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How long does it take you to decide what you're having for dinner each night? It's a never-ending task that can feel completely overwhelming, especially when you have a family to feed! Meal Planning provides many benefits - you save time, you save money, and you reduce food waste! In this three-part series, I'm going to walk you through my meal planning process step by step and provide you with resources to get you started and make meal time a breeze!
Getting Started
First, let's start with some basic tips:
Choose one meal. If you've never stuck to a meal planning routine successfully before, don't try to jump in and plan breakfasts, lunches, and dinners straight from the beginning. I suggest starting with dinners, since those tend to take up the most time and are usually when everyone is home and needing to eat. Plan out your dinners until you're totally comfortable and used to the routine, then add in lunches.
Choose a dedicated grocery day. Save time and money by eliminating unnecessary trips to the grocery store. Choose a specific day to plan and shop for your meals or the whole week. (Or the whole month or whatever looks best for your family!) I always plan out my meals and make a grocery list on Friday, then we shop first thing Saturday morning.
Plan to eat meals using fresh ingredients first. There's nothing worse than planning out a week's worth of delicious meals and buying the ingredients only to get to the end of the week and find your produce has gone bad. Then you're right back at square one, trying to decide what to eat at 5:00 and running to grab take out. Pay attention to expiration dates and plan to eat anything that might expire early on.
What is Rotational Meal Planning?
Rotational meal planning is exactly what it sounds like! It involves creating an index or list of meals and simply rotating through it. This takes a huge portion of the mental load out of meal planning, since you're not constantly having to remember the meals you've enjoyed or come up with new ideas.
Building The Recipe Index
The first step in preparing to meal plan takes a bit of effort, but will save you SO MUCH TIME in the long run. You will need to curate a written list of tried + true recipes/meals that your family enjoys. This can be a digital list on your phone, a list in your planner or recipe binder, a spreadsheet - any type of physical list.
Below is a template I put together. Use it as a Google Sheet, print it off, or just get ideas to create your own!
My family loves variety, so over the past 7 years (when I began cooking for my now husband) I have curated a list of nearly 100 recipes. This list is constantly changing and evolving as our family's needs change. For example, in this season of young kids I gravitate towards quick & easy meals. The more hands-off, the better!
When originally building my list, I liked to try out a new recipe once a week. Now, it's usually more like once or twice a month. I keep a separate list on my phone of recipes I want to try. They don't get added to my master meal planning list until they have been tested and approved by my family!
Building a List Using Theme Nights
Once you have a master list, meal planning becomes a breeze. Since I already know that my family enjoys these meals, I simply rotate through my list! To prevent eating 4 pasta-based meals in one week, I separate my recipes into themes. Select 7 themes/categories for your list and group your recipes together in your list. My husband enjoys Asian inspired cuisine, while my favorite is Mexican. There's two themes right there! The seven themes I use are:
Asian
Mexican
Easy/One-Pan (obviously some of these would overlap - I just put it in whatever category makes the most sense!)
Pasta
Hearty
Soup/Grill (soup for fall/winter, grill for spring/summer)
Take-Out (I know that inevitably, one night I'm going to just not feel like cooking or not be in the mood for whatever I had planned, so I work it into my meal plan!)
You'll notice some of my themes are ingredient based, some cooking method based, and some cuisine based. The great thing about this is it's totally customizable to your family's preferences! If you need inspiration or help getting started, here's a list of different "themes". Mix and match until you create a theme rotation that fits your family's needs!
Should You Set Your Themes to Days of the Week? That's totally up to you! I do have set days that I typically stick to, but life happens so it's always best to remain flexible and pay attention to what's going on in your week. Taco Tuesday doesn't always have to be Tuesday!
Where to Find Recipes for Your List
Maybe you're totally new to cooking, or you eat takeout so often that you don't have enough meals to make a curated list. That's okay! Start with what you have and then start trying out new recipes. I didn't cook AT ALL when my husband and I first started dating. In fact - our very first night in our very first apartment together, I set off the smoke alarm while BOILING WATER. I still don't really consider myself a cook. I am a "follow the recipe exactly" person probably 95% of the time. I found nearly all of our family staples from either Pinterest or cookbooks.
If you're needing to grow your recipe collection, here are some of my favorite cookbooks/resources.
I Heart Naptime - This is my favorite and if you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I use it often. Every recipe we've tried has been a keeper, and they're all so easy with totally normal ingredients!
Taste of Home - Pretty sure they have a million different cookbooks + a website. I gravitate towards the ones that are full of 10/20/30 minute meals. I got this one for Christmas this year. I was also gifted this Cooking for Two when we were first married and have been able to double our favorites to feed our growing family.
Magnolia Table Vol. 1 - While some of these recipes are a little more involved, I had to include it because we've gotten some family favorites out of here. We love Mrs. Gail's Chicken and Fettucine Alfredo, the Sour Cream Enchiladas, and basically all her soups!
Pinterest - Pinterest is a GOLD MINE of delicious, family friend recipes. You do have to weed through some duds, but we've found a majority of our keepers through Pinterest.
Hopefully this provides a good starting point for you!! Once you've got that list made, you'll be ready to move on to Lesson 2: Creating a Plan!
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