5 Tips for Planning your Meals

Here are my 5 top tips to making meals at home work for you!

1. Batch cooking. Batch cooking is similar to meal prep but instead of putting the cooked meals into individual containers, it all goes into one container. Throughout the week, you get out the portion that you are ready to eat. I love this tip because it allows for flexibility with how much you want to eat and less things to clean!

2. Go grocery shopping only 1-2 days each week. This is a little known secret of mine to help with planning and budget. When you go to the store more often, you are more likely to buy more impulse purchases. Sticking to 1-2 a week may be difficult at first when you forget items but try to sub those items out, make a list next time and it should get easier.

3. Choose a specific day and time to plan your meals for the upcoming week. I like to do this on Thursday for the weekend meals so we eat out less often and Sunday mornings when everyone is still sleeping. I can focus, plan my meals, make my list then it’s off to the store. Making this a habit each week will help you stay on track and not forget to plan!

4. Similar to batch cooking, this one is ‘planned overs’. You plan to have food leftover. You double the recipe so you have leftovers for lunch and/or dinner the next day. You are already doing the work to make it so take advantage and simply double the meal!

5. Prepping food in advance. If you don’t have time to do the all the cooking one day, this tip is for you. I get it- planning your menu, making a list, going shopping, then batch cooking or meal prepping all in one day or even two days takes a lot of time. Especially when we want to spend time with our family and friends. Here’s how this tip works. You prep the food. You dice the onion and store it, you portion your protein out and get it defrosted, you slice whatever needs slicing. When it’s time to cook your meal, you can grab your already prepped food and start cooking.