But why is there even so much hubbub about meal planning in the first place?
I mean, is there even a payoff for the time and energy that meal planning requires?
In this post, I am going to take a closer look at the pros and cons of meal planning and see if the benefits of meal planning truly outweigh the effort that it takes.
So here is a super honest look at meal planning, from someone who meal plans. A lot.
Meal Planning Pros
1) Meal Planning Saves Money
Purchasing food can be the sneakiest way for money to leave your bank account without you even knowing it.
It’s like your grocery money became a teenager and decided to go out to eat, even though you told it to stay home instead.
Between last minute trips to the grocery store to buy “one quick item,” and loading the family into the car to go out to eat for the third time this week because you don’t feel like cooking, your grocery budget can get out of control.
Meal Planning, and using your meal plan to prepare a grocery list (see number 2 below!) can save you so much money in the long run.
How much money will you save? That will depend on if you have been going out to eat for the majority of your meals instead of eating at home, or if you’ve been buying more food than you can eat at the grocery store.
We can feed our family of four people with massive appetites on a plant-based diet for between $100-$125 a week. When we go out to eat occasionally, we can easily spend $40-$50 per meal (I told you our kids are crazy big eaters, even our 18-month old needs her own plate now.)
That means, for the same amount of money, we could purchase 2-3 meals going out to eat, or 21 meals that we could eat at home!!
If you would like to see exactly how to set your monthly food budget, check out this post. And if you want to see how to reduce your grocery expenses, read 37 Ways to Save Money on Groceries.
Since we only purchase what we will eat in a week, it saves us money because we actually eat what we purchase.
Plus it prevents food from expiring in the pantry, from going bad in the fridge, or from getting lost at the bottom of the freezer.
The only exception is that we pick and freeze a lot of fresh fruit in the summer. But my rule is that the freezer to be completely empty by the time strawberry season rolls around so that I can fill it back up.
2) It Makes Grocery Shopping is Easier
I don’t know about you, but grocery shopping is my least favorite chore. (When I made My Simple Weekly Cleaning Schedule, I wrote grocery shopping down as one of the chores that I need to accomplish each week… because that’s exactly how I feel about it!)
If you are like my husband, who enjoys going up and down the isles looking for fun new things to try, this point may not seem like much for you. I, on the other hand, would meal plan for this reason alone: grocery shopping becomes infinitely more simple when you go with a plan in place.
The only catch to this one, is that you have to make the list using your meal plan, take the list with you when you leave the house, and use it at the grocery store.
Doing that tiny little bit of work ahead of time will save you time, money, and stress at the grocery store.
You won’t be wandering up and down every isle seeing if there is anything you forgot to write down; you won’t be buying something that you never end up using because you decide to go out to eat again; and you won’t be wondering if you need 3 loaves of bread or 2.
3) Meal Planning Saves You Time
Can I tell you a secret?
I don’t enjoy meal planning.
Phew, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
But here’s the thing, if I don’t enjoy meal planning, why would I want to spend my precious time every single day deciding what to make before I can cook?
If you don’t plan your meals in advance, you are looking at spending 5-10 minutes before breakfast and lunch deciding what to make. Then you will probably spend another 10-20 minutes figuring out what to cook for dinner. That’s up to 40 minutes a day figuring out what food to eat.
FORTY MINUTES A DAY!!
I don’t know about you, but I can think of at least 12 other things that I would rather do with forty minutes a day.
4) It Can Help You Eat Healthier
Since meal planning will encourage you to eat at home more often, you will most likely be eating healthier.
I don’t think I need to convince you that eating out isn’t generally the healthiest choice. Obviously, this depends on what you eat when you go out, but as a general rule, the healthiest meals are made at home.
If you plan your meals ahead of time, you are setting yourself up for success if you are looking to eat a healthier diet.
5) Meal Planning Reduces Your Stress
If you struggle to choose a balanced meal to cook for your family every evening, it is probably stressful.
You may try to outsource that stress to your spouse, your best friend, the love of your life, by asking a simple question: “What would you like for dinner?”
To which they helpfully answer: “I don’t know.”
You respond with: “I don’t know how to make that,” and the search continues.
As it gets closer to dinner time you feel the pressure mounting. You have to get something together for your tiny humans to eat so that you can send them to bed and have a little downtime. If you don’t start soon, it will be a late supper which will consist of cranky kids and a tired you.
At this point, your significant other tries to be helpful and offers a suggestion: “You know what sounds good? Lasagna ”
Thanks, Sweetheart, that was helpful. I would have needed to start that hours ago.
