How to Start Seasonal Meal Planning Archives

The Crazy Way I Meal Plan | How I Meal Plan for the Whole Year in Less than 3 Hours

Jan 4, 2021 | Blog, Meal Planning, Minimalism for Moms

I’m super excited about this post because I am *finally* going to show you the crazy way that I meal plan my entire year out in less than 3 hours.

Really.

Now when most people find out that I plan out my entire year of meals in advance… they have a lot of questions.

So the first thing I’m going to do is answer some of the questions I commonly get when I tell people I do this. And I’ll let you be the judge of if I should see someone for my insanity or not. 😉

Then, I will walk you through what you need if you want to try meal planning this way yourself.

And lastly, I’m going to show you how it’s done.

As an added bonus, I’m going to time the meal planning this year so you an see how long it takes!

Feel free to skip down to the meat of the post if you don’t care about why I put the time into this project.

And If you are more of a watcher than a reader, check out the video where I show you the entire process!

Why I Only Meal Plan Once a year

Alright let’s dig into the reasons that I put myself through this.

The first question people usually have when they find out that I meal plan my whole year is:

The Whole Year, Really?

And the answer is: yes!

If you don’t believe me, watch the video above, you will see that when I am done, every dinner menu spot is filled in on the calendar for the entire year.

It’s been about 4 years now that I have planned out my meals in advance, and I will never go back to doing it any other way.

The second question that I get a lot is:

Why Would You Do This?

I have a couple answers to this one;

The first is, I don’t really like meal planning.

So if I can batch this chore and do it once, I am a happy mom.

The second reason I plan out my whole year in advance is that I find it much more efficient.

I find if I can sit down and get it done once instead of coming back to it every single week, or every single month, it takes much less time.

I have tried meal planning just about every other way, and this is the only way that I have been able to stick with Meal Planning for the entire year.

Another question I get a lot is:

Why Is This Any Better Than Planning a Week or a Month At a Time.

Like I said in the last answer, I think that it is much faster to do it all at once.

I’ll let you know at the end of the post how long it takes me to do the entire process, but if you think about it, it just makes sense that it would take less time.

If you sit down to meal plan every single week, you are starting over every time you meal plan.

You have to get out all your books, your calendar, and you have to make decisions. And at minimum, this will take you between 15 and 30 minutes… every. single. time.

When you do it all at once, you can cut down your time considerably.

(Watch the video or read to the bottom of the post if you want to find out exactly how long it takes me!)

Making the decision is the hardest part of meal planning in my opinion because we moms have so many decisions we are making every single day.

And if you meal plan weekly, that is 7 more decisions you have to make each week.

Getting those decisions out of the way will save you time, energy and stress.

The next question people have is:

What If I Want Something Different Than What is on the Menu?

So… I don’t really know how to break this to you…

But writing something down with a pen and paper is not the same thing as writing in stone.

All you do if you want something different, is cross it off and write something else down.

No harm, no foul.

It’s easy, trust me!

But even if you have to make a little change here and there, you are still saving yourself tons of time throughout the year.

And the last question I get all the time is:

What happens when you have company?

And depending on the situation and who the company is, I may do several different things:

I might just stick with my meal plan. I have a whole post and video showing you how to meal plan for the holidays while using your theme nights if you want to check that out.
I might just skip a meal. If I know someone is coming and a meal on my plan isn’t their favorite, I will just cross it out and put something completely different on there. (See the last question 🙂
I might bump a meal into the following week. If I was really looking forward to making something and I find out that my company isn’t a fan of it, I’ll just bump that meal into the following week and move the following week’s meal into this week.
Or I might even make a crazy meal planning Tetris game and move things all over the place with really cool arrows. (Pens are great for this!)

Since it usually takes me less than 5 minutes to figure out how to adjust my meals if company is coming, it is still way less time-consuming to plan things out ahead of time than it is to wait and do it one week at a time.

