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You guys know I love cooking, baking sourdough, food preservation, and other kitchen projects. Believe it or not, though, meal planning is not one of my strengths.
We have fully stocked freezers and plenty of ingredients always available in our refrigerator and pantry, but there are many nights in our house that involve the following conversation:
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t know, what sounds good to you?”
SO FRUSTRATING, right?!
Well, it just so happens that my friend Jess Roe is an awesome health and fitness coach that is a rockstar at meal planning, so I asked her to share some of her best tips with us.
Thanks, Jess!
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Meal planning can be fast and easy!
What do you think when you hear the phrase “Meal Planning?”
Do you shudder, thinking it’s going to take way too much time and effort?
Does meal planning conjure an image of a hyper-organized mom with her 100 color-coded lists standing next to a massive pile of food that she’s ready to prep and portion into perfect little glass containers?
And I bet when you picture it like that, you figure “meal planning is just not for me.”
First, I want you to know that meal planning doesn’t need to take a lot of time – and it doesn’t even have to include food prep if you don’t want it to! Second, meal planning is an amazing tool that you can modify to work however you need!
Why bother with meal planning?
When you already have a million things on your plate, it’s easy to assume you don’t have time for meal planning. But who has time to waste playing the “What do you want for dinner?” game?
You know that one – where you ask your partner what they want for dinner, and they don’t really know what they’re in the mood for, so they send the question back to you, but you don’t really know either. So an hour later you just order takeout.
Or you want to cook at home, but by the time you decide on WHAT you are eating and THEN cook it, it’s practically bedtime!
Or worse, you’re HANGRY but you don’t know what you want and you don’t have a plan, so you just chow down on the rest of the Doritos … while waiting for your takeout to arrive because you don’t have the ingredients to make the only thing you wanted to eat!
Not only is this a nasty cycle to get in for your overall health (we all know home-cooked is healthier right?) but it’s a HUGE time suck, mental drain, and guaranteed way to jack up your grocery bill!
So, what is the solution?
Meal planning! And the best part is that meal planning DOESN’T actually take very long at all!
In fact, I plan out my whole family’s meals for an ENTIRE MONTH in about 30 minutes! Bet you that’s less time than you spend trying to decide what’s for dinner most nights!
That’s right – I do my meal planning a whole month at a time. So the rest of the month, I don’t even have to think about what’s for dinner, or any meal for that matter! That’s a serious mental load taken off!
As much as I LOVE food (I could spend hours scrolling through Pinterest recipes), I don’t really like wasting any of my precious time agonizing over it. I want to see it, plan it, cook it, and eat it. And think about the 342 other things on my to-do list. 😉
Tips for quick and easy meal planning
First, I create my master list of meals for the month. I pull recipes from my Pinterest Recipes Board, favorite cookbooks, or take family requests. Over the last year or so, I’ve started printing my favorites and keeping them in a binder. Then, I can just look through that and pull any that sound good for the month. Then I assign them to each week. Done! Seriously.
Then each week, all I have to do is look at what’s on the meal plan for the week, create a quick grocery list and get the groceries so they’re on hand. I don’t personally assign meals to specific days. I like to pick and choose depending on what I’m in the mood to eat.
But, having a set list of meals to choose from really helps cut down on decision fatigue. I do like to have one meal from each type of cuisine that my family seems to enjoy: Southwest, Asian, Italian or Mediterranean, American, and comfort food. Then you have four or five meals to pick from – that’s it! And worst case, if NONE of the planned meals sound good, I’ll swap a meal in from another week.
Meal planning can save you money, too!
Having that list is also super helpful for your grocery budget! Not only are you cooking food at home (which is always cheaper!), but you will spend less at the grocery store because you are ONLY buying the ingredients for what is on your meal plan.
Plus, you can get clever with your planning and find recipes with similar ingredients.
Now, you won’t have to toss that half bag of shredded carrots that was leftover from a recipe. You will be using the shredded carrots in a salad one night and throwing the rest into a stir fry the next. So, you are reducing food waste and maybe making it possible to buy in bulk for even more savings!
How do you get started?
If you want to give meal planning a try but want to just start with one week, that’s totally fine! But, don’t avoid planning for a whole month because you think it’s going to take four times longer than a weekly plan. It won’t.
I noticed when I was just doing one week at a time, I was coming up with a master recipe list that was way more than we would ever eat in a week because everything looked so good! As soon as I had a rough idea of how many breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks we needed for one week, it was SUPER easy to just multiply those numbers for a month and pull out that number of recipes.
Are you ready to try meal planning?
I promise you won’t regret it! Get started with my free Monthly Meal Planner – it will walk you through the super-simple process and it’s got all the printables you’ll need to get organized and start meal planning whether you want to do one week or one month!
And one final tip: Don’t meal plan on a full stomach. You want to be just a little hungry (30 minutes to an hour before you normally eat is a good time.) That way, you won’t be too picky about selecting recipes for your master list. It makes the process go so much faster, and you will be really excited about your meal plan which is ALWAYS a win!
Let me know how your planning goes! And if you need some inspiration, check out my Pinterest Recipes Board or have a look at my family’s meal plans.
Happy meal planning!
Meet & Follow Jess
Jess Roe is a Health & Fitness Coach who helps women rebuild their health & fitness holistically using movement and healthy habits that last so they can stop hating their bodies and start living the healthy life of their dreams.
When she’s not working with clients, she’s homeschooling, cooking up delicious food, adventuring with her family, or just relaxing with a book.
You can find Jess on Facebook and Instagram and in her Making Sense of a Healthy Life Community.
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