Meal Planning 3 Ways
- tracymartorana4
- Jun 8
- 6 min read
Meal planning can be a drag. That is why you find memes all over social media about how adulting means you have to decide what's for dinner every night for the rest of your life.
Yes, meal planning can get tiring, but it is also an opportunity to be creative. I'm going to share with you 3 different methods for meal planning. You might find one speaks to you right away, or you might want to experiment with all 3 methods.
Oh the Irony - while I'm typing up this blog, my husband texted me from the other room asking me "what's for dinner?" and my reply was "I don't know." The struggle is real, my friends!!
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Notes
No matter which method you decide to try, there are a few things to keep in mind.
All meal planning will require you to spend a few minutes making decisions on the plan, creating a shopping list, and grocery shopping.
Using a service like Instacart to shop for you can save you time and money by avoiding impulse buys. Yes, the price per item might be a little more, but you save a bunch because the shoppers stick to the list.
Before grocery shopping, shop your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.
Look at your grocery store flyer to incorporate sale items.
Consider your calendar so you aren't planning new or complicated meals on a busy weeknight.
Always plan a night to use up leftovers, whether it's creating a new meal (like pork loin one night followed by pulled pork sandwiches the next) or simply eating the same meal again.
Do a little prep work on the weekends to take the pressure off on busy nights.
Google is your friend when looking for easy recipes.
Method #1 - Use a Weekly Template
Create a theme for each day. This helps you narrow down your options. You can make your daily themes whatever you choose. Here is an example:
Meatless Monday - You don't have to be a vegetarian to enjoy a delicious meatless meal.
Taco Tuesday - You can try a variety of tacos (ground beef, fish, shrimp), taco bowls, or expand this to include quesadillas, enchiladas, and burritos.
Leftover Wednesday - Use up any leftovers from the last 4-5 days of meals.
Pasta Thursdays: Experiment with the pasta shape and the 'sauce'. Use marinara, pesto, a can of diced tomatoes, or just oil and garlic. Add a protein like meatballs, chicken, fish, beans, or cheese.
Pizza Friday - you can make homemade pizza with your favorite toppings or order out.
Soup Saturday - make a big pot of soup to have leftovers for weekday lunches!
Big Dish Sunday - make a big meal that will provide leftovers for Wednesday.
Don't like these? There are other themes you could use - Skillet Dinner, Breakfast for Dinner, New Recipe Day, Entree Salad, Grilled Dinner, Seafood Night, Burger Night, Take Out, Italian Night, etc. All of these themes help you hone in on fewer options to choose from, so you don't suffer from decision fatigue.
Method #2 - A Simple Rotation
This method is great if you don't consider yourself a great cook and are therefore limited on the number of dishes you feel confident making, if you have a picky eater in your family who only likes a handful of things, or if you are in the midst of a super busy season of life and need to keep things extremely simple.
Make a list of 14 meals you can easily make (and enjoy). Essentially, this is a 2-week meal plan that you keep rotating through. Yes, this means you are eating the same meals about twice a month, but it keeps things simple. You plan once, then your meal planning is done until you decide you need a change.
If you need this simplicity in your life but want a little more variety, there are a couple of options.
Change this list each season (every 3 months) so you can incorporate seasonally appropriate meals.
Come up with another week of meals or even a full month of easy recipes to minimize repeats.
Throw in an occasional "something new or different day" to add variety.
Variation 1 + 2
Combine Method 1 + 2. Create your daily themes, then create a list of 2-4 recipes for each theme and rotate through those.
Method #3 - Choose a Focus Ingredient
This method lets us take advantage of a great sale, bulk purchases, or a big in-season farm market haul. If we focus several of our meals around 1 main ingredient, we can use up a bulk purchase or sale item without letting things go to waste. For example:
Say canned tomatoes are for sale, or your farm market is selling fresh tomatoes in bulk. You could plan your meals around tomatoes. Tomato soup. Pasta with fresh sauce. Gazpacho. Chili. Goulash. Caprese Salad.
Maybe you have to babysit a friend's chickens while they go on vacation, and you get to keep all the eggs. Plan some meals around eggs. Quiche, Shakshuka, Breakfast Casserole, Egg Burritos.
There is a time every summer when we all become inundated with zucchini. Get out your spiralizer and make zucchini pasta or use a vegetable peeler to make zucchini noodle lasagna. Try zucchini fritters with a piece of grilled fish. Stuff zucchini to make boats. Make this yummy zucchini casserole.
You get the idea, right? If you can be just a bit creative, using the same ingredient for a week won't get boring, and it might save you a bit of money while also preventing food from going to waste.
Emergency Meals
No matter which meal planning technique you use, it is wise to have the ingredients for one or two emergency meals. These are meals you can toss together in just a few minutes or that someone else in your household can manage. These are critical for when your schedule blows up on you or you find a main ingredient that you were planning to use is rotten and inedible in the fridge. I can't be the only person this has happened to, right?
Pasta and jarred sauce.
Salad and Cheese Dreams (cheese dreams are toast with cheese melted on top).
Roasted veggies (whatever veggies are in the crisper - I usually have carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower) and quinoa.
Stir-Fry (whatever is in the crisper) and rice.
Frozen leftovers (lasagna, soup, grilled and sliced tuna steak)
Rice and Beans (all you need is some rice, a can of beans (black, pinto, red kidney), and some spices like garlic powder, red pepper flakes, and salt/pepper.
Breakfast & Lunch
I have been focusing on dinner, because that is often the biggest stressor. However, let's not overlook breakfast and lunch. I find that it's usually best to keep both of these meals pretty simple, at least during the week. If you have time on the weekend to do a big breakfast or brunch, go ahead.
Overnight oats. Make a big batch on the weekend to eat all week long.
Yogurt with berries and granola. You can make both yogurt and granola from scratch, but if time isn't on your side, buy the best/healthiest option (read the labels). To prevent unnecessary packaging waste, don't buy individual yogurts. Buy a big container and transfer it to a small bowl or travel container.
A bowl of cereal. There are good options and bad options. Read the labels and choose the best option for you.
Fruit. If time is of the essence, pick fruit you can eat on the go, like bananas or apples.
Quiche. Make it on the weekend and package up single servings to grab and go during the week.
Sandwich and crudites. Make a sandwich with leftover meat, egg salad, or tuna salad. Add cheese and lettuce. Keep a big container of chopped vegetables for an easy lunchtime side.
Soup. Make a big batch on the weekend or pick up your favorite canned soup from the grocery store.
Leftovers from last night's dinners. This has always been a favorite workday meal for us. While you are cooking dinner, plan on making enough for lunch the next day. Package it up while you are cleaning up the kitchen.
Salad. Have salad fixings prepped in the fridge. Then, putting together a salad is quick and easy.
Thoughts on Boredom
If you think any of these methods are too boring, keep in mind that you can edit them as often as you want. If you love to try new recipes, just rotate that into the plan. We all move through different stages of life. At some point, you might need a super simple, boring, repetitive meal plan just to keep the family fed. Other times, you might find you can experiment more. Respect what's going on in your life right now and do what is necessary to keep you and your family healthy, happy, and fed.
Previous Posts
This is not the first time I've shared about meal planning. You can check out THIS post, in which you can see an actual example of what I made that week. Or check out THIS post, where I share another example of weekly themes.
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