My Meal Planning Tools

Alright, now I’m going to show you exactly what I use to plan my meals for the year in case you want to try it as well!

1) Amy Knapp Big Grid Family Organizer

I’ve used the Big Grid Family Organizer for about 3 years now and I love, love, love it.

I love the design and that I can hang it on my pantry door. And I also love that there is a “dinner menu” spot on every single page.

I’ve also used the smaller Amy Knapp Planner for meal planning and I like it as well, but the Big Grid works a little better for my purposes.

I would suggest using the small planner if you want to be very detailed in your meal plan and you have a lot of things to write on each day. I would use the Big Grid Organizer if you don’t have as many things that you need to write down each day.

2) Fun Pens

The next thing that I always have is a pen that writes well in a color that I like (for me, the purpler, the better!)

It’s just a little more fun to write a whole bunch of things down when you are using a pen that you like and that you enjoy seeing over and over and over again.

3) Cookbooks

I always have my cookbooks out and handy when I am meal planning.

My favorites are

The Revive Café cookbooks (I have books 1-6)
Vegan Yum, Yum
And of course, I have our childhood favorites in a binder.

I’m slightly obsessed with the Revive Café Cookbooks because they have a picture for each recipe, the recipes are simple to replicate, and they use ingredients that most normal people would know what they are and know where to find them (which is surprisingly not true of a lot of plant-based cookbooks).

The only drawback to the Revive cookbooks is that he doesn’t quite season his recipes as much as I would like… so I just start off cooking by doubling the spices that he suggests and ramping it up from there (I like me some flavorful food!).

Vegan Yum, Yum also has delicious recipes, but the recipes are a bit more complex and can require more unique ingredients.

4) Spreadsheet

Ya, I know, I’m a little strange… but having a spreadsheet for meal planning makes my life easier each time I map out my year.

I keep track of which meals we like, which ones we have tried but didn’t like, and how easy/difficult the recipes are. I also track which season we want to eat each meal in and how expensive they are to make… I get geeked out about organization :D.

How to Meal Plan Your Entire Year

Now that we have everything we need, let’s get started!

1) Assign Theme Nights

The first thing you want to do if you are meal planning for your whole year is assign a theme to each night of the week.

Head over to this video or this post about how to do this if you want all the deets and plus over 50 theme night ideas.

But Basically, you just assign some sort of theme to every day of the week…

So Sunday will have a theme, Monday will have a theme, Tuesday will have a them… and so on.

I like to use a combination of simple and complex theme nights, that way we don’t get bored with eating the same things all the time, but the meal plan also doesn’t become so complicated that we give up on the meal plan.

Once your theme nights are done, your meal planning will become infinitely easier whether you are planning for a day, week, month, season, year, or even just a camping weekend or a road trip. (Is meal planning for a day even a thing? Well if it is, I’m sure it will still be easier with theme nights.)

2) Thursday Night

Now that you have your theme nights set you, you can start putting things on your calendar.

I always start by writing in my Thursday nights because Thursday at our house is Leftover night!

So at this point, I go through my calendar write down “leftovers” on every single Thursday.

And yes, I technically wouldn’t have to write it in since it isn’t the same every week, BUT I like everything filled in on my calendar. It makes me happy. So I write in the leftovers. 🙂

3) Tuesday Night

The next day that I typically fill in is Tuesday night, which is Vegan Macaroni and Cheese night.

Tuesday is another easy night for us because pre-covid we had swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday nights and I wanted to make dinner as easy as possible on those evenings.

So… I think I’m going to stick with the same theme nights this year, and hopefully, we will be back to swimming lessons before too long!

If for some reason we are still without swimming lessons at the end of 2021, I might adjust my theme nights.

So now I will write down Macaroni and Cheese on every Tuesday night.

4) Friday Nights

Now Friday is a different type of theme night than Tuesday and Thursday.

Tuesday and Thursday are what I call Specific Meal Theme Nights because I use the same meal each week.

