The Beginners Guide to Simple Meal Planning

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I love being in the kitchen and always have. Experimenting is fun for me. I I really enjoy baking, but most importantly I like making sure the people I love are fed well.

We eat a home cooked meal 6-7 nights a week. I cook a lot and have come up with an easy meal planning strategy to keep things simple at dinnertime. I want to inspire you to get back in the kitchen and do this, because you can!

Make things easier with a meal plan!

Simply put, meal planning means coming up with a strategy that makes it easier for to get breakfast/lunch/dinner on the table and spend less time thinking about it each day.

For beginners, this could look planning dinner for the week ahead. Or it could making the same lunch every day for work. It’s going to be different for everyone, but I want to teach you my tips and tricks for getting it done a month at a time.

Now you are going to sit there and say, “how can I know what I want to eat three weeks from now?” And I’m here to tell you not to worry!

We’ll get there.

More importantly, we need to make things easier for you first. Eating what you and your family have planned for will become normal quickly. And if not, swap days, swap meals, eat cereal for dinner now an then…but always keep it simple.

How to get started with a simple meal plan

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All you need to get started is the desire to make things easier for yourself.

Let me tell you how I do it.

This is my tried and true way to make life easier on myself each week in the kitchen…and remember, I love being there, but my method has helped even the most kitchen averse!

First things first. Sit down with 2 pieces of paper and and a writing implement (In my house it is just as likely to be a pen or pencil as it is to be a crayon or marker).

Think broad categories (breakfast for dinner, pizza night, taco Tuesday). If you need some help coming up with ideas, check out my post 15 categories for simple family meals. It will help you get started if you are still feeling stuck.

Alright, now that you have those 5 categories, assign them each to a day of the week. Now, on your second piece piece of paper, make a rough drawing of a calendar (alternatively, you can download my meal planning calendar template for free here or below.)

Now comes the fun part.

Time to decide what you are eating for the month…

Quick Tips for Your First Meal Plan

• Just start doing it
• Make your first week of meals really simple and ones that you know everyone will eat
• Don’t be too hard on yourself
• Get your family involved. The more say they have in what you are cooking, the more likely they are to eat it

Commonly asked questions about meal planning

• How do you make time to make dinner every night?
  • Since I know what we are eating, I don’t have to waste time deciding what’s for dinner. Additionally, I leave out the recipe and all my non-perishable ingredients on the counter before leaving the house. At the end of the day, when people are hangry, you aren’t wondering where the spaghetti noodles are. I also try to stick to recipes that can be made in under 45 minutes. When cooking times are longer, I prep some of the meal the night before.
• What about picky eaters?
  • That’s the beauty of this system. You create the menu and get input from family members, so picky eaters are helping decide on the meals. I find that when kids (or adults) help pick the menu, they are less likely to complain or reject the meal. I’ll write a future post on how I make dealing with picky eaters simple.
• How do you keep things in budget?
  • Again, as you design the meal plan you can keep budget in mind. We happen to keep kosher and kosher meat is EXPENSIVE, so I design our month with less meat and chicken than you might design yours. I try and balance expensive foods at each meal (typically the protein) with less expensive sides. One day a week is always super simple and super cheap (like this recipe for pasta pangrattato).
• Do you really like planning everything out like this?
  • I LOVE IT! Not only do I feel accomplished each month when my menu is done, but I love how simple it makes getting my weekly menu board up, how easy my shopping list goes together, and how simply my meals get on the table
• Can you really get away with grocery shopping only once each week?
  • Sure can! I will talk about this strategy in another post
• Need more inspiration? Check out these menu’s I created for you.
  • August Menu
  • September Menu

One Last Thing…

Just remember that you CAN do this. Simple meal planning for your family will save you time, money and enable you to feel good about feeding your family. Even if you don’t love cooking, one less decision each day certainly makes things easier and takes the dread out of the question:

“What’s for {insert random meal your family wants here}?

Simple as your favorite gray t shirt, right?

If you found the information here helpful, please share with your friends and let me know by commenting below! I hope to help as many people as possible make their lives a little bit easier.