What Is Meal Planning?
What is meal planning? It's whatever way you organize yourself to cook a meal, whether that's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It is the plan you make before you shop. What works for you may not work for someone else. The goal, I think, is to find a process that is both enjoyable and effective.
Many people enjoy reading through cookbooks, clipping recipes from magazines, finding them on blogs and websites, and taking some time to anticipate cooking. This is an important part of meal planning. Meals aren't just solutions to the problem of needing to eat; making a meal is also an expression of creativity — even if it's just cutting a PB&J sandwich into a new shape. Find ways to inspire yourself and to look forward to cooking.
There's no one way to plan your meals; you should do what is effective for you. Don't spend too much time looking for the most perfect and impeccably-maintained system. The system is just the tool. The point is the meal. Well, really, it's people, and enjoying good food with them and nourishing oneself.
Below is a list of tips for meal planning --- there are plenty of ideas here for getting more organized and helping yourself think ahead. Others are to just jog your memory and help you get inspired to dream up meals you'd enjoy to eat.
Many people enjoy reading through cookbooks, clipping recipes from magazines, finding them on blogs and websites, and taking some time to anticipate cooking. This is an important part of meal planning. Meals aren't just solutions to the problem of needing to eat; making a meal is also an expression of creativity — even if it's just cutting a PB&J sandwich into a new shape. Find ways to inspire yourself and to look forward to cooking.
There's no one way to plan your meals; you should do what is effective for you. Don't spend too much time looking for the most perfect and impeccably-maintained system. The system is just the tool. The point is the meal. Well, really, it's people, and enjoying good food with them and nourishing oneself.
Below is a list of tips for meal planning --- there are plenty of ideas here for getting more organized and helping yourself think ahead. Others are to just jog your memory and help you get inspired to dream up meals you'd enjoy to eat.
Use the templates below to plan your plans for the day, week, month... happy healthy planning!
15 Tips for Meal Planning
1) Spend time each week looking for recipes.
This may feel like an indulgence, but just let yourself do it. Browse blogs and websites for recipes that look delicious. Pile up some cookbooks and reach for the sticky notes. Get inspired! 2) Create a place to save recipes, and keep it SIMPLE. Do whatever works for you. Don't get caught up in a system, just use whatever works best and most easily. Pinterest is a great tool for online recipes, because it's easy to visually browse what's saved. Save magazine clippings in a binder with protector sheets. 3) Ask your partner, family, and roommates what they like to eat. This might sound obvious, but it's easy to get caught up in our weeks and forget to ask our households what they would like to eat. You can get extra inspired, too, when you feel like you're cooking a meal as a gift — trying to please and delight the palate of someone you love. 4) Check the weather. Again, you may say, huh?, but the weather is changeable. Look at the weather forecast. If it's going to be a cold rainy day on Friday, maybe it's a good day for hot soup or chili with a side of salad and steamy corn bread. 5) Keep a meal journal. One of the best inspirations is your own record of things you've cooked in the past. Take a look at what you were cooking a month ago, six months ago. It's a good way to remember things you used to cook, and still enjoy. Getting Organized
6) Start a calendar.
Now that you're getting inspired in what to eat, start a calendar of what you'd like to cook over the next few days or few weeks. It can be as organized as a Google Calendar, with notes on each day for that day's menu. Or you can just jot notes to yourself in the corner of your planner. The important thing is to write it down. 7) Go with theme nights (soup night, pasta night, beans). Some people find it really helpful to have a theme night each week. Monday is pasta, Tuesday is fish, Wednesday is tacos. This doesn't work for everyone, but it may be especially helpful for those with kids. See if they want to get involved with planning their favorite tacos one week, or suggesting soups for the next month. Keeping the focus narrow will help you and your household make quick recipe decisions. 8) Choose a shopping day and make a shopping list. A lot of people who have success in meal planning shop very purposefully. They look at their recipes and make a shopping list. Some of the meal planning and recipe-saving services let you do this easily, extracting ingredients from the recipes you have saved. 9) Check what's on sale. Some folks really like to organize their meals around sales. Is organic chicken a dollar off this week? Or canned chickpeas? Check out your grocery store circular and adjust your meal plan or shopping list a bit. 10) Plan for leftovers. Most of us have at least some tolerance for leftovers. I regularly cook one or two big healthy casseroles at the beginning of the week and eat off them all week long for lunch. Some people can only eat leftovers for a single night. Either way, try to make your cooking always do double duty. Make a little extra of everything, and if you don't want it right away, freeze it. Getting It Done
11) Prep food as soon as you get back from the store.
Wash and dry lettuce. Chop onions. Roast vegetables. Brown sausage for pizza. Shred zucchini for quick stir-fries. Stack up glass containers of prepped ingredients in the refrigerator and bask in your own awesome preparedness. 12) Cook components of your meals. Going beyond prep, cook components of the meals. For instance, start a batch of tomato sauce while you wash greens and prep squash. The sauce can go on pizza one night, and in lasagna the next. Or roast a chicken right then that you can eat that night and use for sandwiches and pasta the rest of the week. 13) Be strategic about freezing. The freezer is your friend. Actually, it's the friend of future you. Make a double batch of that sauce mentioned above and freeze half for later. Make a double batch of soup, stew, chicken cacciatore, cooked beans — throw it in the freezer. Let a month go by, and those leftovers will look fresh and tasty! 14) Don't overstuff the refrigerator. It's easy to get overwhelmed when your fridge is over-full. Also, things get hidden in the back, lost behind the mustard. Don't let things go bad. Keep your fridge airy and light, with a sensible, realistic amount of food in it. Keep a list nearby of everything in the fridge, especially leftovers, as a visual reminder of what remains to be eaten. 15) Keep a well-stocked pantry. Meals are easier and quicker to prepare if you keep your pantry well-stocked. Don't run out of olive oil at inconvenient moments. Have spices ready to dress up chicken and beans quickly. Keep a lemon and a sheaf of fresh herbs in the fridge at all times. From: https://www.thekitchn.com/10-tips-for-better-weekly-meal-planning-reader-intelligence-report-177252 |
Weekly Meal Planners
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