Meal Planning: 10 tips to help you get ahead

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

And so it goes! Eating is the best part. Planning, cooking and cleaning.. not so much, even when you LIKE it! Here are some tips to getting ahead of the never ending rotation of.. breakfast, lunch and dinner.

1. Take inventory EVERY week - what do you have? What do you need to use up?

2. Make your grocery list or lists! We buy food from different places (different grocery stores, an online market for some off season produce, bulk ordering and other stories for some pantry items) so I have lists on my phone of where I buy things normally and will add items to my lists accordingly.

3. Make a list of all the foods you like eating (soups, pastas, chicken dishes, tacos, quesadillas, grain bowls, sheet tray bakes, pies, sauces, etc…) so that you have ideas to pull from when you are JUST.NOT.IN.THE.MOOD.

4. If you eat meat (and freeze it), thaw meats at the beginning of the week so you’re not pressed for time on the day of. Nothing worse than realizing you have chicken on the menu and it’s rock hard frozen. The instant pot can come in here and save the day, cooking frozen chicken no problem.

5. Take shortcuts where you can with a slow cooker or instant pot! My instant pot is my go to grain cooker (rice, farro, quinoa) and ensure my grains are perfect everytime without having to watch them over the stove.

6. Decide where you’re writing this all down (ONE notebook, using the notes app on your phone, or a dry erase board - you’ll have to take a picture or copy your grocery list down though). I use the notes app on my phone for my meal ideas list and my grocery lists. Then I use the dry erase board on my fridge to post our menu for the week.

7. Use your ingredients in more than one dish for the week (ex. shredded chicken for tacos and grain bowls, roasted sweet potatoes as a side dish + for the grain bowl). I’m a big fan of over cooking so that we have leftovers for lunch and dinner another day in the week. I do not like over cooking so that I’m eating the same things over and over and over, though. No thanks.

8. If you’re the main cook, ask someone else in your house to cover dinner (whether they cook or arrange take out) once a week. This will be glorious that one night a week when you KNOW you are off the hook.

9. I like having some kind of baked good that’s easy to grab for breakfast (usually a muffin, sometimes pancakes). I make them and freeze half the batch, that way we are eating them up while they are fresh and then we have some to pull from the freezer when we want more. Or, hello, chocolate oatmeal - RECIPE BELOW!!

10. Again, this ones for the meat eaters… MEATBALLS! Having homemade meatballs for one or two meals throughout the week is awesome. I make a super simple meatball with pork or beef, sometimes both, classic seasonings like garlic, onion, s+p and breadcrumbs and then change up how they’re served. One night it’s a sweet and tangy sauce with rice and veg, another night it’s a red sauce with pasta.