Meal Planning Made Easy: Strategies for Stress-Free Weeknight Dinners

Understanding the Basics of Meal Planning for Success

Meal planning for success is more than just deciding what to eat for dinner, ok? 

It has to be a strategic approach to organizing your meals ahead of time. At its core, meal planning means creating a menu (full meals and/or snacks) for a pre-specified period – typically a week or a month. 

I started out using a weekly meal plan but over the years I’ve refined my process. Now I’m working on a 6-week span because I’m pushing towards relying on the grocery store less & less. But then after making the plan, you’ll identify what you have & what you need to create a grocery shopping list based on those meals.

The food is what makes the plan, but the plan itself is based on your personal preference or needs. For instance, if you’re like me, you don’t need a plan for breakfast because you wake up famished anyway so you’re gonna eat. Plus, you keep “breakfast” items on hand at all times, right. After all, breakfast isn’t just for breakfast – who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner?! 

Or maybe you always have lunch through your job or school. That may not require planning. 

On the other hand, if you’re reliant on your kitchen to provide 3 square healthy meals a day plus snacks, it’s wise to have a plan. Otherwise, you might resort to excessive snacking or over grocery shopping like we were.

Let’s look at those key components a little closer.

• Creating the Menu: Start by brainstorming a list of meals you’d like to eat, include breakfast, lunch, or dinner as necessary for your current situation. Consider your weekly schedule, any dietary needs/preferences & any special occasions or social events coming up. You should be aiming for a balance of protein, vegetables, carbs & fats in each meal. I’m not a nutritionist, but these areas matter for the body & brain. If you’ve included any new dishes, make sure you have a list of recipes. Nothing’s worse than going through the work of getting mentally ready to be in the kitchen cooking & you can’t find the recipe. Let’s not even go down that path huh?

• Making a Grocery List: Once your menu is in place, it’s time to do some inventory & grocery planning. Be sure to shop at home first by doing an inventory check on your 4-corner’s pantry: your fridge, freezer, working pantry/cabinets & extended pantry spaces. Then, go through your favorite recipes (if they aren’t memorized yet) & cross check those with what you have. My goal is always to have the majority of what I need already on hand. But that also means, I don’t add new recipes to my plans all at once. I’ll add 1-3 in a month. So you write down the ingredients you need to purchase & you can optimize it by organizing it by category (e.g., fresh produce, dairy, pantry staples). This will make shopping more efficient. Want another tip? Make a cart (or two. Or three!) online at the outlet/s you will be shopping at. Most sites have a “print my cart” feature. This means you’ll see how much your cart costs ahead of time & get a written grocery list at the same time. Printing doesn’t mean you have to have a printer either! I don’t! I print to PDF & just use it off my phone. If you’re not interested in doing the shopping yourself, you could use grocery delivery services.

• Prepping Ingredients: To streamline the cooking process during the week (or month), consider prepping as many ingredients in advance as possible. This could include washing & chopping vegetables, marinating proteins, or cooking grains & legumes. Prepping ingredients ahead of time can save you more valuable time during busy weekdays. Life happens! We all know that, so take a little action now that your future self will appreciate. You’ll need to know what preps & holds well & what doesn’t though, because there is a difference. Chopped veggies or fruits will make light work of easy weeknight meals, but pre-washed greens without proper storage techniques (like paper towels or proper storage duration) won’t hold in the fridge for 6 months). That will result in more wasted food.

Understanding the basics of meal planning for success is how you’ll be better equipped. It’s how you can tackle all your meals with confidence & ease.

Getting Started with Meal Planning

This part of your self-sufficient journey might feel a daunting task. But with the right approach, it can become a seamless part of your routine. Here’s a few practical tips to help you get started:

Choose a convenient day or specific time for the planning & shopping. Make sure it aligns with your upcoming week or schedule because consistency is key here. That’s what drives sustainability – making sure that you can replicate something indefinitely without burnout. Because it’s not really planning for success if you can’t repeat it. If you take the week long approach of meal planning, this is easy. If you opt to go for a month long approach, doing this at roughly the same time point each month can help make it a habit. Don’t rush through this – so do it when you have the brain-width to be productive too. 

Set realistic goals based on your dietary preferences, cooking skills & family size. Start with planning just a few meals per week & let the rest be fluid. Some meals may last longer than you think. Or maybe you don’t like another dish as well as it looked in the book. Just start small. Take the your first step, then your next step. And as you gradually expand & become more comfortable with your process. Some goals I have regarding meal planning for success include – finalizing the menu, inventory & shopping before the first week of a new month is over & to include more familiar family favorite meals so I can work on memorizing them.

Experiment with different meal planning methods. Try weekly planning once or twice & see if it works. Is it too much? Is it effective? Are you adding enough meals to your menu? Do those meals account for the right number of servings? Is this keeping you from hitting the store as frequently? Try monthly, then reflect on the same thing. All of this is part of the process of finding what works best for you & your entire family. Just because the majority of women I see/know prefer weekly planning, doesn’t mean you will. You might enjoy the flexibility of monthly planning more. I ended up trying a 6-week meal plan after several rounds of experimenting. Going to the grocery store 3-4 times each week wasn’t the life. So planning ahead saved us from doing that.

Building a Balanced Meal Plan

Self-sufficiency affects every area of life. And in the same way, food impacts all areas of the body. Creating a balanced meal plan may help you reach your nutrition goals while giving your body the nutrients it needs to thrive. But you might also think of a balanced meal plan as one that encourages healthy eating & a healthy lifestyle overall. 

