Meal Planning 101

I get that Meal Planning can feel really intimidating and maybe even impossible. “What if we don’t feel like that dinner when we get to that day?” “What if plans change?” “What about leftovers?”

Truth is - I can’t fix all these problems for you. I can, however, tell you a few tips and tricks I’ve learned that have served us well over the last decade of meal planning. It’s going to take trial and error, pivoting, troubleshooting - just like any new routine you implement for your family. But I promise it’s worth it. If only just to never have to rummage through the freezer at 4:45 wondering what the heck you’re going to eat tonight.

First thing’s first: how often do you want to grocery shop? I do 90% of our grocery shopping once a week on Thursdays so I plan my meals for all 7 days of the week. I try my hardest to only go to one store (maaaybe two). If I know I need Costco staples, I keep that in mind when I’m making my Meal Plan and plan for things I can get at Costco. If we’re out throughout the week for activities, we might stop into Trader Joe’s to restock anything dangerously low (like yogurt or dark chocolate PB cups) but I do my best to get everything for dinners and restock staple items on Thursdays.

Why Thursdays? 2 main reasons: 1 - our CSA (farm share) pick up is on Wednesdays. I don’t choose what comes in that box so I wait until I have picked it up then use those ingredients in my Meal Plan.

2- we do the bulk of our cooking on the weekends. Not Meal Prepping - I kind of hate meal prepping. But we do our bigger family meals, or more involved cooking, and most of our entertaining/hosting on the weekends so it’s nice to have a fresh batch of groceries for that.

If you want to grocery shop twice a week due to space, budget, routine, whatever it is… then you’d be Meal Planning for 3-4 days at a time until your next grocery trip. Maybe you grocery shop every 2 weeks because that’s what works. It doesn’t matter how often you go as long as you can actually plan on making it to the grocery store consistently.

After you’ve established grocery shopping, decide which meals you’re going to plan and streamline everything else. I cannot reasonably cook 3 meals a day every single day and keep my sanity. So I don’t. I really only cook once a day and it’s for dinner. I make a special brunch on Sundays. Other than that, I keep it easy and simple and I do not worry too much about variety. And now that my twins are a little older, they self-serve the majority of the time because I’ve made it easy for them to do so.

Breakfasts, lunches, and snacks are all rotated within the same five-ish options and I don’t make it fussy. We rotate the same 5ish things and keep those things in the house.

Breakfasts are a choice of cereal, oatmeal, yogurt+granola, frozen waffles, or a bagel+cream cheese. There’s always berries or fruit to go on the side and the kids mostly feed themselves.

Lunches are usually prepped by me and this is when I utilize leftovers the most. If not leftovers, then it’s a choice of sandwiches, pasta or Mac n Cheese, farmers plates or quesadillas and I either heat up soup on the side or fresh fruits/veggies from the fridge.

Snacks are similar, and I have this set up as self-serve. Pre-packaged snacks are only for when we leave the house. So I keep jars of crackers and dried fruits available with scoops to portion out and have a note to remind them to add a fruit, veggie, or dairy to their snack.

Next, I need you to set up 3 ongoing lists. On your phone, stuck to the fridge with a magnet, a dry erase board on the wall.. Doesn’t matter as long as it’s accessible by you and whoever you live with. I keep mine on my phone and shared with my husband so we can both see them and add to them at any time.

List No. 1: Groceries Needed.

I actually keep 3 of these because we like certain things from certain places. I keep a list for Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Kroger. If you mainly shop one place, one list will do. But as soon as you use up something that you want in the house, add it to the list and ask your family to do the same.

List No. 2: New Recipes and Meal Requests

This is the place to keep track of requests from your family and recipes you’ve seen that you want to make either online, in a magazine, in your cookbooks.

“Hey, we haven’t had Enchiladas in a while.” (Add to the list)

Sara Morris shared a recipe on her IG Stories today that looked delicious and I want to try it (Add to the list)

Magnolia Journal had a soup that I want to try! (Add. To. The. List.)

This is best first place you’re going to look when you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to make for dinners this week so definitely add to it a lot. Any time something sounds good to make pops into your head, throw it on the list. This takes so. Much. Work. Out of Meal Planning because it’s doing the work ahead of time when you’re actually hungry and find something you want to make (but not pressured to get a task done).

List No. 3: Staple Recipes

This is where you keep a quick list of meals you know you can make without much thought, that everyone loves, that take about 30 minutes or can be thrown in the Instant Pot or Crock Pot. These are where comfort food meet convenience meals.

For us, these are: Veggie burgers + Fries, pasta+turkey meatballs, loaded quesadillas, pumpkin curry + rice, tomato soup + grilled cheese. You get it - simple, easy, meals. These are great to have on hand because they are what I use for either filler meals (“I have no idea what to make Tuesday”) or fall-back meals. If I absolutely cannot bring myself to make a new dish or what I planned, most of the ingredients are shelf-stable and easy to keep on hand so I always have a plan B.

BTW - Plan C is DoorDash and sometimes dinner just needs to be left to the professionals and I have no shame about that.

Okay - checking in. You’ve made some decisions, you’ve made a bunch of lists. You ready to actually Meal Plan?

Because the next step is actually not Meal Planning. But the best news is that after you’ve done all the things listed above and made them part of your routine, this is where you start. This step is where I start my Meal Plan every single week. It’s time to take inventory of what you have in your fridge.

The number one tip I can give you in this entire post is to write down what you have before you decide what to buy. In any category you buy things, but especially food. This is the best way to reduce food waste and maximize your grocery budget. And it’s going to be what you base your meals off of for the week. So write down what you have to use and put a star by anything that needs to be used first.

And now, after all that. We’re going to sit down and Meal Plan. Start with ingredients you have that you need to use. If you’re at a loss for what to do with the kale or goat cheese, use your cookbooks and favorite food bloggers! Look in the index for kale, search their site for goat cheese. I bet you’ll find a some good ideas for the next couple of nights.

Then you go back to List No. 2 and look at New Recipes and Meal Requests. Take from this list for a couple more ideas.

And at the end you fill in the gaps. Takeout night? Breakfast for dinner night? Tacos every Tuesday? Date Night? And definitely List No. 3 - Staple Recipes to the rescue here.

Definitely write down or link your recipes/page numbers on your Meal Plan for quick reference and set reminders for yourself the morning of if you need to start something early or take something out to thaw.

And now you have a Meal Plan. You did it! The very last step is to make your list and go shopping but just like Meal Planning, you have already started this part. (Go little Rockstar) Head back to your List No. 1 - Grocery List and go down your Meal Plan, looking at the ingredients list, and writing down whatever you need. Reference your Breakfast/Lunch/Snack rotation and see if those staples need stocking. Take a glance at the cleaning cabinet and laundry room to see what you need.

Bonus points: arrange your list into categories so you know what you need from each section of the store.

Extra bonus points if you write your Meal Plan somewhere the rest of your family can see what’s for dinner that week.

Then you’re ready to head to the grocery store. And that’s it. You did it!

Happy grocery shopping, happy cooking, happy planning! And remember - you can do this. It may not be perfect at first, but we’ve had so much success and found so much good from this routine and I really hope you do, too.