This was my reality almost every night before I started meal planning. It stressed me out and made me frustrated.
Once, I said “Hello” to meal planning, I said “Goodbye” to a lot of stress.
6) It Can Help You Eat Your Leftovers
Throwing food away is not only frustrating, it wastes our time, money, and resources…yikes!
I think I’d rather hang on to all of those things.
When you meal plan, you willcan waste so much less food.
In our meal plan, we eat leftovers for lunch every day of the week, unless we don’t have any leftovers, then lunch is something simple, like a sandwich. In addition to eating leftovers for lunch every day, we also have leftovers every Thursday night.
And if our fridge is bursting at the seams with leftovers, then we also eat them on Tuesday night.
How do we have so many leftovers at our house? Simple, I double everything! It takes so little extra time and money to double a recipe and it gives your family so much more food!
I think the reason we struggle so much with the question “what’s for dinner?”, is that we have so many decisions to make every single day.
Do we need to get some toilet paper? Awesome, there are 24 varieties to choose from.
Do you like to use toothpaste? Great, another 87 choices for you to whittle down.
You’d like a healthy option for your family for dinner? Well, with the help of the internet, there are only 467,987,872 things that you can make!
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Which reminds me, we also have too many choices for lettuce!)
Meal planning gives you three less decisions each day because you made them for yourself in advance.
That’s a good enough reason for me to keep menu planning right there!
8) Your Family Will Love It
We are foodies at our house. We generally plan our camping weekends around our meals and will take entire days to make fresh pasta even though we are well aware that you can purchase it at the store for almost nothing.
Often during breakfast, my oldest daughter will ask me what we are having for dinner. When Ross is on his lunch break or driving home from work he calls me and asks what we are having for dinner. And though my younger daughter is still a little young to ask, she shouts suggestions for everyone to hear as soon as she starts getting hungry (“Sloppy Joes,” “Lentil Soup,” “Cake,” etc.,)
The wonderful part about meal planning is that I already know the answer to the questions.
Maybe your family isn’t as into food as mine is, and maybe they won’t be as thrilled when you reveal the menu for the evening, but you can still use this to your advantage.
If anyone complains about what you have planned, just let them know that you’re sorry but it’s already written on the menu and you aren’t at liberty to change it.
9) Having Company Just Got Easier
I used to worry about what to make when company was coming over. I would try to find the perfect thing that my guests would love. And inevitably someone still wouldn’t like it.
Now I just stick with my meal plan. If I have someone coming over on a leftover day, I will just switch the menu with the night before or after.
That was easy!
Cons of Meal Planning:
1) Meal Planning Takes Time
There’s really no way around it. Unless you hire someone else to do this for you, Meal Planning is going to take some time.
I have found that the more meals I plan in one sitting, the less time it takes to decide on each meal.
I think there are a few reasons for this:
1. I don’t have to figure out which food I am in the mood for right now.
If I am deciding between making Burritos, Tacos, Nachos, Quesadillas, Enchiladas, or Fajitas for dinner tonight, I have to decide which one of these things sounds best to me right now.
But If I am planning my weekly dinner menu, I can have Burritos on Monday, Tacos on Tuesday, Nachos on Wednesday, Leftovers on Thursday, Quesadillas on Friday, Enchiladas on Saturday, and Fajitas on Sunday.
I went from deciding on one meal to getting to eat all of the six meals that sound good to me over the course of the week.
(Is anyone else wanting Mexican food right now!?)
2. It is easier for me to decide something for my future self.
I used to have a Pinterest board full of delicious-looking recipes that I hoped to try one day. The only problem was that “one day” never comes.
When I started meal planning, I decided that every Wednesday night was going to be “new recipe night” at our house.
I went through my boards and cookbooks and found everything that I wanted to try *someday* and wrote one down on every Wednesday in my calendar.
When that week would come, I would get the recipe out, write down the ingredients on my shopping list, and make the new recipe on Wednesday.
If I had waited until that day to decide what to make, I probably would have gone for the easiest recipe that featured ingredients that I already had on hand. But since I had made the decision in the past, it was easier for me to follow through on it.
2) Meal Planning Takes Energy
It takes mental energy to sit down and make decisions. And Meal Planning is all about making decisions.
I know, I know, who has time for more decisions?
Here’s the thing: just like buying in bulk can save you money, making decisions in bulk can save energy.
Once you are already in the decision-making mode, it is easier to keep making similar decisions.
