Meal Planning 101
Meal planning use to be something I approached with dread and left until the last minute. With two kids in school and different schedules its essential that I make meal planning easy and simple for my family. Here is my system to simplify meal planning (especially during the school year). I’ve used this system for over 4 years and shared with other moms along the way too! And if you are looking for other ways to simplify as teh school year approaches, grab my free back to school checklist. It will lighten your load by providing a clear, organized plan for all the tasks and preparations needed for the new school year.
Grab my Back-To-School Checklist
Here’s how meal plan in just 5 minutes per week:
Brain Dump
Set a timer for 5 minutes. Gather a pen and notepad and number 1-21. Write out the first 21 meals that come to your mind. These should be your go-to meals that you cook regularly.
This is my original list - terrible handwriting and still lives at teh front of my meal planning binder. It actually took 2 minutes 58 seconds with 3 extra meals.
Creating a Core Recipe List
Congratulations! You have just created your CORE RECIPE LIST. This is the exact list you will select from every week to create a rotating calendar of meals with very little repeats.
For those menu items where you use a recipe, go ahead and locate those. I like to store mine in a tab binder like the one above (think old school trapper keeper) so that meal planning slides right into shopping list creation.
Meal Planning
We meal plan twice per week. Once on Sundays to prepare for the weekdays and again on Thursday for the weekend. We’ve found that we are able to eat more whole foods with fresher ingredients this way. It also helps us to avoid food waste and adjust meals more easily if plans change.
Pick a day each week (I do this as part of my Sunday Reset - more on that here) to meal plan. Looking at your 21 core items pick one for each evening of the week. Don’t forget things like DATE NIGHT, TAKE OUT, PIZZA NIGHT, etc. If you want to try a new recipe one night, do it!
Then gather all of the necessary receipes from your recipe binder and put them in the front so its easy to find when cooking this week.
I also like to use a menu board to post the menu for the fam to see. That way I don’t have to answer that dreaded question “What’s for dinner?” a million times and I can quickly see what meat I need to pull out of the freezer. Use your meal plan to drive your grocery shopping list.
I’d love to hear what approaches you currently use or have decided to try as a result of reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comments!
