And How we Make it Work for us

Meal planning has completely changed my week. It’s wonderful! A little bit of work on the front end pays so many dividends on the back. Between travel and busy schedules, it’s a huge time-saver. Here’s how we do it…

Study the week ahead. Every Friday, I study the coming week. I take time to identify which days both of us have dinners, receptions, and breakfasts and determine how many meals we’ll need to put together as a result.

We try to eat as healthy as possible and bringing lunches and eating breakfast and dinner in does wonders for that. Of course, we eat out and love trying new restaurants and going back to old favorites, but I appreciate that you can really control what goes into your food if you make it at home.

Pick the week’s meals. Once I have an idea of what our week looks like, I’ll move on to picking out what meals we’ll have that week. I love Skinnytaste and almost always use her recipes. They’re tasty, easy to make, and are often quick to pull together. She also includes the calorie count and a few other nutrition facts on every recipe.

There is a good amount of cauliflower rice (we try to cut out carbs at dinner), lean proteins, and homemade sauces and dressings. It’s all so tasty though. I try to get a good mix of cuisines. We’ll do a Moroccan dish, Italian, and then a simple American classic. It keeps eating healthy interesting and I find I’m not making the same old grilled chicken on a bed of lettuce with quinoa every night.

Another favorite is a quinoa bowl. I’ll often roast two pans of veggies, cook a protein, and serve it on a bed of quinoa. It’s a great “clean out the fridge” meal and makes the suggested ratio (1/2 veggies, 1/4 carbs, 1/4 protein) so easy to nail.

Portion everything out. I always make four servings of everything so that we have lunch the next day covered. I found that having the day’s meals planned out is so helpful, but I’ll always leave one day open because inevitably we’ll have a lunch pop up or will end up going out to dinner with friends. I feel like if you’re going to make the effort to make dinner, you might as well not have to think up something new for lunch the next day. Am I right?!

Build out a grocery list. I make sure and record my grocery list as I’m picking out the meals for the week. I order them by meats, produce, dry ingredients, spices, and any vinegars or oils we might need. It keeps grocery shopping easy and effective. I’ll also include notes explaining any unfamiliar ingredients or alternative items that can be substituted (i.e. if the red peppers don’t look great, green peppers – or sometimes tomatoes – usually work just as well).

Since we cook a bit of international cuisine, I’ll often opt to make a seasoning mix instead of buying one. Sazon seasoning involves a ton of ingredients, but many that you probably have in your pantry already. On the other hand, Japanese Seven Spice involves ingredients that I just wasn’t going to mess with, so I simply ordered an organic jar of it.

Adding in our essentials and prepping them. Aside from our meals, I’ll always add in a few essentials like celery and carrots. We are also big grape people and love pineapple. I find that once we get celery and carrots, or grapes for that matter, if I go ahead and wash them and cut them, they’ll get eaten. If not, they sit in our fridge until they eventually make it to the circular filing cabinet (i.e. the trash can).

It’s really as simple as that! A little bit of prep work before you week begins goes a long way. Everyone is so busy on a daily basis and once a new week gets started, it often seems to escalate as new things come up and problems arise without fail. If you can take the thought out of your meal prep, it’s just one less thing – pardon the pun – on your plate!