How to Make Meal Planning Simple

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Has it been a little crazy having everyone at home and trying to get everyone fed? This is my biggest struggle when I don’t plan ahead. Meal planning has honestly become one of my top priorities because it makes the week go so much smoother. I am here to break down one of the most simple ways to meal plan. This process has taken me a lot of time to nail it down and keep what works best for me. Anything that has to do with cooking and the kitchen has to be kept incredibly simple for me. Cooking is not something I particularly enjoy and so it needs to be as easy as possible.

When Tyler and I were first married, I remember going to the grocery store for the first few months of our marriage and trying to grocery shop for our meals. We would wander around the store for far too long and buy a bunch of random stuff. We would go to make dinner and realize we didn’t have anything to make a full meal. One of us would come up with a dinner idea. While looking for the ingredients, we would realize we didn’t have everything that we needed. It was so frustrating. This honestly went on for far too long. I finally got smart and decided to plan our meals before we went to the grocery store.

You can be as organized or relaxed about this as you want. Cater this meal planning process to you and your family. If you want to plan out your meals for a month, then do it. If you can only do a few days, that is great. We like to do a week at a time and usually have to run to the store after 3-4 days for a second produce run. But other than that, we only do one grocery pick up a week and it works great.

Here is my step by step process to keeping my meal planning easy:

Steps to Make Meal Planning Simple

1.  Make a list of all the meals you can think of that your family likes to eat. I have a list of about 50 meals that my family enjoys. I have added to and removed meals over the years as we try new recipes and get sick of old ones. This may take a while but once you have it done, it is super easy to add and remove meals in the future. I like to put my meals into categories as well. Some of our categories are beef recipes, chicken recipes, pasta, Mexican food, breakfast foods, and crock pot meals.
2. Choose 5-6 meals from your list to eat for dinner in the upcoming week. If you want to plan something different for breakfasts and lunches too you can do that as well. My kids are creatures of habit and eat the same 2-3 things for both breakfast and lunch. We also have leftovers from dinner about 3-4 nights a week that we use for lunches. List all the meals you will be making for the week.
3. Starting at the top of the list, write down all ingredients you will need for each of the meals. I only write the ones I know I don’t have in my pantry or fridge.
4. Make your grocery list. I have been ordering my groceries online for 3-4 years now and it is my favorite. If you shop in the store, write your list in the order of location in the store. I used to write mine in the order that I would walk past them in the store. It makes shopping so much easier! A pre-organized grocery list like this one can be super helpful in writing out an organized list. Make sure to add other staples and snacks you may need.
5. Plan which days will work best for each meal. On our crazy nights when we are at practices and activities, I make sure to schedule our crock pot meals. On the nights we will be home and will have a little more time, I choose the recipes that take a bit longer to prepare. I like to use this calendar to fill out and stick on our fridge. I have used a whiteboard similar to this that also worked really well.

Well, that is it! The five steps I use to keeping my meal planning process as easy and painless as possible. What do you think? Is there a tip you never thought of before in here? Or were you reading and saying, well that is nothing new. What are your favorite tips to keeping meal planning easy? I am always up for new ideas!

If you need some new recipes to add to your list of meals, head to my recipes tab. My Pinterest board Easy Dinner Recipes also has a lot of good ideas.