Recipe for Meal Planning

In our home, I'm responsible for all the grocery shopping every week. Dan will help cook but I usually do all the meal selection and planning. We've been married over 5 years and I've tried and failed to do proper meal planning about 200 times. After Kip was born this process got even worse. I'd always wait until the last minute to try to think of the meals we would have that week and then write a shopping list. 3/4 weeks in a month I'd end up at the store with no plan and no list and it was a disaster. I would be annoyed but Dan never complained. Mandy started telling me that I made chicken pot pie too much or that she was tired of feeding Kip the same meals week after week. She was right.

So this fall I decided to try a different and terrifying approach to meal planning. Monthly. Gulp.

I could hardly think of 5 meals at a time how in the world could I think of 20+? But I needed SOMETHING to get it into gear.  I bought a dry-erase magnetic blank calendar on Amazon and put it on our fridge in September. I didn't think it would work and I kept silent about it because I was pretty sure it would fail, like all other attempts.

But, it's the end of January and I've stayed consistent for 5 months!! We've diversified our meals, never repeating anything during the month, and even been motivated to try new recipes as well. We have a rhythm and a flow and it's finally working!! I just look at the calendar on Sunday morning and write my grocery list quick because I already know what's on the menu. I can look ahead and pick-up other stuff if I know I won't be at a certain store (Trader Joe's) later that month. I can take a picture of the full month and look back for ideas later. It's working really well and I'm happy and actually excited to erase and create a new menu every month.

Here are my tips.
1) Have a pizza night. Or some dedicated night a week where you have a frozen meal you throw in the oven. We do pizza on Friday nights and alternate weeks of frozen or order-out. We change-up the place and the frozen type so it doesn't get boring. Dan and I will usually do our date nights on Friday as well so it's easy to just leave a frozen pizza for Mandy and Kip on those nights.

2) Cook a larger/more complicated meal on the night of the week when you have the most time. I cook something bigger on Sunday so we are guaranteed leftovers on Monday. That cuts out a whole night to come-up with a new meal. I usually do something with chicken on Sunday as well since Dan does not cook poultry (or rather I refuse to teach Dan how to cook poultry). It is also usually something that requires more prep and cooking + baking.

3) Get a Mandy. Mandy watches Kip on Wednesday and she makes us dinner!! She plans her own meals so I don't have to worry about planning something that night. She just tells me what she plans to make and I write that on the calendar. Wednesday is my favorite. She is a great cook.

4) Simple dishes. Like I said, I make one complicated meal a week. This is because Dan is in charge of dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays since those are his days home with Kip. He is great a following a recipe and we have some standard dishes that he makes but they are not complicated or time consuming. One night is usually something with ground beef (tacos, chili, hamburger helper) and the other is something like breakfast (waffles, quiche, German pancake). And he also does a lot of frozen meals from Trader Joes (fish fillets, pot stickers, meatballs). He is even getting adventurous and finding his own recipes to make. This month he made a cauliflower hash which was actually very yummy. Every other Tuesday we also host a small group. I have about 4-5 standard meals we make for these occasions and Dan can either prepare the whole meal or do all the prep for me to finish when I get home.

5) Keep fresh/frozen vegetables on hand or fresh fruit to use for standard sides. I don't plan out all our sides. If a meal needs something extra we cut-up an apple or steam some peas.

6) Get a big visual where you can see your meals every time you go to the kitchen. I like visuals and it helps that I can use fun colorful markers to write-out the menu. Seeing the monthly menu really reduces a ton of unknown stress for me. Worrying about what to cook is no longer a task. It's just one day a month of flipping through my recipes and picking what to make. Not 5 times a week, not even 5 times a month. Just once. Something that seemed like it would be more overwhelming is actually the opposite.

7) Give yourself a cheat day. On Saturdays we usually eat out or we do super simple "choice night" dinners where you fen for yourself. It's usually grilled cheese/tomato soup or blue box mac & cheese and it's usually not planned.

If I can do it, you can too!! Start with February, it's short month anyways. And may meal planning never stress you out again.