Meal Planning
Meal Planning. This phrase either strikes fear into your heart or gets you really excited.
I happen to LOVE meal planning. Shocker. I also love to know how others plan meals for their families! My situation is different than most because I only have to plan for two people. I like to vary our meals from week to week, but I generally stick to a basic weekly menu.
I only started meal planning this way a few months ago, but it has helped me so much! Years and years ago, I used to make a menu based off the sale papers at grocery stores. I also cut coupons! But I found myself buying a lot of preserved and not very healthy foods. I also was buying things we didn’t really need. So, I started focusing on produce and meat sales and started making a menu around those things!
That way worked for awhile and it helped me to focus on making healthier meals more regularly. But I still found myself overwhelmed by making seven different dinners and two weekend lunch options. I was putting so much pressure on myself to make exciting and different foods each night that it was taking me hours to make a menu and grocery list for the week. Anyone would say for two people, that is crazy!
My current meal planning schedule is so easy and it can be easily adapted to your preferences! Here is a picture of how I plan our meals now:
Sunday
Eric and I have been eating out less after church and packing a lunch or coming home and eating something. So for lunch on Sundays, we may have something quick and easy like sandwiches. We rarely have bread in the house, so I take advantage of that and will also have grilled cheese sandwiches that week and I will also make a pot of chili( so Eric can have peanut butter bread with it. Does anyone else like that combination? :)) On Sunday nights we like to have something that doesn’t require a lot of time or effort in the kitchen, so we will make Olive Garden or Zaxby’s salads. 🙂 We make our own! It’s easy, healthy and filling.
Monday/Wednesday/Friday
We like to eat chicken and pork around here, but some weeks we will have steak or beef instead of chicken. Doing it this way allows me to try new recipes, but it gives me structure and something to start with.
I’ve mentioned in my Whole 30 video that three times a week I make Whole 30 dinners. These dinners consist of meat and vegetables. I have found the perfect baked chicken breast recipe! It gives the chicken the perfect texture. 🙂 On these nights, I season the chicken, pork or steak and either grill it or bake it and serve it with roasted or steamed vegetables. That’s three healthy meals done! And I don’t really have to think about it!
Tuesday
Pasta day. Eric’s favorite day. He is a real noodle lover. He could eat them every day. This night can be a simple as a box of pasta and a jar of pasta sauce. Done. But I like to make my own pasta sauce! It’s so easy and tastes just as good. Most of my favorite sauce recipes are made in the crock pot! Who doesn’t love to come home and have your house smelling like an Italian restaurant? Maybe it’s just me, but there will always be something romantic about a pasta dinner. I try and use this as an excuse to get out the cloth napkins and light a candle or two. 😉
Thursday
My favorite day of this meal planning menu is soup day! I think I get excited about soup day like Chip Gaines does about demo day. 😉 And the best part about soup…is leftover soup! I like to have soup on Thursday and have the leftover soup Saturday for lunch. I think that’s pretty brilliant! It’s still fresh and you didn’t just have it the night before.
Saturday
My other favorite day is breakfast for dinner on Saturday nights. It has become a tradition here at our house. And the best part about it? Eric usually will make the whole meal himself! What a way to end the week, right? Sometimes we have fried eggs, bacon and hash browns and sometimes we have breakfast burritos. 🙂 It’s quick, easy and delicious.
I hope this gives you some new meal planning ideas for you and your family! 🙂 You can do it! 🙂