In addition to that though, is it something you can repeat nearly effortlessly as months & seasons go by? Is your process saving you time or too much of a hassle? Do your meal plans take your food budget into account at all? It doesn’t matter how many slow cooker healthy recipes with lean proteins or how many meal ideas you can put together in the midst of a busy schedule. If it’s not sustainable with the rest of your life, it’s time to move on to another strategy. That’s one of my easy tips for meal planning for success.

Here’s a few food tips to consider when writing your own meal plan.

• Incorporate a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains & proteins & healthy fats into your meals to ensure you’re getting a diverse array of nutrients.
• Aim for balance but also variety because nobody likes bland food.
• Include different colors, textures & flavors in your meals.
• Experiment with new ingredients & recipes to keep your meals exciting & satisfying!

Simplify your process

And my best tip to save you future time & stress during the week or month is batch cooking. Listen to me. Even if you’re a single woman in college right now & not responsible for anyone else but yourself. Batch cook. Make large(r) quantities of staples like grains, proteins or those delicious sauces in advance. That way you can quickly assemble meals throughout the week.

And what you haven’t used, or last week’s leftovers, you can turn into another meal if you’re not interested in what you planned. For example, add those roasted veggies to salads, stir-fries, or grain bowls for a tasty yet nutritious meal.

And you know what I’m gonna suggest for the food/leftovers you’re just too tired to deal with anymore.

Vacuum seal them for freezer meals later. It’s more than a good idea – it’s my favorite food preservation method. The best way to not only do the batch cooking but ensure you don’t bore yourself with too much of something is this. Make & freeze at the same time; it honestly doesn’t take much time beyond what you were going to make anyway! This is how you turn your own meals into fast food. Easy meals (& healthy food too!) ready for you any day of the week. 

Let’s say you make chili & cornbread for dinner this week – or whatever your best meal or main dish is. Double it. (Even if it’s just you on your own.) Especially if you have the ingredients anyway & especially if you like your chili recipe. This is probably the easiest way to ensure you keep eating from home.  If double isn’t possible for most of the ingredients, make 1.5 times the batch. After cooking, let it all cool completely then immediately store at least half for the freezer. Dinner will be waiting for you some cold, winter night in your future. Or when you just don’t have time for cooking. Just remember to label it – chili is one of those meals that can be indistinguishable from other look-alikes like soups once frozen!

And if you don’t have enough ingredients around the board to fully up the scale of the recipe, add in some other extras instead. Potatoes (sweet potato is my favorite), squash/pumpkin, brown rice, beans, even quinoa have ended up in my chilis to stretch them. It doesn’t always have to be more meat to stretch.

Last but not least, we can’t be balanced without talking about the budget.

Meal planning for success doesn’t have to break the bank. With some strategic shopping and ingredient choices, you can create delicious meals & stay within your budget or even come in under if you’re shopping from home first!

Take advantage of sales & discounts in your area to stock up on pantry staples. This then becomes the inventory you “shop” from when you make your plans. What you’ll find as you begin reading grocery circulars like reality drama is that the sales are very cyclical. Every 6 weeks blueberries are on sale. Every 9, peppers. Something like that. So you take that knowledge & if the item is a staple to you, you buy what you can, but aim for it to last until the next sales cycle.

This particular method is how you can feed yourself & family year-round from grocery chains. If you subscribe to eating seasonally, it won’t matter to you when the sales are because you’ll only be interested in buying those blueberries in June. During blueberry season. You feel me?

Then my husband said we should stock dried beans. I bought a couple smallish (maybe 2lb) bag of those periodically. Eventually, we worked our way up (in finances & skills) to buying 50lb or 100lb bags of pantry staples. Were we stocking things under the bed at one point or another? Yes. Yes, we were. 

I like to price our bulk food items for extended storage online from places like Azure Standard or  Webstaurant. Now, I find Azure to be a bit pricey, so I don’t shop there much. Webstaurant also has a hefty shipping fee which used to be waived for new members. I only bought through them once, never bought a membership, but would consider it again if the shipping costs made sense. I also know of a site called Essential Organics. An online bulk foods retailer that’s allergy-friendly & all the other things, but we haven’t tried them yet.

Making Meal Planning a Habit

To make meal planning for success a sustainable part of your routine, you need to go in with the mindset of how you plan to remain committed & consistent. You want this habit to last as long as you’ll be eating food.

One thing we haven’t discussed yet is how to really set yourself up for success. If you’re a pen & paper kind of girl like me, create a segment in your kitchen logbook just for this. As you add menus, not only will that help make planning easier time & time again, but it’s going to be a massive appreciation of growth as you look back over it in months/years to come. 

If pen & paper isn’t for you, do the legwork of finding a digital meal planning tool, like a calendar or app to help you stay organized & motivated. Time & practice will make meal planning & meal prepping second nature.

If you’re on the fence about starting something like this, consider why you haven’t & why you should. I do it because it’s the best way I’ve found to use the food we have & feed my family meals we have more control over. It’s saves me brain-space, time on the floor & I also love it. When I’m consistent (because I struggle there too at times), it’s one of the best practices I’ve got going in my kitchen. Meal planning for success is how we grow more self-sufficient too.

So set aside time to try this, implement a new strategy after some reflection & still to cooking your favorite foods. If you do, home-cooked meals are never far away.

You’ve got this, lovely!

Stay tuned for troubleshooting meal-prep tip ideas to help you solve some common meal planning challenges I’ve had before.