But on Friday, I use a category theme night (which I talk about in this post and this video).

Our theme for Friday is Build-It Meals, which is any meal where each person puts together their own plate of food.

And instead of thinking up new Build-It Meals every year, I keep a list of all of ours in my meal planning spreadsheet. Our build it meals include:

Falafels
Tacos
Gado Gado
Burgers
Portabello Fajitas
Baked Potatoes
Don Buri
Burritos
Patatas Bravas
Malasian Laksa
Yum Bowls
Hot Dogs

And I will just start on the first Friday with Falafels and rotate through the list until the end of the year!

5) Saturday

Next, I will fill in my Saturdays.

Now, Saturday is a very different day for us because… again, pre-covid… we used to go to church on Saturday.

And because of this, we would usually eat a late lunch and just have a light supper.

So all of our lunch/dinners on Saturdays will be haystacks (which is like a taco salad).

And I will also put into the calendar my rotation of light suppers, just like I did for the Build-It Meals in the last step.

6) Sunday

My Theme for my Sunday is Time-Consuming Family Favorites.

Since Sunday is a slower day at our house and Ross is not working, this is where we break out all of those meals that are delicious to eat, and difficult to make (I’m looking at you hand-made pasta.)

I keep a page on my spreadsheet with a list of all of our favorites where I can easily see which favorites take more time to make, which ones are best in which season, and how often we want to eat each favorite. (Hi, I’m Kassy, and I’m addicted to spreadsheets.)

So for example, one of our time-consuming family favorites is Pot Pie.

It take a lot of time to make, everyone would like to eat it every other month (or maybe I just don’t want to make it more often then that, Ross would probably eat it every day if I made it every day).. BUT it is a very hot meal to cook and to eat.

So when I am going through my calendar, I will only put it down on every other month in the fall, winter, and spring.

7) Monday

Monday this year is going to be Simple Family Favorites.

So I will look back at my spreadsheet and put in all those family favorites that are nice and easy and work well for a weekday.

8) Wednesday

Now if you are keeping track, I’ve moved from writing in my easiest theme nights to writing in my most time-consuming one.

Why is Wednesday time-Consuming? Because Wednesday night at our house is New Meal Night.

That means that I have to find 52 new meals… every year!

So yes, it takes me a little bit more time to write in my Wednesday night… and I put it off until last!

To help me find the recipes faster, I keep a Pinterest board with recipes that I want to try in the coming year, and I go through my cookbooks to see if I want to make anything new out of them!

So How Long Did it Take???

This year, creating my meal plan for my entire year took me…

drumroll, please…

2 hours, 45 minutes, and 45 seconds.

Now, keep in mind that I’ve been doing this for several years now and it took me a bit longer the first time around. So keep at it and I promise that this will make your life easier!

Are You Ready to Stop Feeling Stressed About Meal Planning?

Then check out Set-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning!

In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to plan your meals without feeling overwhelmed, spend less time in the kitchen, and feed your family healthy meals (while still having time for yourself!)

Set-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning walks you through my unique method for setting up your meal plan so you will never have to start from square one again!

Plus you will receive a Set-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning Template and email support from me anytime you have questions.

I hope to see you inside the course!

(Or if you are more of a do-it-yourself kind of gal, you can just grab the Set-It-and-Forget-It Template and work through it yourself. 🙂

Check Out My 2022 Meal Plan Video

You May Also Enjoy

How to Create Your Own Theme Nights.

If you want a step-by-step guide for setting up your meal plan, check out How to Begin Meal Planning When You Don’t Know Where to Start.

For ideas about how to eat everything you buy, read How to Work Leftovers into Your Meal Plan.

If you want to learn more about Decision Fatigue, check out Why Is Meal Planning so Difficult.

For Quick, Healthy Breakfast Ideas, read How to Get Started Planning Quick Healthy Breakfasts.