So the question is how much energy would you like to use and how often? If you would like to use a little bit of energy for menu planning every day, that’s totally cool if it works for you and you are happy with it.
Or you can use slightly more energy once a week, or month, or 6 weeks…or year if you like to take things to the extreme as I do!
Then you can sit back and kick your feet up instead of scrambling around trying to decide what to make… unless of course, you’re a mom. Then you probably need to go take someone potty or help your children clean up their toys before dinner. But that still sounds way more fun to me than having to decide what to make for dinner!
When I’m making a decision I like to list out the pros and cons together to get a better idea of which list is greater, so here’s a quick recap for you:
Meal Planning Pros:
Meal Planning Saves Money
It Makes Grocery Shopping Easier
Menu Planning Saves Time
It Can Help You Eat Healthier
Meal Planning Reduces Stress
It Can Help You Eat Your Leftovers
You Will Have Less Decision Fatigue
Your Family Will Love It
Having Company Just Got Easier
Meal Planning Cons:
Meal Planning Takes Time
Meal Planning Takes Energy
Ready to Stop Feeling Stressed About Meal Planning?
In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to
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.
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.
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…
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.
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?
In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to
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.
When I first sat down with my calendar to begin meal planning, I had high aspirations. I planned unique breakfasts, lunches, and dinners six days a week with one day for leftovers.
Then I watched my motivation crumble over the next few weeks trying todo so much cooking with a baby in the house.
I soon realized that being in the kitchen for three or more hours a day wasn’t making my life easier.
I mean, I enjoy cooking, but not quite that much.
It was obvious that I needed to switch gears. I love having variety in our evening meals, but the time involved in cooking elaborate breakfasts, lunches, and dinners was stressing me out and wearing me down.
I started thinking about how I liked having minimalism in the rest of my life, why not in my meal planning too?
I decided to scrap my new breakfast meal plan that I had worked so hard on and try a more minimalist approach to my breakfast routine.
After shifting my expectations, changing my plans, and simplifying my approach to our weekday breakfasts and lunches, my stress level decreased and I began looking forward to mealtimes again.
In this post, I’m going to go over What Weekday Breakfasts Should Be Like, Why You Should Have a Plan for Breakfasts, 6 Tips for Making Weekday Breakfasts Easier, and 20 Quick, Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Busy Mornings!
And If you prefer to watch instead of read, here is the video that goes with this post:
What Should Weekday Breakfasts Be Like?
When I decided to revamp my breakfast plan, I began by thinking about what I wanted my weekday breakfasts to look and feel like.
I suggest taking a few minutes before you begin to think about what your mornings are typically like.
Are you in a rush, or do you have all the time in the world? Are your kids old enough to cook for themselves, or are you cooking for everyone? Do you have picky eaters, or are your kids easy to please?
(If you have picky eaters, be sure to check out this video!)
And of course, think about what kind of breakfast would make your life easier in the mornings.
Here is my list of what I am looking for:
1) Easy
Like I mentioned in my How to Create a Morning Routine post, I’m not naturally a morning person, so doing a lot of thinking in the morning doesn’t work well for me.
And making new recipes takes a while when you are a little groggy.
2) Quick
Not that I am trying to rush through my mornings (although I do have to remind myself to slow down at times), but I want to be able to get to the fun things that we have planned for that day.
Instead of spending the whole morning cooking, eating, and cleaning up after ourselves, we like to get to the park or go on a hike.
3) Simple
While I want my girls to appreciate all kinds of food and have varied pallets, I also want them to be able to appreciate simple things. Breakfast is a great time in our day to have some simple predictability.
I prefer to do more complicated and unique dinners when Ross is home to enjoy them as well.
4) Inexpensive
When I was first trying to get my meal planning groove on, I found that my grocery budget skyrocketed! When I started cooking simple breakfasts, my grocery cost went back to normal.
Do I Need a Meal Plan for Breakfast?
Now that I knew how I wanted my morning to look, I could create my plan for breakfast.
It can be tempting to think that you don’t need to worry about planning out your breakfasts beforehand. But even if you want your breakfasts to be easy, quick, simple, and inexpensive like I did, don’t just wing it! Here are a few reasons that you should plan out your meals even if they are going to be simple:
1) Breakfast Will Be Healthier
It can be easy to overlook making breakfast healthy as we are trying to grab something quick before rushing out the door in the morning. But a little planning will make us much more inclined to eat a healthy breakfast instead of grabbing something processed.
2) Planning Will Save You Money
If you go to the store with a plan and a list, you will be less likely to buy a lot of food that sounds good “just in case” you decide to make it that week.
