal plan weekly or monthly

I do a combination of both. I plan monthly on my calendar what we will eat for dinner, and then weekly I look at breakfast, lunch and snacks. This helps me organize my shopping and allows me to do one big grocery trip each month, and weekly trips to pick up perishables and weekly staples.

3. Set up your planning template – digital or paper

Some people enjoy planning everything digitally through your phone, in which case there are tons of apps and templates online to help you get started. I am more of a pen and paper kinda gal. I print out a monthly calendar and 4 weeklies. On the monthly calendar I outline the dinners that I want to cook for the entire month. This includes the side dishes that accompany them. I usually write the meals in pencil, because sometimes when I get to the grocery store I may not find what I’m looking for or the produce may not look as good as I’d hoped, so I like to be able to change what I planned easily.

When planning for the week, I split each day up to have breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner. I then keep my weekly calendars in a folder so that I can pull them out as needed to add notes of adjust things for the upcoming week.

4. Make sure you consider your family’s schedule

I am careful to ask my husband what he has going on for the month and to ensure that all family events are on our calendar. This allows me to plan ahead and think of days we may be eating out, or can may be home to try a new more complicated recipe.

5. Use a crockpot and take advantage of meals you can make and freeze

I am all about the crock pot and freezer meals! When we bought our home two years ago, one of the first things we invested in was a large freezer for our garage. This inspired me to make tons of meals ahead of time and freeze them. Some are crockpot ready in freezer bags, and some are already cooked and frozen ready to be reheated. This saves me tons of prep time and allows me to take the meal out to defrost either the night before or the morning of and just put it in the crock pot in the morning or in the oven after work. I love this idea because it gives me time in the evening to spend with my family instead of scrambling to figure out what’s for dinner!

If you don’t have a huge freezer you can still prepare a week’s worth of meals and freeze them or even prepare crockpot meals the night before. It’s set it and forget, and you come home to a warm home cooked meal with minimal work on your part!

6. Create a shopping list ahead of time.

Never shop without a list! This is crucial if you’re trying to stay healthy. If you go to the grocery store without a list you’re more likely to purchase unhealthy snacks and the same goes for shopping hungry. Make sure you go through your monthly or weekly plan and get only what you need to make those meals and snacks. I order online and pick up my groceries monthly, for me this is easier. I get the bulk or my shopping for the month done this way and then I make much shorter lists for my quick weekly trips for my perishables.

Make sure you add storage containers and baggies to your list if you’re not already stocked up at home!

7. Schedule a shopping day and a meal prep day

On my calendar I always include a day to meal plan, which is the same day I make my grocery lists. I also include a day to order groceries and a separate day to pick up the groceries and prep for the month. Meal planning and prepping isn’t easy. Planning each month takes me anywhere from 30 minutes all the way up to an hour. Meal prepping usually takes me about 3 hours once a month and about half an hour each Sunday. This sounds like a lot, but when you think about how much time you take preparing food each evening and for meals during the day it comes out to much less I promise! I try to keep the prepping to each Sunday morning since that is the day my family is most free, but you can adjust that to your own family’s schedule.

8. Try new recipes once a week and keep building the master list of meals your family loves

Pick 1 night each week where you have more time to cook and try a new recipe. This way you can keep adding to your meal list, and keep your family excited to try new things.

9. Prepare

Preparing your meals takes the most time, make sure that you set aside at least a few hours on the day you want to prepare. Get together your nonperishable ingredients and set them out on your counter. Group them by meal and create a section for ingredients you will use across multiple meals. This will help you stay organized. Then get cooking. I like to make most of my meals crock pot friendly. I spend this day pre-measuring and pouring the ingredients into the freezer bags and then freezing so I can pull them out the night before I want to cook them. Sometimes I double up on recipes so that I can have them as leftovers.

Preparing for the week is a bit easier. I take all my snacks and breakfasts and prepackage them into smaller containers and bags so that I am able to just grab them from the cabinet or refrigerator quickly. This usually takes me 15-30 minutes per week. This saves me time later and definitely saves me from eating that whole bag of pretzels and hummus!

10. Portion

Make sure you label and are aware of the portion size for each meal. Sometimes it is easier to pre-cook meals and pre-measure them so that you do not over eat!

If you’re still not entirely convinced, consider these 5 benefits of meal planning:

• Keeping you and your family healthy
• Less cheat eating
• Saves money
• Sets a good example of eating and organization for your kids
• Mixes up what you’re eating for dinner each night

Stay tuned for my next article: Meal Prep Ideas to Try Now!