Planning what you’re going to make for dinner at least a few days ahead makes your life so much easier. If you have to decide what you’re going to cook that night every single day it takes more time, more mental energy and can limit your options to whatever you have in the house, which also makes it harder to cook healthy food. Meal planning will also save you time and money in the supermarket because you will know exactly what you need, you won’t impulse buy as much and you won’t have to go back multiple times during the week.
I don’t always do a meal plan (because life), but I am much less stressed when I do. I usually write down which day we will have each meal if our schedule or the use-by dates on our food mean that it makes sense, but I’m not really rigid with it; I often swap days around if I just don’t feel like eating what I had in my meal plan for that day.
Here’s how to start meal planning:
- Make a master list of all the meals you know how to cook and your family likes so you can just pick things off that list. I like to group the meals in my list by type of protein (chicken, beef mince, sausages etc).
- Where I always start with a weekly meal plan is the protein I already have in the fridge or freezer. Write a list: 3 chicken breasts, beef mince, fish fingers, eggs for example.
- Next, look at the vegetables you have in the fridge and the tins and packets you have in the pantry. Do the protein and vegetables you have go together in any of your favourite meals? For example, chicken, onions and peppers says fajitas or curry to me; beef mince, carrot, onion and tinned tomatoes could make spag bol; chicken and snow peas could be a stirfry. Then I would check if I have the pasta, wraps, rice, coconut milk, soy sauce, spices etc to make those meals, and add things to my shopping list accordingly.
- Check your schedule for the week. Which afternoons/nights will you be most busy? Don’t plan something new, long or complicated for those nights.
- Go back to your master list to pick the rest of the meals you need for the week, checking your pantry and writing your shopping list as you go.
Extra Handy Tip:
Even with this method, sometimes I just can’t decide what I want to make. Another way of nailing it down is to have a weekly schedule, or theme night, like they do in many canteens. For example: Mexican Monday, soup or salad on Tuesday, pasta on Wednesday, leftovers on Thursday, fish on Friday, exotic/fun food on Saturday and a roast on Sunday. So then in my house Mexican Monday could be chilli, tacos or fajitas; pasta Wednesday could be spaghetti and meatballs, tuna pasta bake or macaroni cheese etc etc. You don’t have to stick to this kind of schedule every single week, but it can help you out when you’re feeling a bit stuck.
What we ate this week:
I don’t know if it’s just me being a geek, but I really like seeing what other people had for dinner! If you’re like that too…this is what we had for dinner last week:
Monday: Chicken Massaman curry (the kids had fish fingers – Thai is a bit spicy for them!
Tuesday: San choy bow (Chinese pork mince in oyster sauce with lettuce wraps)
Wednesday: Leftovers, we all had something different
Thursday: Savoury mince cobbler with broccoli
Friday: We went out for a curry
Saturday: Chicken and spinach pasta
Sunday: Roast chicken, roast potatoes, cabbage and carrots
Do you meal plan? Do you have a different method? Let me know in the comments!
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