It is easy to waste money on food that sounds good at the store, but we will never actually make. A plan will keep you on track for only buying what you need and will use.
3) Preparation Will Be Quicker
Doing a little planning ahead of time will keep you from staring into your fridge wondering what you should make everyone for breakfast. If you are a little slow in the morning like I am, having one less decision to make is always a good thing!
4) Cooking Will Be More Enjoyable
For me, cooking is less stressful and more fun when I have a plan heading into the kitchen instead of making it up as I go along.
Alright, let’s get to work planning your breakfasts!
6 Tricks for Meal Planning Breakfast
1) Be Predictable
Nine out of ten weekdays, the girls and I eat oatmeal in the morning. Eating the same thing almost every day makes the morning flow naturally and keeps me from having to do too much thinking early in the morning. Plus it’s great for teaching kids how to cook.
Since we make oatmeal every day, my oldest daughter (she’s four years old as I am writing this post) can make it all by herself. This is very helpful when we need to get to an appointment and I need to get myself and my younger daughter ready to go.
2) Think Simple
If your breakfast is simple to put together, you are much more likely to stick to making a healthy breakfast. Hot cereal is an obvious choice, but if you think outside the box, there are dozens of simple healthy options! (Be sure to check out the 20 Easy, Healthy Breakfast Ideas below!)
3) Make it Delicious
Just because you’re going for easy, doesn’t mean you should skimp on flavor! Kids and adults alike are more likely to eat a big, healthy breakfast if it tastes really good. Add a pop of flavor to almost any breakfast by adding fresh or frozen fruit, nuts and seeds, and coconut or almond milk.
4) Have Fun
Although we eat oatmeal for our breakfast almost every morning, we make it interesting by adding seasonal fruit, seeds, nut butter, almond milk, and sometimes honey to the bowl.
Depending on the season we might add fresh or frozen blueberries, raspberries, apples and cinnamon, bananas, cherries, peaches, plums, or any other fruit that we picked up at a local farm to make things interesting.
5) Prep Ahead
If you want to make something that takes a little longer, do some prep work on Sunday for the week ahead.
For example: potatoes take longer to cook, but you can peel and chop your potatoes ahead of time and put them in a sealed container with water covering them. Then in the morning, just rinse and fry them up!
6) Mix It Up
We like to make a more elaborate brunch together on Sunday mornings. This is where we do all those breakfast favorites that everyone loves, but take too long to make during the week.
Our Sunday breakfast is rarely the same from week to week, which gives variety to what could otherwise be a mundane breakfast lineup.
If you are choosing to stick with simple foods during the week, pick a day on the weekend when you can have fun making other recipes together.
You may already have an idea of what your weekday breakfast will be, but if not, here are 20 Simple, Healthy Breakfast Ideas to get you started.
20 Easy, Healthy Breakfasts
Oatmeal with Fruit and Nut Butter. This is the staple in our home. The girls and I eat it five days a week for most weeks! Sometimes we add eggs or toast, but the oatmeal (or other hot cereal) is a constant.
Eggs and Toast. This is a great choice if you like a little variety in your life, while still being predictable and easy. Try making the eggs a different way each day of the week!
Scrambled Eggs and Hot Cereal. Add some extra protein to your oatmeal breakfast. (Did you know that oatmeal naturally has protein in it?!)
Granola parfaits. We love using Homemade Granola, some Vegan Cream and fresh or frozen berries. Layer the granola, the cream, and the berries in a clear glass for fun presentation or easy eating on the go!
Breakfast Sandwiches. This is another great idea if you like some variation in your mornings. There are countless ways you can make a breakfast sandwich. Here is one great idea for building a Classic Sandwich.
Whole Wheat Toast with Peanut Butter and Applesauce. My girls love this any morning that we have homemade bread in the house.
Rice Cereal with Milk, Cinnamon, and Honey. This is a great breakfast when you have leftover rice from the night before. My oldest daughter asks for this for dessert whenever we have rice in the house. Just warm the precooked rice with some milk in the microwave or on the stove. Add honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon!
Granola and Toast. Make some Granola and homemade bread on the weekend and you have yourself an easy, healthy breakfast every day that week.
Eggs and Potatoes. Peel and cut those potatoes on the weekend and stick them in an airtight container with water covering them. Making potatoes during the week just got a whole lot simpler!
Savory Hot Cereal. Add salsa and an egg to any hot cereal for a savory spin.
