Planning meals weekly
Do you ever feel frazzled during the week when you think about meals? I do, and I hate it! I usually don’t know what to make… If I do have an idea, I’m usually missing ingredients to make it… I keep thinking: when will I have the time to prepare or cook our meals?… Here’s what I’ve come up with to make food planning enjoyable.
I’ve always believed that “eating” should be pleasant and not stressful. I’ve been on a mission to change that and realized that there are different ways this can be achieved. Really, it’s about figuring out what you and/or your family’s needs are and then see what works best for you.
Options
Most of us have seen or heard of people who prep all their meals for the week on a Sunday. I find that very admirable because I don’t think I would be able to do that. I certainly would not be able to do it every Sunday. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I could achieve that but it doesn’t work for me. Kudos to you if you are one of those people!
There are various ways to go about planning your meals.We tend to forget that we don’t all have the same needs, schedules and life styles. Furthermore, cooking and prepping meals on a Sunday may not work for everyone and that’s perfectly o.k. If that’s the case for you, you are probably wondering: “How could I go about food prepping for a week?” Here are different options that you may want to consider for yourself.
One-day prep
The basis of this is to take approximately 2-3 hours of your day to prep, cut, cook and portion your meals for the week. This could apply to work and school lunches as well as week night dinners or even breakfasts. What ever floats your boat!
By doing so, keep in mind that by Thursday, you don’t really have the “option” to choose what you would like to eat. You will eat what you’ve prepped on the previous Sunday. This concept may appeal to you if you don’t want have to think about or plan meals during the week. If that’s the case for you, then go for it! Keep in mind that this full day of prepping does not have to be on Sunday. Do this on whichever day works best for you and your family.
However, you are the type of person who changes her mind about food preferences, maybe this method isn’t for you. On Wednesday, you may not want to eat what you’ve prepped on the previous Sunday. It might not be as pleasing and relaxing to eat your prepared food later on in the week. Here’s another approach.
One-day planning
I personally like to “plan” my meals ahead of time but not necessarily prep them. I list dinner option ideas for the week. If I need to, I go shopping for the missing ingredients. Once I have all the ingredients, I feel ready for my week!
Every evening, I will look at our family schedule and my list of dinner options to determine what I would like for the next day. Once I’ve chosen, I go ahead and prep everything I need for that meal. That way, the next day, I have an idea of what we will be eating for dinner. Bonus: Since I’ve prepared as much as I could the night before, I know I just have to put it all together around dinner time.
This option works for us because we tend to change our minds as to what we would like to eat for the next day. We may also modify our menu layout for the week depending on what we have to use in the refrigerator before it goes bad. With this method, we have more flexibility to change our minds which really works for us.
This method could apply to plan 3, 5 or 7 days/week. You do you and what works best for you.
Planning tools
If you are a visual person, you may prefer to see what you’ve planned as far as meals for you week. Here are a few tools to help you with that.
Menu board
My first visual menu from years ago was a sheet of paper with the days of the week placed in a plastic protector. I planned meals by writing on it with an erasable marker. That way, I could erase it every week and plan all over again. I would put the sheet on the side of our refrigerator but you can really put it anywhere. It can be attached on your fridge, inside a cupboard or pantry or even in a kitchen drawer. Keep it wherever you like as long as it’s convenient for you.
See below the one I used for a very long time. There are tons of templates of these menus as printable versions on Pinterest.
You could also hang an actual menu as decor. That’s what we’ve using for a while now and we love it! We used to have one that was magnetic, which was convenient but I stumbled upon this one for $4 at Dollorama and I was sold!
Grocery list
This may seem obvious for some but I strongly suggest having a list for groceries. It’s very helpful. Try having it handy so that when you notice you’ve run out of something you can write it on the list right away.
You have many options here as well. There is the standard note pad or the magnetic grocery list. You could also keep a list in your phone for grocery options and share the list with family member so that everyone can add what they would like on it.
Recipes
Keep recipes handy so they can inspire you. Whether you like looking through cookbooks, printed recipes, magazines or boards on Pinterest. If it inspires you, try keeping it close to your food planning station (if you can) or bring it out when you are planning. This should help you remove the overwhelming feeling that can come about when you are planning meals. Relying on those sources and inspiration alleviates the pressure on you to come up with all the recipe and ideas.
Frozen meals
Prepping meals does not always need to only apply to fresh food that you will have to cook. It can also be about food with will thaw in the morning and reheat at dinner time.
For example… You’ve decided to cook a Sheppard’s pie on Monday for dinner. You are only three family members for dinner that evening so there are plenty of left overs. You could have cooked a small Sheppard’s pie but here’s the advantage to cooking a larger casserole than what you need.
With what’s left you could: (1) eat leftovers all week which would save you the stress of cooking dinners or (2) you can portion and freeze your leftovers. These frozen homemade meals can easily serve you in the following weeks and/or months.
My husband’s philosophy is that, if you’re going to heat the oven to cook one meal, might as well cook more of it and just freeze the rest for numerous other meals. He’s totally right! It saves me from doing the work twice. I cook once and have meals I can use on other days.
If you need guidance to freeze your food, make sure to check out my blog posts about freezer space saving tips and freezer organization.
Planning phase
Pick a day that works best for you to plan and have all your planning tools handy. Look at that week’s schedule and see if you have meetings, appointments, work, extra curricular activities, etc. Take those into consideration to plan which meals suit best for which night. Once you’ve figured out which nights you have more or less time, list your menu options.
Go through a recipe book that you like, through your pantry and fridge to see what you have on hand and what may need to be used soon. From there, you should be able to list meal options that you would like. If you are missing ingredients, add them to your grocery list.
If you can’t go grocery shopping on the day you’re planning your meals, maybe leave the recipes and meals that require ingredients that you don’t have on hand for later that week. You can’t always have everything on hand so give yourself a chance. If you plan on having cereal for dinner on Thursday night or Take-Out on Friday, I say go for it! I certainly won’t judge you and you shouldn’t judge yourself either.
By planning and organizing your meals ahead of time you will save time and money.
- You will have a better idea of what you have as far as food in your house and won’t overstock on something you didn’t know you had. This will also save you from having food go bad because you basically make an inventory of what you have every week. Cha-ching!
- You will most likely only go grocery shopping for the items that are on your list being that there the only ones you need. Cha-ching!
- You will save time during the week because meals are one less thing you need to worry about.
The whole goal of organization is to give you more time to do what you WANT to do and not so much of what you HAVE to do. You put in the time now to save it later. It may take some trial and error but if you keep at it, you will find what works. Which day of the week works best for you to plan meals? Let me know in the comments.