Your Ultimate Guide to Seasonal Meal Planning

Oct 17, 2019 | Blog, Meal Planning

With the leaves changing all around me and the air getting crisper, I start to crave all things warm and cozy. Sweaters, candles, and most importantly warm food.

When I was growing up, autumn was welcomed by trading our Friday night meal of vegetable sandwiches straight from the garden with warm soup. All kinds of soup.

Each week my mom would let a different person in the family make a request for the coming Friday. Which is a clever way of making one less decision herself while simultaneously making one person feel a little special when their favorite soup was prepared.

One form of meal planning that is often over-looked is meal planning with the seasons.

Sometimes we can get stuck in the rut of serving the same meals all year, but I love planning my meals to match the weather. (More or less, anyway, I live in the Pacific Northwest and sometimes our seasons get confused.)

What is Seasonal Meal Planning?

Seasonal Meal Planning is when you plan your family’s meals based around the season you will be heading into.

People who seasonally meal plan typically think about these three things:

What produce will be in season and how can I use it in my meals?
What foods will feel good to eat during this season? (Salads in the spring? Soups in the fall?)
What will my weekly theme nights be for this season? (More on this below.)

Why You Should Try Seasonal Meal Planning

It will save you money: Vegetables and fruits are not harvested all year round as grocery stores would have us believe. And they are cheapest in the season that they are harvested in.

Have you ever tried to buy strawberries in December? It’s pricey! But in the spring, they are practically giving them away (especially near the end of the season!)

It is healthier: If you do buy those strawberries in December, the have been sitting in cold storage for the past 8 months… getting old.

If you eat with the seasons, not only are the fruits and vegetables at their peak of nutrients, but there are also vitamins and minerals that you need for that season in those fruits and vegetables.

For example, citrus fruit (ripe in the winter) has loads of vitamin C to help your body combat the germs and sickness that come along with the cold weather.

It will save you time: If you plan your meals for the entire season at the beginning of the season, you will spend much less time planning your meals than if you do it weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly meal planning.

Don’t believe me? Try it out!

I only spend about 6 hours or less per year now that I do my meal planning all at once. (Check out this post if you want to see the crazy way I meal plan for the WHOLE YEAR in ONE DAY!)

It makes each season special: My family loves to grill in the summer. When we are grilling on the weekends we look forward to it all week long.

It is a fun way to celebrate summertime together. Almost every evening my oldest daughter will ask “Can we grill tonight?!”

In the winter, we love eating our soup out of bread bowls to make a less flashy meal special.

(And because sourdough bread = happiness 🙂

How to Meal Plan With the Seasons

Now that we know why we should meal plan with the seasons, let’s move on to how it’s done.

Grab my Set-It-and-Forget-It Meal Planning Workbook to take notes and start planning your meals as we go through these 7 Steps for Seasonal Meal Planning.

1) Look at Your Weekly Schedule

Take into account work schedules, school schedules, extra-curricular activities, and anything else that happens reliably in your late afternoon and early evenings.

If you know that you typically work late two or three nights a week, put one of your easy staple meals on those nights. Think pasta, tacos, sandwiches, etc.

In our family, swimming lessons are typically on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I do Leftovers on Thursday night (easy peasy!) and Vegan Mac and Cheese on Tuesdays.

Sometimes we have to switch lessons to Monday and Wednesday for a session, and in that case, I just switch those meals to Monday and Wednesday.

As you look at your typical weekly schedule, I recommend having your busiest nights of the week be “Year-Round” them nights and your more relaxed days being “Seasonal” theme nights.

In the examples below, you’ll see that I put year-round meals for the weekdays and seasonal meals on the weekends when most people have more time to cook.

2) Pick Theme Nights for Each Day of the Week

Choosing theme nights is the easiest way to plan your meals no matter which meal planning method you use.

Picking a theme for each day of the week keeps you from reinventing the wheel every time you sit down to plan your menu.

All you have to do is plug and play with the same theme nights every week for that season.