Eggs and Muffins. My girls get giddy any time I tell them we are making muffins. Try making different kinds of muffins each Sunday for a month. Then add some eggs to your breakfast for some protein. Make the eggs a different way every day of the week your family will be delighted with this delicious breakfast.
Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa. Try this recipe from Bob’s Red Mill this autumn if you want to mix up your hot cereal routine.
Avocado Toast.Cookie and Kate has great several variations on this hipster classic.
Breakfast Tostadas. Like Breakfast for Dinner? Try Dinner for breakfast with Breakfast Tostadas!
Whole Wheat Pancakes. If you are short on time, but love pancakes for breakfast, mix up the dry ingredients and place them in baggies or containers. One for each day of the week. Also, portion out your wet ingredients for the week. Then in the morning, just grab one of the dry ingredient containers and one of the wet. Add any wet ingredients that you need to add the morning of (like bananas in This Recipe), then mix a cook!
In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to
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.
When I was visiting my sister after my niece was born, my brother-in-law couldn’t wait to share a food waste film that he had recently seen.
He is as much of a documentary junkie as I am, so I eagerly agreed and sat down to watch.
Just Eat It opened my eyes to the amount of food we waste in North America in a way that nothing else had.
Though the thought of throwing good food away never occurred to me, I realized how often I would be cleaning out the refrigerator only to find containers that were past their prime.
After watching Just Eat It, my resolve to reduce the amount of food waste that came from our house grew.
I went to my meal plan (check out this post if you are new to meal planning) and worked on ways that I could use all my food.
Here are the 12 steps I discovered to keep the food waste to a minimum:
12 Steps to Reducing Your Food Waste
1) Save Your Leftovers
Yes, it’s the obvious step, but if your first instinct is to toss leftover bits of food into the trash, you are immediately wasting it.
Saving leftovers instead of throwing them out will (hopefully!) decrease the amount of perfectly good food that is ending up in a landfill every day.
Plus, it will save you money and time. Popping something in the microwave is much easier and cheaper than preparing a new meal!
Sure, if you have a dog that you feed the leftovers to, you aren’t technically wasting anything… but it will save you money on your food budget if the human members of your family eat the food instead.
2) Store the Leftovers Well
Use clear plastic or glass containers to store your leftovers. If you know what is inside the container, your family will be more inclined to eat it.
We humans are lazy. If there is a clear container sitting next to a mystery container, people will generally choose the clear one. Even if it takes less than 10 seconds to discover what is inside the other one…
Investing in a few clear containers will pay dividends in the food that you are no longer throwing out. I love using these Snapware Glass Storage Containers to store my leftovers.
Another benefit of clear containers is that you will never have your stomach jump into your throat when you open a container only to find out that something has been sitting in there way too long. (Been there, done that!)
3) Place Your Leftovers at Eye-Level in the Fridge
Organizing your fridge not only saves you time, but it will also help save money when you can easily see your leftovers and eat them before they go bad.
I have a freezer-on-the-bottom style refrigerator, so the middle shelf of my refrigerator is at my eye level (and, more importantly, in my husband’s line-of-site).
In the past, I would put my leftovers on the bottom shelf, but the dairy drawer is in the way of seeing the majority of that shelf at a glance.
Often there would be food casualties that had slipped to the back of the shelf and sat there way too long.
When your leftovers are stored at eye level, they are harder to ignore.
4) Separate Your Leftovers as You Put Them Away
If one person heads to work early in the morning, they are more likely to take leftovers for lunch if they are ready to go.
I used to have a conversation with my husband over and over again, asking why he ran through a drive-through for lunch when we had food at home. The answer was always the same: I didn’t have time to make lunch.
When I started separating leftovers as I put them away each evening, he started taking them every day. One container would be for those of us who would be at home, and the other would be for him.
I always get his attention once his container is ready and show him what his lunch looks like for the morning. Yes, I know he’s an adult and could probably figure it out, but the world is a little fuzzy at 5:45 am when he leaves the house, so I try to make it easy.
Now it is rare for him to eat out instead of taking a lunch since all he has to do is open the fridge, grab the food, and leave.
5) Store the Leftovers by Need-To-Be-Eaten Dates
If you put the oldest leftovers in a specific spot in the refrigerator, it is easy to know at a glance what needs to be eaten first.
In our house, the oldest leftovers are stored in the front of the middle shelf on the far right side. (Remember the eye-level thing?)
Pick a place in your fridge that works for you. Just be sure to tell your family so everyone knows!
If the leftovers aren’t eaten before I need to add new ones to the fridge, the new food goes to the left of the old food. Once that doesn’t work anymore, I start putting the newest food behind the front row of leftovers.
