How to Meal Plan in 5 Easy Steps
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When I became a stay-at-home mom, I started cooking the majority of my family’s meals at home. The me 10 years ago would be so proud, but would also be in a bit of disbelief. I know home cooked meals tend to be good for you and you know exactly what you are feeding your kids, but it’s hard work. It takes careful planning, consistency, and the accountability to just do it, even if you are lacking the drive that day. After committing to home cooking regularly for a while now, I reflected on how I am able to keep up the consistency. It turns out, I do the same 5 steps just about every week.
1. Meal Plan Around Your Schedule
The first thing I do is take note of which days we will be particularly busy or just out of the house. There is no use in planning to cook a big meal if I know we plan to be at a birthday party, or on days I know we will be short on time because we have appointments. You’ll have to plan to eat something that is easy and quick to prepare like a sandwich or leftovers. Looking at our weekly schedule as a whole helps me find the larger gaps of time that will allow me to try cooking something that will require more time, like a stew or trying a new recipe. I’m also able to see where I can squeeze in extra food prep or baking throughout the week. Keeping your schedule in mind when meal prepping ensures that you are being efficient with your time and less likely for you to be hindered by time constraints.
2. Shop Your Pantry
Sometimes you’ll find that you have a surplus of a certain ingredient. It happens to the best of us. But, now that you’ve reminded yourself that that particular ingredient is just sitting in your pantry or refrigerator, it’s time to use it! Over time, I found that being consistent about shopping my pantry before grocery shopping, really helped me to decrease waste, as well as our grocery bill. Another perk of shopping your pantry first is it’s actually an excellent way to spark creativity. Sometimes seeing the ingredients that need to be used up helps me come up with more meal ideas than I usually can come up with on my own. I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have to start your meal ideas from scratch, you can get inspired by what you already have. For example, if you find an extra pack of ground beef in your freezer, maybe it will inspire you to make tacos or chili?
3. What Do You Feel Like Eating?
Now this is the fun part! Now that you’ve responsibly planned your cooking around your personal schedule and planned to use existing ingredients in your pantry, what are you craving? This is when I start surveying the family, aka my husband, what he’d like to eat as well. And, if we have time in the schedule to prepare these foods, they get added to the meal plan. Otherwise, they are saved for food ideas for the following week. If I’m still not sure what to eat for the upcoming week, I like to browse some of my cookbooks and various food blogs to give me inspiration! If you don’t have any cookbooks, a good one to start with is the Stay At Home Chef Family Favorites Cookbook by Rachel Farnsworth. It is a personal favorite of mine and it features a variety of different cuisines!
4. Make a Grocery List
Based on your meal ideas plan, it’s time to make a shopping list for any ingredients that you are missing. I do most of our shopping at our local Safeway grocery store and find that it is easiest to use the Safeway app to make my list whether I choose to have it delivered or if I go into the store to shop. This is because I’m able to see a running total of how much my groceries cost that week. That keeps me more conscious of how much we are spending on food.
5. Make a “To-Do List”
Last, but not least, I make a to-do list for the week regarding any meal prep. I don’t know how many times in the past my meal plan did not work out as anticipated because of something like forgetting to defrost meat. It’s those little planning details that used to trip me up all the time. Since starting to write out a to-do list alongside my list of meal ideas, I have been the most successful I’ve ever been with home cooking. This was especially helpful when I started baking my family’s bread products, because anyone who has baked sourdough knows that there is some planning that’s involved with that.
As a busy wife and mom of 2, I admit that cooking most of our meals at home can get exhausting. But, I can honestly say that implementing a short and sweet, 5 step plan, really did help me stay consistent with generating meal ideas and meal planning in general. Writing it all out in an organized way makes it even easier to stay committed to putting the plan into action. If you are interested in a free meal planning worksheet, join my email list for a free download! And if you are looking for more tips and words of encouragement, check out one of my past blogs, “Easy Meal Planning Tips.”
