Meal Planning 101: What You Really Need to Know

Meal Planning 101: What You Really Need to Know

It looks different for everybody.

The goal is to save time, energy, and your sanity.

It can help reduce food waste and curb impulse buying.

The general idea is to plan, shop, prep, and then finish cooking during the week.

There’s a bit of a learning curve, so you will likely need to exercise some patience and grace.

You can have fun with it!

Plan for a week, a month, a quarter— whatever works best for you.

HOW DO YOU SAVE TIME?

Meal planning saves you time on busy days because it allows you to front-load your week with most of the work required to make meals for yourself and your family.

By planning and prepping the majority of your meals all at once, you’re spending a couple hours doing all the hard work and freeing up that time during the week to spend more time with your loved ones.

It often looks like this:

Two hours spent cooking grains, proteins, chopping veggies, making sauces, packaging, and labeling your food for later in the week, all on one day or evening.

Putting things together and heating or reheating as necessary during the week.

HOW DO YOU SAVE MONEY?

Meal planning helps you save money in a couple different ways.

First, you’re not just buying whatever sounds good, loading up on impulse buys. You’re going into the store with a plan and buying only what’s on your list already.

It also helps you save money because you’re buying food with a purpose and not wasting it. If you buy whatever looks good without a plan for how you’re going to use it, it might go bad before you remember that you even have it. But if you have a plan for how and when you’re going to use it, it won’t go to waste!

HOW DO YOU GET STARTED?

You get started by setting aside some time each week to plan your meals, finding some solid places to source recipes from, taking note of what you already have in your kitchen, and putting your grocery list together.

I recommend setting aside time at the beginning of your week, but it depends on your schedule. When do you have the most time to plan, shop, and prep your food? Plan then. If that’s on the weekend, that’s great. If that’s in the middle of the week, that works, too!

Look for good places to get recipes from. This could be anything from your mom’s old cookbook to a foodie magazine to a food blog. The best part is you can find recipes that fit your unique taste and any dietary restrictions you might have to work with.

Take note of what’s already in your house so you don’t buy duplicates or forget something you thought you had. Then make a list of what you still need to make the recipes you’ve picked out for the week.

And because I know that you want more than just these basic meal planning tips, I want to offer you the chance to go even further and transform your cooking even more!