That way I can immediately see what needs to be eaten first when I open the door.
If you always put the newest, most exciting food upfront, you probably won’t look to see what is behind it.
6) Eat Leftovers for Lunch
It may seem boring, but we eat leftovers for lunch almost every day of the workweek at our house.
My oldest never asks what we are going to eat for lunch when it’s that time. Instead, she will ask, “What did we eat for dinner last night?”
Having leftovers for lunch makes my life easier for several reasons:
I don’t have to plan what to eat for lunch five days of the week.
It is easy to prepare leftovers, so I’m not spending extra time in the kitchen.
It is easy to clean up after lunch.
I don’t have to decide what to make in the moment when the kids are hungry.
If you don’t already eat leftovers for lunch, try it out and see if it works for your family!
7) Plan You Meals (And a Leftover Night!)
Having a meal plan enables you to only purchase what you need for the week at the grocery store, instead of buying several options that you *might* want to make the coming week.
Menu Planning alone will cut down on the waste that comes out of your house. And adding in a leftover night every week will take you to the next level.
In addition to eating leftovers for lunch every day, I also plan to eat leftovers for dinner one night each week in my weekly meal plan.
If you make a lot of food, two leftover nights might be necessary.
If you eat out a lot, have a large family, or eat leftovers for lunch, one leftover night will probably be sufficient.
I’m a fan of theme nights in my meal plan, so every Thursday night at our house is leftover night.
I recommend doing leftovers on nights when you don’t have time to prepare a nice meal, or when you need to clean out your refrigerator before the weekend.
For us, Thursday was a great fit for a leftovers night because I don’t have as much time to cook with swimming lessons in the evening, and I like to empty the leftovers shelf before all of the cooking that happens on the weekends.
This one might seem a bit counterintuitive, but there is something annoying about leftovers that aren’t quite a full meal for anyone.
When that happens, my conscience usually tells me to save it. You know, because of the children starving in Africa, but no one seems to want to eat that tiny bit of food.
To overcome this problem, I always double my recipes, or one-and-a-half them if the recipe already makes a large amount.
It takes little effort to double a recipe that I am already cooking, and the increase in cost is also almost imperceptible. This is most likely because recipes don’t typically use an entire amount of anything.
For example, if I need soy sauce for a recipe, I will probably use between one and three tablespoons. Doubling the amount doesn’t make me buy an extra bottle of soy sauce.
The same is true for vegetables. Often recipes will call for one cup of a vegetable. Typically I don’t measure vegetables and instead will just put the whole pepper or zucchini, or whatever it is into the recipe.
Unless the vegetable is quite small, one whole vegetable usually works for making one recipe or doubling it. And since I know I double everything, I just look for larger vegetables at the store. It doesn’t make a dent in my grocery budget, but I feed my family twice!
When I first started doubling recipes, I would double everything down to the number of onions. I soon found that it took me forever to cook, and it created a crazy amount of food. Now I only double the bulk ingredients like the beans or broth and the spices.
So for example, if I were making lentil soup, I will only double the lentils, the broth, and the spices. But I will chop the vegetables and garlic as I would for a single recipe.
9) Transform Your Leftovers
If Chili is on the menu for Sunday night, I might make a Mexican dish for Monday night since I can use the chili as my beans.
Try to be creative and transform an old meal into a new one.
Could your leftovers be a burrito filling? Can you eat it with Chips? Imagine if you made it into a sandwich? What if you changed the protein and use the same sauce again? Or use the same protein with a different sauce? Have you tried eating it with potatoes instead of rice?
There are so many options, it just takes a little forethought and creativity!
10) Add Something Fresh to the Meal
I always seem to have a few extra veggies sitting around in my produce drawer by leftover night. If you are reusing a meal that doesn’t have a lot of color and freshness with it, here are a few things to try:
1. Add a vegetable to the meal that you didn’t eat with it originally.
2. Make a smoothie to have with dinner.
3. Add a salad to the meal.
4. Eat some fresh fruit for dessert.
Adding color and crunch to any meal is a great way to spice things up!
11) Clean Out Your Fridge Regularly
I am the most squeamish person I have ever met. Finding something in the back of my fridge that I forgot about for far too long makes my skin crawl.
When I started cleaning out my fridge once a week, I stopped finding fuzzy things hiding in the back.
It may seem like cleaning out your fridge every week is just one more thing to add to your list, but it doesn’t take much time when you stay on top of it.
