A couple weeks ago I got an email requesting I write about my meal planning. I had made a comment on another blog, Fimby, about how I plan meals seasonally. Ellen read that comment and wanted to know more. I’ve been thinking about writing about this for awhile and am so humbled that someone I don’t know is interested in how I do things.
I wrote an article about general meal planning for Healthy Montana. Here’s the specifics of how we do it.
I downloaded this meal planning template. It’s super simple and you could easily create your own in Excel, but I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Let’s leave that to people with more energy than me.
I decided to plan seasonally, meaning I made four one-month plans. Each month is repeated three times throughout the season. Breakfasts and lunches are pretty standard and I switch them up willy nilly. Oh yes, we are spontaneous eaters at midday. So, that leaves dinners.
I leave one night for leftovers and one night for eating out. We don’t eat out every week, but between getting together with friends and weekends out of town, it’s covered.
I try to mix in new meals and old standards. Fall and winter includes more soups and heavier meals. In spring and summer I’ve included more salads and grilled meals. Seasonal fruits and veggies are part of the plan, too. Some of the meals have been total busts, so I just switch those out. I also repeat our favorites within a month, because who can think of 20 or more different meals?
I double or triple the meals and freeze when appropriate. No sense cooking more than I have to. And I plan trail food for the weekend–homemade granola bars, fig bars etc.
The template also has a place for an ingredient list. On Sunday nights I make the shopping list for the next week.
I put all the monthly plans in a notebook and put the recipes behind each week. That way, anyone can open the binder, know what’s for dinner and have the recipe to make it.
Here’s a week in spring at our house: mealplanSpring1.pdf
It’s a lot of work up front, but it does make things go more smoothly once it’s done.
Now for a little truth-telling. I haven’t used the meal plans since last summer. I don’t know why, I just kind of fell out of it. But I am re-inspired. I am going to fix up the plans from last year and get back on it.
Questions? Want to share your meal planning technique? Leave a comment!
Your meal planning idea is great! I tried planning our meals for an entire week but ended up not following them. 🙂 But i guess when you’re in a tight schedule, the meal planning idea will be of great help since you wont be worrying about what to cook for lunch or dinner after a very long tiring day at work.
Wow! That is so impressive… My meal planning technique is totally random. I can’t plan in advance to save my life, especially when I’m pregnant. But I’ll have to try this. Sounds awesome!
from my mom: although I knew you were a great planner and made wonderful, thoughtful dinners, I had no idea that you did such impressive and practical dinner planning. Go gal!! As for me, I used to many, many, yrs. ago but am shooting from the hip most of the time now. Guess I cannot even take any of the credit for raising you right on this score since you have always been ahead of the game on planning (as well as execution).
It does sound more impressive than it is 😉 It’s basically work up front for an easier payoff later.
And I didn’t plan a month at a time. I did one week at a time and completed the month plan over several days. It’s not too bad if you break it up into smaller steps.