Weekly Meal Planning Ideas For The Family
Here are some weekly meal planning ideas to get your meal prepping engines started.
Meal planning for the family
At its most fundamental, meal planning is when meals are cooked purposely ahead of time to be had for later. Meal planning is one of those things that seems like it's more work, but actually turns out to be a way to save time and energy for the rest of the week. Cooking your meals ahead of time can give you more time for your kids, hobbies, or just for yourself. Use some glass food storage containers instead of plastic tupperware to make the prep more environmentally friendly.
Weekly meal planning ideas
Parfait Jars
Perfect for breakfast or lunch, simply add some yogurt, berries, and granola to a glass jar and you’re good to go.
Overnight Oats
Combine your milk, oats, and favorite garnishes to a container, stir, and then leave overnight in the fridge.
Oven Baked Chicken
Cooking your chicken in the oven allows you to stack rows of thighs and breasts for a bulk-load of meal planning goodness for the family. Lemon baked chicken anyone?
Baked Veggies
Baked veggies is one of our favorite meal planning ideas. Toss the veggies with some oil, salt, pepper, maybe some paprika and onion powder and you just might become a veggie person (if you aren’t already). It’s also very easy to make lots and to mix and match these with other meal prep options.
Meal planning for the week
Getting into a new habit is always hard. Stick to these steps to smooth your transition into being a meal prepping pro.
1. Make a calendar. Having a set time for when you are going to meal prep and with what meal planning ideas is the golden rule here.
When you’re tired after work, meal planning may be the last thing you want to do, and it’ll be tough to summon all of its benefits to convince yourself when you’re in an exhausted haze. So have a plan — and stick to it! Sunday night is usually great for meal prepping.
2. Choose recipes you won’t mind having again and again. Choose recipes you love. One of the quickest ways to burn out of meal prepping is to get sick of eating the same thing, day in, day out.
A key to new habit formation is enjoyment. So, choose meals that are tasty, ones that are downright delicious. Then, when it comes time to meal prep again, you’ll be thinking about all those tasty meals you enjoyed last time because of your efforts.
Ways to simplify meal planning for the family
Batch it out
Spend one afternoon cooking all of your meals for the week. If you’re in a two-person household, one pan of lasagna can be split up into lunch for 2-3 days.
If you have a larger family, prep a few frozen casseroles that you can toss into the oven after work. Even pre-chopping ingredients and setting aside the meal, ready-to-cook (like Hello Fresh, but done for yourself) is a great approach.
Slow Cooker
A slow cooker can dramatically reduce the time and effort a complicated, healthy meal requires. If you don’t already own one, they can run in the price range of about $250-$600.
Slow cookers are an excellent device to have more protein rich foods. One of the problems with trying to cook simply and quickly is it can be difficult to include a healthy protein into the meal. With slow cookers, you can be darn sure the protein will be well cooked (it may just fall off the bone).
There’s no better feeling than coming into the kitchen after a busy day and having a warm meal wafting through the air, ready to be enjoyed.
Pasta
Carbs often get a bad wrap. But, eaten in moderation and with the right mix-ins and accompaniments, carbs are a healthy source of energy.
Part of why carbs get mistakenly put down is because they cause us to store water weight. So an identical amount of calories may leave us feeling like we somehow had more to eat than we thought. But, this water weight leaves the body much easier than other weight gain (if you catch our drift).
Pasta is a fantastically quick way to make a ton of food. Grab some pasta, cheese, and your favorite sauce, and the pasta itself will be done in 10-20 minutes. To make it just a little bit fancier and tastier, cook some chopped onions and garlic on a side pan to add to the sauce!
Mmm’s the word
Meal planning ideas allow for so much newfound creativity and control to be exercised over your life. More time for you, less time for unhealthy food.
Thinking of growing your own food too? We have a resource for that!