I clean out my fridge on my grocery shopping day. Typically, it is easier the clean before I go because my refrigerator is almost empty. But if I don’t have time, I just do it when I get back before I unload the groceries.
If you do it before you go to the store, you may also notice if you need any condiments that you are running low on. Or you may find you don’t have as much garlic as you thought you did.
Wiping down the shelves doesn’t take long. Just work from the top down so you don’t get crumbs on your freshly cleaned shelves. Then remove any food that hasn’t been chosen during the leftover nights or lunches as you go.
Done!
12) Compost or Freeze Everything Else
After the fridge is cleaned, I take any sad little containers that didn’t make the cut out to our compost bin. This works well for us since we eat a plant-based diet. Everything that we eat is compostable.
If you eat a lot of meat and dairy, you’ll want to separate that out and put it in the trash or in the garbage disposal before composting any vegetables or fruit.
Composting old food makes your garbage can smell better and also makes your garbage disposal so much happier. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever broken your garbage disposal by trying to put too many carrots or potato peels down it !)
Composting uneaten food changes something that would potentially be wasted into useful, healthy soil for your garden.
If you have a large amount of an item leftover that you would use later, freeze it. I often do this with beans, lentils, or soups that we didn’t finish by the end of the week.
I hope these 12 tips have inspired you to start adding leftovers into your Meal Plan!
Ready to Stop Feeling Stressed About Meal Planning?
In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to
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.
So you know that choosing a few recipes in advance and writing out your shopping lists before you get to the store would probably make your life easier and save you money… but where do you start?
There are so many different ideas and suggestions out there that trying to figure out just how you should meal plan can be overwhelming… and that’s before you even get started deciding what to make.
Even if you do manage to narrow down which method you want to use for planning your meals, how are you supposed to decide which meals you are going to make.
With so many options for every aspect of meal planning, it can be a little… stressful.
But more stress is the last thing moms need in their lives!
Meal planning isn’t supposed to be complicated or confusing, it is supposed to make our lives easier and less complicated.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to create a simple meal plan that will help you save time, save money, and help you eat healthier.
(If you don’t like to wait, the big secret is in #8!)
If you prefer to watch instead of read, here is the video that goes with this post!)
How to Begin Meal Planning
1) Have a Realistic Goal
It can be tempting to decide to try a new diet and only eat non-processed, organically- grown, sugar-free food as you are scrolling through Pinterest for recipe ideas. But I would recommend starting with how you currently eat.
If you want to start eating healthier, that’s awesome! But maybe just choose just one area to improve on to start with. Your goal for your first menu plan could just be to eat less processed food.
Once you get comfortable with meal planning, you can add more dietary enhancements if you would like. But go slowly. Your family will thank you for not trying too many things at once… and you’ll be less likely to stick with the plan!
If you are new to meal planning and you have a hard time coming up with ideas for your meals, theme nights, or rotations (that will make more sense as you continue through this post :), check out Meal Planning Magic where you get
EVERYTHING from the Set It and Forget It Spreadsheet PLUS…
1, 2, & 4 Week Pre-Made Breakfast Rotations
1, 2, & 4 Week Pre-Made Lunch Rotations
1, 2, & 4 Week Pre-Made Snack Rotations
40+ Dinner Theme Night Ideas
40+ Plug and Play Dinner Rotations
700+ Links to Amazing Recipes
Or if you just need a little help getting started, this free meal planning checklist will do just that!
3) Choose the Duration of Your Plan
If this is your first time meal planning, I recommend trying a two-week plan.
It is fairly easy to come up with meals for two weeks, and it is a short enough time that it is easy to stick with!
Plus, if you don’t have time to meal plan at the end of your two weeks, just start over at the beginning, and no one will know the difference. Your secret is safe with me!
You can choose any time frame you like, from one week to one year!
4) Choose One Breakfast
Pick your favorite easy breakfast and eat it every day.
Seriously.
In our house we eat oatmeal every day of the week, except for Sunday.
We mix it up with different fruits, seeds, and nuts mixed in; and sometimes we have a piece of toast or an egg with it, but the main component of our breakfast is reliable.
Why keep it simple in the mornings?
Mornings are usually when people have the least amount of time to cook, the least energy to make decisions, and kids are the most anxious to eat.
Plus it’s one less decision I am required to make for my menu plan.
If you feel like mixing it up on the weekends with something more fancy or fun, go for it! But if not, there is no shame in doing the same breakfast every day of the week.
Sunday morning is our special brunch day where we make something a little more elaborate. The best part is that Ross makes it with the girls!
