Top 3 Meal Planning Tips for Families

Are you amazed by moms on Pinterest who make great meals and wonder how they do it?

I believe most things in life are successful when you plan ahead. Planning can seem daunting for most people, especially moms that work or are running to sports practice. There are many ways to look at planning, and over the years I’ve found these three meal planning tips and tricks for families to be the most helpful, and usually take less than 10 minutes to run through!

1. Plan from what you already have in the house

Easiest place to start is looking at your pantry, fridge and freezer. You may think, “I have nothing” but I bet in many cases its more you don’t like what you have or know how to make a meal from it.

If you ask my husband my specialty is making a “Cupboard Surprise” aka putting a bunch of random things we have together to make a delicious meal. For a solid meal you really need to focus on picking 3-5 things:

1. Protein

2. Vegetable

3. Carbohydrate

4. Seasoning

5. Fat

For some lifestyles and dietary plans you can choose multiple sources of a vegetable or fat if you like. But the very basics for how to plan from what you have are just grouping all these items together into a meal. The most underrated protein sources may be in a can. Canned chicken or tuna are especially great if you want to make a one dish casserole. They mix right in!

One effective method I have discovered is to physically write down the items you have and then experiment by mixing and matching them.

2. Plan from what’s on sale that week

A helpful budgeting tip is to review food ads and create meal plans based on weekly sales. This strategy is particularly useful for large meal preparations, such as lunch, allowing you to purchase items like your chosen protein in bulk.

It also honestly helps with inspiration! Most of the time meal planning doesn’t happen because it is overwhelming and boring. Let the grocery stores help you out.

3. Pick themes for each night of the week

My final tip to get inspired and help improve your meal planning is to give yourself a smaller bucket to pull ideas from. Themes can be anything! I like to use countries or cuisine flavors to help keep some variety. You can also do trendy ones like “Meatless Monday” or “Taco Tuesday” that are pretty simple to start with.

Other general ideas include:

• One pot meals (think baked pasta dishes or casseroles)

• Crock pot meals (give yourself a day to throw stuff into a pot and forget!)

• Appetizer night (plan cooking up a lot of little foods – great for Friday nights)

You can also pick a night where you rotate which country you cook from and start to learn about different cuisines around the world – something I plan to start doing soon. I LOVE cooking and learning about different styles and flavors.

Wrap Up

I hope that these three meal planning tips and tricks for families helps you save time, save energy and on a path to more home cooked meals you enjoy! Make sure you can get back to the template and tips by saving the Pin above!

As always, if you have any questions or want to learn more about meal planning and getting yourself on track to a healthier lifestyle, just drop a note below!

If you’re ready to stop stressing over what you’re going to feed your family or how much you’ll spend on last minute shopping check out my ebook, “The Meal Planning Playbook”!