Meal planning is wonderful! I love it! At my house we do meal planning very different than most. We keep it simple and flexible. Flexible, I think that is where my meal planning stands out from the rest.
I only meal plan dinner. I never plan out more than 4 meals. Yes, we eat more than 4 meals a week! We often have left overs that we roll over, adding a salad or fresh steam veggies. So planning 4 meals works for us! Plus, sometimes we prefer a can of soup and a cheese sandwich. That needs very little planning, since it’s always stocked piled.
Want to know what is on the menu? Well I’m not exactly sure! Hang with me, let me explain.
Here is what I’m serving for sure:
For the other two meals I have prepared chicken that has been cooked and shredded. With this chicken I know we have the ingredients on hand to make 2 of the following:
At my house we need flexibility. What I intend to cook, may not be what we are craving that night. When this happen, we have found our selves eating out busting the budget!
When meal planning, I do the majority of the cooking one night. I prepare the food around what we will eat, and what we maybe eating this week. Last night I meal planned and prepared our dinners for the week. With a few interruptions it took a total of 1 hour! Not bad considering I cooked everything that was needed for the week.
Here’s how it worked:
We wanted Beef Stroganoff. My husband wanted marinated Italian Chicken. From there I went to the pantry to see what ingredients I needed to purchase, and what I had on hand to create other meals using Beef or Chicken. I had most items stocked. This week I had to buy only 4 extra ingredients for the two potential meals.
Here’s how I prepared the food for the week:
That’s it, I have prepped enough food for the week. I will add veggeis, salad, fruit, and bread on hand to complete the meals! Prep time for the “potential meals” will be no more than 5-10 minutes. The pizza prep time maybe 20 minutes, my husband always does the dough. Then everything is a simple bake or stove top heat up. The meat, the biggest part of these meals has been cooked and prepped! I stored some things in the fridge, and some cooked chicken in the freezer. We may not know exactly what we are having, but we have a general idea. This worked out perfect today. My oldest son has strep throat, so being prepared for dinner was great!
To me meal planning is about keeping it frugal, simple, and flexible. We still maybe asking what’s for dinner, but we know the menu! Are you meal planning? What’s for dinner?
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You know what? I like this plan, I’m a non-planning planner. I mean, I like to plan but don’t like to follow through with it. I like flexibility. I’ve been wanting something simple and flexible to help me get better at meal planning. Thanks for this! I bookmarked ya!