How to Meal Plan & Why It’s Important
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As Simon Sineck says in his bestselling book, Start With Why, understanding the “why” of meal planning is a great place to start this post! Whether you’re about to make your first meal plan, or you are a seasoned meal planning pro, I hope this helps you!
WHY Meal Planning is Important
It makes your life easier.
For those of us who are in the season of cooking for others every day (in my case my husband and 3 kids under 8), not having an answer to the inevitable question “What’s for dinner?” doesn’t go over well! Having a plan in place, knowing what I’m going to make for dinner AND that I have all the ingredients I need to make it helps the end of my day not become a hot mess. Let’s face it, we all start off strong, but after a long day of work or taking care of the kids and house, we are running on fumes by the time dinner rolls around. It is a priority that our family has made to eat dinner at the table together to spend that quality time eating food that nourishes our bodies and strengthens our relationships. Are there still nights that we order pizza or bring in Chick fil A and watch a movie? Absolutely! But knowing that I have taken the time to carefully plan our meals for the week and have everything I need to make it motivates me to actually cook AND it helps me stay within our food budget, which brings me to the next point.
It saves time and money.
You can tell what is important to people based on where they spend their time and where they spend their money! Especially in the current economic climate (inflation, anyone?) it is wise to make a budget for your food. Cooking at home, especially when you have more people to feed, is much cheaper than eating out! My family of 5 spends at least $35 at fast food restaurants these days. My Lemon Roasted Chicken dinner costs about $12.50 (which is $2.50 per person) and it provides nutrients that McDonald’s does not. In my 13 years of marriage, the budget buster in our home has been eating out! Especially when we were first married, before I really knew how to meal plan, I would buy too much food, or we would string together more nights eating out that we meant to and the fresh groceries we’d bought went bad.
How To Meal Plan
1) Make a time in your calendar to meal plan
In the chaos of our everyday lives, finding a quiet time you can focus and plan out your meals can be challenging! I’ve done it all sorts of ways and at all sorts of times, and times where I’ve had to start and stop have resulted in forgotten ingredients and stress. I recommend putting 30 minutes in your calendar on your phone when you will be uninterrupted (lunch break, nap time, post kids bedtime?). Also, if you put a time in your calendar to complete a task you are more likely to do it!
2) Decide how many days and meals you are planning for and for how many people!
This one is pretty self explanatory, but there are all kinds of ways and lengths of time you can meal plan! For example, if you like a lot of fresh produce or salads, you may only plan four days at a time and make more frequent trips to the grocery store or farmers market. You could make a month’s worth of freezer meals or shop at Costco in bulk. You know what works best for your family! Also, regarding the number of people, think ahead in whatever time frame you’re planning for- if you will have family coming to visit, are having friends over for dinner, or if there is an event where you will bring food.
3) Determine your budget
Hopefully you already know how much you can budget for groceries! If not, don’t worry! A good way to figure it out is to look at what you’ve spent on groceries on average for the past 3 months (collecting data from 3 months really helps smooth out any unusual grocery expenses like a birthday party or visiting family).
A healthy grocery budget for my family of 5 is about $800 a month (about $200 a week), but I know that is going to increase as my kids grow! There was a time when just my husband and I survived on $25 a week. No matter what your budget is, you can figure out a way to make nutritious meals! Pinterest is full of ideas for cheap meals and freezer meals.
4) Figure out what meals/recipes you want to cook!
Once you have your budget in place, pull out your favorite recipes, call your mom for a childhood recipe, buy a new cookbook or search Pinterest for recipes with ingredients you enjoy! The possibilities are endless- you do not have to come up with meals on your own! You know what your preferences are and the preferences of your family (picky kids, anyone?) so work around those! I like making a list of all the main dishes I want to cook first and then I fill in the details from there.
5) Choose sides to serve with each meal
Once you have a list of all of the main dishes you want to cook for each meal, write down what side dishes go well with them! For dinners, I usually have two sides with the main dish. One is usually a green vegetable or salad and the other is a starchy vegetable or grain (potatoes, corn, rice or bread). Don’t feel like you need to cook everything! Use shortcuts like frozen or Steamfresh veggies, frozen rolls or fresh bread from the Walmart bakery. For breakfast, I make sure I have a source of protein (bacon, turkey sausage, eggs) if I’m making toast or something baked. Lunch is more of a free for all for me! I like making salads or having a soup or sandwich with chips or a piece of fruit. You do whatever works for you!
6) Decide when you want to eat each meal
Pull out your meal planning calendar or phone and write down the meals you want to cook on which day! Having a cute meal planner somehow makes the process more fun! Here is a cute magnetic floral planner you can keep on your refrigerator or if you like a notebook, this notebook is adorable!
Take your other plans into consideration when deciding what to cook on which day. For example, if your daughter has dance class on Wednesday nights or you typically work late on Monday nights, you may not want to do a pork roast that takes 2 hours that night! A crock pot recipe or a quick spaghetti dinner might be better options!
7) Make a shopping list of all the ingredients
Look at the ingredients lists for each recipe and the side items you’ve selected and organize them into a shopping list! Be sure to note any multiples of ingredients (like two recipes needing 2 onions each for a total of 4 onions).
Pay attention to the serving size of each recipe! If the recipe serves 4 and there are only 2 of you eating, you can either half the recipe (depending on what it is) or eat leftovers. Similarly, if the recipe serves 4 and you have a family of 6, consider doubling the recipe! Adjust ingredients accordingly.
If you are physically going to the grocery store, I suggest organizing the list by category (fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, dry goods, frozen). Organizing the list by category is also helpful if someone else is doing the shopping for you!
If you’re going to do grocery pickup or delivery (seriously, what did we do before this?), just enter in all of your items on your store’s app and organizing by category isn’t necessary!
8) Purchase your groceries and start cooking!
This is the fun part for me! Once my plan is in place and I know I have everything I need (although I still sometimes have to make quick grocery runs for a can of tomato paste I forgot), I can approach my week with confidence and answer the question "what’s for dinner?” with a smile. Whether or not my kids will be happy with my answer changes daily!
Gracing the Table: A Week of Dinners
Whether my post about how to meal plan made your organizational heart happy or the whole thing seems like a daunting task, I’m here to help! I see all the things you do in a day and you may be feeling like there just isn’t enough time in your day to compile recipes, plan when you want to serve them or make a grocery list. Or you may just want to see what a well-done meal plan actually looks like!
I invite you to check out my meal plan of 7 dinners! I’ve done all of the work for you! Each recipe is original and kitchen (and family) tested by me! These are some of my family’s favorites and serve 6 people! They are well balanced, delicious and simple to make.
The dinner meal plan not only includes recipes, but I’ve planned out the entire meal for each day and have detailed instructions on how and when to cook each item. Figuring out the timing of meals can be a challenge sometimes- you want everything to still be warm by the time you sit down to the table! I’ve got you covered!
The plan also includes a shopping list, lists of pantry items and kitchen equipment you will need. I’ve given options of how to cook some of the items to accommodate your kitchen!
Check it out here!