We've been meal planning and prepping since 2012 and have seen and heard EVERYTHING as it relates to meal prep successes, challenges, hurdles, favorites, process, etc! We wanted to bring together all the information we have gathered over the years into one getting started and maintaining success when it comes to planning your meals. This How To Meal Plan guide will cover topics like; organization, shopping lists, time management/planning, and tools and hacks.
In our experience, we've seen 3 main roadblocks I hear about from the people who want to start meal planning:
This Meal Plan guide will help solve all of these problems!
The last thing that you want to do when it comes to planning meals is to try and come up with a new 5-course menu for each day of the week. Imagine if you had a list of 5-10 recipes that you KNOW you and your family likes and that you could easily get together. Sounds easier already, doesn't it? This is the goal... to have a foundation of recipes that you are comfortable with and that you can then build on top of. We're going to call this the Meal Plan Foundations List, but first, let's bust some myths...
The most common question that comes up is, "I don’t know what to put on my Meal Plan Foundations List." If this is you, no worries... here are some questions you can ask yourself that will help you overcome this mental block (be sure to write down the answers to these questions too!!):
• Think about what has been for dinner for the past month. What was everyone’s favorite meal this month?
• Ask the people in your house, “if you could eat anything for dinner tonight, what would you want?”
• Ask your friends, "what are you making for dinner tonight?"
Answering those questions will help you identify the basics. If you are a little more advanced in your meal planning process, the second most common hurdle is, "I am sick of making the same thing every week." Here is what you should do when you find yourself asking, What's Next?!
Here is an example of how we've displayed our Go-To recipes:
Take your list from Step 2 and break the meals out into categories. Everyone’s categories will be different based on your family’s way of eating and that's OK! Putting your list items into categories serves 2 purposes, planning your weekly calendar and planning your monthly calendar.
Here is an example of what your categories could look like.
Having a category list is super helpful to have because it eliminates one of the main decision-making points as it relates to dinner. Go look in your freezer, see what you have, then go look on your categorized list.
GOAL: Try to have 5-10 recipes in each of your main categories
Do you have ground beef recipes? Awesome... Pick one of your favorite ground beef recipes! Once this becomes routine, you can look at what main ingredient you have (usually in the freezer because you save money by buying in bulk and freezing it) and prioritize using what you have, over buying new main ingredients.
WARNING: TBH... if you stick with steps 1-3, you're solid. Those steps will eliminate so much time and mental energy when it comes to meal planning. Step 4 is more for the people who are a little extra and want to be ultra proactive. We've seen this work great for people and we've also seen this be a discouragement. If you can be flexible with yourself, and not beat yourself up over missing a planned meal, than keep going forward. If you get discouraged when you don't stay on target, start with steps 1-3 as a base and see how the meal planning process has changed before moving forward.
PRO TIP: If you're going to BBQ on Suday, plan on buying extra meat so you can prepare them ahead of time and portion it out for luches... or even freeze the left overs and incorporate them into one of the dinners for the coming week. BOOM!
Each week, when you go to build a plan, look at the categories on your Meal Plan Foundations List and pulling a recipe from each list and plug it into one of the days.
MONEY SAVING TIP | If you are meal planning with the primary goal of saving money, check out the deals at your local grocery store. If you see that chicken or beef is on sale, pick those recipes from your Meal Plan Foundations List and rest assured you're saving money!
For a little house cleaning, here are some Do's and Don'ts when it comes to making your lists:
DO:
DON’T
Still with us?! WOW! Thank you so much...
If you have any questions or comments, please leave then in the comments area below. Or, come say what's up and chat with us on Instagram @MealPrepMondays
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