There are two ways that you can choose theme nights when you are seasonal meal planning:

Option 1: You can choose a seasonal themed meal for each day of the week. This means in the summer you would have six summer meals each week plus one night of leftovers. Then in the fall, you would have six fall themed nights and one night of leftovers.

Option 2: If that seems like too much work for you, have some theme nights that stay the same all year. This is the way I plan my meals. In our house, my Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday themes stay the same; while my Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday meals coincide with the seasons.

When picking your themes, the sky is the limit! Your themes can be anything from a specific meal that you make every single week because your family loves it, to choosing a theme that gives you more variety, like having an ethnic food night!

One of our favorite themes in our house is Build-It Meals. This is our Friday night tradition all year round. It gives us tons of variety while still feeling a little like a tradition (we do burgers, fajitas, falafels, sandwiches, burritos, nachos, personal pizzas… anything where each person makes their own dish!).

This is a great theme for families with little kids who want to be involved in the cooking. Our girls love creating their own food and getting to put however much they want of each thing on their plate.

Here is an example of how you can use both seasonal and year-round theme nights:

Example Summer Weekly Theme Nights

Sunday: Grilled Barbecue Pizza Night (Seasonal)

Monday: Pasta Night (Year-Round)

Tuesday: Taco Night (Year-Round)

Wednesday: Out To Eat (Seasonal)

Thursday: Leftover Night (Year-Round)

Friday: Grilling Night (Seasonal)

Saturday: From the Garden Night (Seasonal)

If you want over 50 different theme night ideas, check out this post!

3) Choose Your Seasonal Theme Nights for Each Season

If you only want to start with one season, then decide on your theme nights for that season and skip to step four.

But I recommend getting this step done for all of the seasons while you are in the groove. That’s how I get my own planning done in record time.

Once you’re on a roll, why stop?! Plus it’s so easy to plan your meals when you are done with this step!

When looking at the rest of the seasons, decide if you want to start from scratch and create a completely new and exciting plan for each season… OR you can do what I prefer. Keep the bones of the plan (the Year-Round theme nights) and switch out the seasonal theme nights for each season.

Here would be the rest of the seasons from the example we started above:

Example Fall Weekly Theme Nights

Sunday: Roasted Vegetable Pizza Night (Seasonal)

Monday: Pasta Night (Year-Round)

Tuesday: Tacos Night (Year-Round)

Wednesday: Ethnic Food Night (Seasonal)

Thursday: Leftover Night (Year-Round)

Friday: Soup Night (Seasonal)

Saturday: Vegetable Hash Night (Seasonal)

Example Winter Weekly Theme Nights

Sunday: Make Your Own Pizza Night (Seasonal)

Monday: Pasta Night (Year-Round)

Tuesday: Taco Night (Year-Round)

Wednesday: Out to Eat Night (Seasonal)

Thursday: Leftover Night (Year-Round)

Friday: Chili Night (Seasonal)

Saturday: Casserole Night (Seasonal)

Example Spring Weekly Theme Nights

Sunday: Pesto Pizza Night (Seasonal)

Monday: Pasta Night (Year-Round)

Tuesday: Taco Night (Year-Round)

Wednesday: Ethnic Food (Seasonal)

Thursday: Leftover Night (Year-Round)

Friday: Stuffed Pepper Night (Seasonal)

Saturday: Salad Bar Night (Seasonal)

4) Decide How Often to Rotate Meals

Does your family like a lot of variety? Or do you struggle to get your family to try new meals?

Depending on where you and your family fall on the spectrum, decide how long your meal rotations should be.

If your family likes a lot of variety like my husband and I do, then choose a 12-week rotation. If your family doesn’t care for much variety, try a 4 -week (or 2-week!) rotation.

If you are somewhere in the middle, try a 6-week rotation.

If you choose a 12-week rotation, then you will need to choose 12 meals for each theme night, and you will only complete the rotation once per season.

If you choose a 4-week rotation, choose 4 meals for each theme night and repeat the same rotation 3 times each season.