Pro Tip: If your spouse likes to cook (or even if they don’t :), see if they would be willing to get involved with the cooking at least one meal on the weekends.
Each night when I’m saving the leftovers, I put them into two containers: one for my husband to take to work, and one for the kids and me to eat the next day for lunch.
It doesn’t get much simpler than that! To ensure that I have leftovers, I usually double or one-and-a-half each recipe to be sure that I have enough for two full meals.
While I love the ease of leftovers, there are also many great salad and sandwich options that are easy to make and take wherever you are heading.
Just make it easy on yourself!
This video has easy Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner ideas that you can prep the night before!
6) Plan for Afternoon Snacks
If you have kids in your house, you may want to plan out what the afternoon snack will be.
This could easily be the same thing every day just like we talked about with Breakfast and Lunch, just be sure it isn’t too filling or too late in the day or you will struggle getting them to eat supper.
We do our afternoon snack around 3:30 pm.
I don’t plan exactly what they will eat each day. Instead I have an array of fruits, vegetables, and nuts on hand and let the kids choose what they are in the mood for. I just have to pick up the options for them when I am grocery shopping.
They enjoy making this decision since I choose what we have for dinner each evening.
7) Start With Your Favorites
You are more likely to stick with your menu plan if you (and your family) enjoy the meals you are going to create. Choose a “Family Favorites” day each week.
You can always do Family Favorites on Friday evenings as a fun way to start of the weekend.
Now take your family’s favorite meals and plug it into the calendar (it’s ok to use the same one every week, kids love family traditions!)
8) Pick Your Weeknight Meals
Think of meals that are quick, tasty, and are easy to clean up. Grab your go-to cookbook (I like The Revive Cafe cookbooks) and start plugging in recipes.
I recommend choosing dishes that you already know for most weeknight meals. (I don’t know about you, but it always takes me a little longer to make a new dish when I need to keep checking a recipe.)
I find it helpful to have a theme assigned to each night of the week. Then I know what I am looking for as I go through my cookbooks and Pinterest Board.
I love having at least one night every week dedicated to leftovers. It’s Thursday night in our house because I like to have room in my fridge before I start the weekend (we make a lot of fun food on the weekends!).
Since my oldest has swimming lessons every Tuesday and Thursday, I put my easiest meals on those days because I don’t have much time to cook.
Pro Tip: Keep your weekly schedule in mind when you are picking your Theme Nights and/or Meals.
9) Decide if You Want to Try New Recipes
If you don’t enjoy trying new meals, you can skip to #10. But my favorite part of meal planning is deciding what new meals I want to try.
If you enjoy trying new meals too, I recommend choosing one day each week to be your “Try a New Recipe Day.”
In my house this is Wednesday evening because it tends to be the day that I have the most time to prepare dinner during the week. You may want to do this on Saturday or Sunday if your weekdays are too busy.
Now grab your cookbooks or look on Pinterest and find a new recipe to try. If you have too many recipes that you want try… close your eyes, open the book, and point! What’s the worst thing that could happen?
I usually just go to the beginning of my cookbook and choose the first recipe that I haven’t tried yet if I’m stuck.
10) Choose Your Weekend Meals
Next look at your typical weekend. What’s it like? Do you typically relax at home with plenty of time to do a special meal? Or do you run from one activity to another?
If you have lazy weekends, plan some fun family favorites for your meals that may take a little bit more time to make. We love making pasta from scratch on lazy Sundays.
If you have busy weekends, choose a few fun sack lunches that you can easily prepare on Friday evenings.
Do some looking on Pinterest, or ask a friend; try to think outside the sandwich!
Last year we had a picnic at a park for my my oldest daughter’s birthday. One of our friends brought homemade burritos. I had never thought of burritos as a sack lunch before, but it was a great mess-free idea.
11) Write Your List and Go Shopping
Before you leave for the grocery store excited to get ingredients for your new meal plan, take inventory and make a list. Go through each recipe and check your pantry and fridge for the ingredients first.
While it will take a little longer to get out the door, it will be worth the time you spent when you aren’t playing a guessing game at the store or spending money you don’t have on ingredients you don’t need.
Now that you have your list, don’t forget to take it out of your purse at the store and use it. I always take a pen with me to cross things off and stay organized.
If you organize your list by sections, you will save even more time when you are shopping!
12) Have Fun!
Don’t stress out if things don’t go perfectly the first couple of weeks. It takes time to find your groove. Learning is half the fun!
In Set-it-and-Forget-it Meal Planning, you will learn how to
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.
!)
