Most people view meal planning as a chore to be avoided.
In reality, it is the ultimate administrative shortcut for your life.
So let’s talk about some meal planning strategies you can easily incorporate into your weekly routine.
When you decide what’s for dinner for the week on Sunday, you aren’t just choosing food; you’re reclaiming the mental energy you would otherwise burn at 5:00 PM on a Tuesday.
As a recovering attorney, I’ve seen how decision fatigue can derail an entire day.
By the time evening rolls around, your brain has made thousands of choices.
Asking it to be creative with a pound of ground turkey and a wilted bell pepper is a recipe for frustration (and expensive takeout).
There are many benefits of planning out your meals each week.
Why Meal Plan?
Before we get into how to meal plan, let’s talk about why it’s an important habit to develop.
Meal Planning Saves Your Sanity
There’s nothing worse at the end of the day being hungry and not knowing what to have for dinner.
Or waking up and not knowing what to eat either.
Having a plan in advance covers
Planning Meals Saves Money
Without a plan for dinner, one of two things happen – you scrounge around for something that can be made quickly, or head out to eat.
And it’s much more expensive to eat out than it is to cook at home.
Meal Planning Helps Structure Your Day
No joke, but I plan the second half of my day around dinner.
Not the eating part of it, but the preparation part of it.
Some dishes take longer to prepare.
With a meal plan, you’ll know how much time to devote to being in the kitchen for meal prep.
And this means you’ll have to make sure you have time to make the meal that you’ve planned!
With a plan in hand, you’ll avoid rushing around to make meals happen.
Meal Planning Helps You Be More Productive
It is remarkably difficult to be productive when you are hungry.
Hanger” isn’t just a funny social media term; it’s a physiological state that shuts down your ability to focus, organize, or manage your time effectively.
When you don’t have a plan, you spend your peak evening hours staring into the pantry.
Meal planning ensures that your body is fueled so your mind can actually get things done.
Meal Planning Strategies Make for a Healthy Diet
The meal planning strategies in this post are a good way to help in planning healthy meals for the week, especially if you’re balancing a mix of picky eaters in your family.
It’s especially important when planning family meals since you’re balancing a mix of picky eaters.
It’s not easy to do that on the fly, and make rounded meal plans spontaneously.
Planning out meals in advance lets you think about healthy choices ahead of time which increases the odds of the well rounded meal coming to life than a last minute dash to get fast food or take out.
Start with Your Calendar, Not Your Recipes
The biggest mistake people make is browsing Pinterest for gourmet meals before looking at their schedule.
If your kids have practice on Wednesday nights, that is not the day to try a new slow-roast recipe.
Look at your week ahead.
Identify the “high-chaos” days and assign them your easiest, low prep meals.
Save the more involved cooking for days when you actually have the breathing room to enjoy the process and not be rushed.
Check the Weather
This may sounds a bit weird, but incorporate checking the weather as a regular part of meal planning.
Turning on the oven when temps are super hot or a steaming bowl of turkey chili is unappealing.
Likewise, a cold salad isn’t ideal on a frigid day.
So pull up your weather app on your phone and make note of the forecast to begin your meal planning process.
I like to write the forecasted high temp of the day along with any major activities next to the day of the week to let that information guide my meal planning decision making process.
Keep Your Rotation Simple
You do not need thirty different dinner options.
Having too many options is overwhelming, so pare down your options.
Most households thrive on a rotating cycle of about ten to twelve proven favorites.
Embrace the “Theme Night” approach if it helps reduce the mental load.
Taco Tuesday or Breakfast-for-Dinner Friday provides a framework that makes planning feel less like an exam and more like a routine.
Build a Recipe Bank
Develop an idea bank of your go to meals, either in paper format or using a digital recipe manager.
I use both a custom recipe book because I have a good collection of recipes I’ve gotten from family and friends throughout the years and ripped out pages from magazines.
I also recommend using digital recipe manager.
I’ve been using the Paprika app for years and can’t say enough positive things about it.
You can create special occasion menus, weekly meal plans and grocery shopping lists right inside the app.
And you can export the meal plan to a digital calendar like Apple Calendar or Google Calendar so your family never again has to ask what’s for dinner since they can have access to the calendar!
Shop Your Own Inventory First
Before you head to the store, look at what you already own.
Most of us have “buried treasure” in the back of the freezer or the depths of the pantry.
Building a meal around a jar of marinara and a box of pasta you already have saves money and reduces the physical clutter in your kitchen.
An organized pantry is a functional pantry, plus using what you have, is the fastest way to maintain that order.
Write It Out
You’re juggling a million different things, so cut down on your mental load by writing out your meal plan, either digitally or on paper or a dry erase board.
This way, you don’t have to remember why you bought the scallions or special seasoning at the grocery store and have them languish in the fridge and pantry.
I happen to use a mix of solutions to make the actual menu plan each week, depending on my mood.
I often use my phone to schedule out meals well in advance in the Paprika app, especially during busy times of the year, like the start and end of the school year and holidays.
I may not always choose those meals when it comes to the particular week, but it gives me a start for the week without having to start from scratch.
Sometimes I pull out my gorgeous Rifle Paper Menu Planning Pad (pictured above).
Other times, I stand in my kitchen and write things out on the dry erase board that hangs on the inside of a cabinet door courtesy of some command velcro strips.
And sometimes, I scribble out a loose plan on the back of a Costco receipt.
There’s nothing wrong with mixing up your systems as long as you’re consistently meal planning.
How Many Meals to Plan?
How many meals you plan each week depends on your personal preferences and dietary habits.
I personally usually only plan dinners (and sometimes snacks).
I don’t plan dinner for each night either, because there are leftovers that’ll otherwise go to waste.
There’s at least one night a week when it’s “Fend For Yourself” (FFY on the above meal plan) where everyone is on their own to figure out dinner.
As for the snacks, I find that pre-planning snack options for me and my kids helps to cut down on raiding the cabinets for random, less than healthy snacks.
Over to You
Planning out your meals isn’t just another feel good chore.
It’s a productivity hack that helps free up your mind to focus on other things instead of hunger.
With a meal game plan set, you can rest assured your rumbling stomach won’t be a distraction from what you have to do each day.
Use a mix of these strategies to come up with a weekly meal planning system that works for you!
Organizing Resources
Master your household management with the ultimate organizational tool: the Organized Life Binder.
Featuring expert-designed trackers and checklists across 815 pages, this system helps you eliminate paper clutter and streamline your daily routines so you can focus on what truly matters.
Does the “What’s for dinner?” dread hit you every afternoon? You don’t need a personal chef to master your kitchen; you just need a better system.
Designed to take the guesswork out of feeding your family, our printable meal planning kit helps organize every step of the process.
It includes everything from grocery lists to inventory sheets, helping you reduce food waste and save money.
Organize your recipes with this Recipe Organizer Binder Kit in a bright and cheery gingham plaid design.
Imagine being about flip through a binder and find exactly what you need right away!
This printable recipe book makes it easy to quickly organize all of your paper recipes in one place.