5) Brainstorm

The next step is to brainstorm you list of meals for each theme night. So grab your favorite cookbooks (I love these cookbooks!) and open Pinterest to get your creative juices flowing!

For example, if you chose a 6-week rotation in Step 4, and you are using my example for your theme nights, then you would choose 6 different pasta dishes for your family to try. (Remember to think seasonal if you can!)

If I were looking for some fun fall pasta recipes, I would head over to Pinterest and see what I could find with a “fall pasta recipe” search…

Ok, I couldn’t help myself, I had to look and see what I would get with that search. If you need some ideas for fall pasta recipes, you should check these out… they look amazing! Vegan Pumpkin Pasta, a Creamy Tahini Pasta with Lemon, Garlic, these Vegan Zucchini “Meatballs”, these Vegan Butternut Squash Shells, and a Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Bake.

As always, you can do this step just for the season you are heading into or you can do the whole year in one go.

On my personal Pinterest account, I usually keep a board titled “Meal Planning (next year)” to keep track of things that I want to put on my meal plan the following year.

Then when I sit down to do my annual menu plan (yes, I only do it once a year) everything is in one nice little spot.

Plus it’s easy to search for the recipes that I need during the year since it’s all on the same board.

Why You should start Seasonal Meal Planning this Autumn

6) Write It Down!

Grab my Set-It-and-Forget-It Meal Planning Workbook and Calendar or write it on your own calendar!

Either way, keep a written plan near your kitchen for easy access.

In my house, if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist! Since I don’t want my hard work to go to waste, I keep my meal plan in a place that I won’t forget about it and is easy to access. (I keep my Meal Planning Calendar on the inside of my pantry door.)

7) Modify as Needed

When you are planning in advance, life is bound to happen and plans will need to change.

At the beginning of each week, I sit down and make my grocery list. As I do this, I note if there is any reason that I should rearrange any of the meals, or if I need to make any substitutions.

For example, if it’s someone’s birthday in our house, we typically go out to eat once that week at that person’s favorite restaurant. They also get to pick a favorite home-cooked meal on the day of their birthday if they decide to eat out on a different day.

If we have something going on where we will be out of the house all day, I may also move one of the easy meals to that evening so I don’t have to cook after a long day out.

Always remember that your meal plan works for you and not the other way around. It isn’t a contest to see if you can stick with your meal plan exactly the way that you wrote it.

Don’t stress if you skip a meal, just jot it down on your list for next week if you really wanted to eat it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really want to try one of those new pasta recipes…

Ready to Stop Feeling Stressed About Meal Planning?

Then check out Se t-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning!

In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to

How Meal Planning With the Seasons Will Save Time, Money, and Stress

Create a Breakfast Rotation
Create a Lunch Rotation
Create a Snack Rotation
Choose Theme Nights
Create Rotations for Each Theme Night
Fill in Your Meal Planning Calendar

Set-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning walks you through my unique method for setting up your meal plan so you will never have to start from square one again!

Plus you will receive the Set-It-And-Forget-It Meal Planning Workbook and Spreadsheet and email support from me anytime you have questions.

I hope to see you inside the course!

(Or if you are more of a do-it-yourself kind of gal, you can check out my DIY Meal Planning Resources!)

You May Also Enjoy…

My Set-It-and-Forget-It Meal Planning Workbook and Calendar will help you get started planning your menu.

If you still aren’t sure if Meal Planning is right for you, check out The Pros and Cons of Meal Planning for Moms: How to Know if Meal Planning is Right for You.

If you’d like a step-by-step guide for basic meal planning, read How to Begin Meal Planning When You Don’t Know Where to Start.

If you’d like some ideas for how to make breakfast easier, check out Weekly Meal Planning for Beginners, How to Get Started With Quick Healthy Breakfasts.

How to Work Leftovers into your Meal Plan will help you waste less food (and cook less!) every week.