HOW TO MEAL PLAN _ My Favorite Meal Planning Tips!

Hello, welcome to Queen of the Household. My name is Emily and today we are gonna talk all about meal planning. I think that meal planning is something that a lot of people get stuck on and we wanna do it, we have to do it because we have to eat, right? But we get stuck on it because there are just so many different ideas out there that sometimes it's overwhelming and sometimes it feels like, well, am I doing it the right way? Because someone on Pinterest does it this way or my best friend does it this way so am I doing it the right way? But the truth is that there really is not a right or wrong way to meal plan as long as you are doing it and you're providing meals for your family. So, you know, some people will meal plan once a week. Some people will meal plan for a month or even three months in advance. And then I think sometimes, you know, we think, well, do we have to follow a theme each night or each week? And the truth is, if you want to, go for it. If it works for you, then absolutely follow a theme. But if sticking to a theme would stress you out, then don't do it. Freezer meals, you know, those are really popular and I know a lot of people who do them. I personally don't like to do freezer meals. It doesn't work for our family and so I don't do them and I don't feel the stress that, or the pressure that I have to do them. So, anyways, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but today I want to share with you just a few simple tips that I've learned in the last 10 years of having to make meal plans and some things that hopefully you can get ideas from as well. Okay, so the first thing is, don't try to think of ideas out of thin air. So don't pull out ideas out of thin air and just hope that you can come up with a meal plan for the week. So, I think we have all done it where we've just sat down and we've thought, okay, I'm gonna meal plan. And then nothing comes to our mind. We're just sitting there thinking, I can't think of any food right now. Why can't I think of any food? And I think it's because we don't have any inspiration and we're just, we're put on the spot and we have to think of something. So, instead of just sitting down and trying to come up with something with no inspiration, I think it is really important for you to create a master meal list. So, I did this at one time. I just sat down, I went through all of the meals that we had had in the last month and I wrote them down. And then I went to my cookbooks and I spent some time looking through my cookbooks and I wrote down meals that I thought we would like to eat. I went to my Pinterest board where I have easy family recipes and I wrote down some of the ones that I thought we would like to eat as well. And so I put those on our master list. And now, I just refer to that master list every single time that I meal plan. And every once in a while, I'll go to a cookbook or I'll go to Pinterest, but I don't do that every single time that I meal plan because that takes up so much time and it's just so much easier to just say, okay, I'm gonna pick one, two, three, four, five meals. And I have them broken up into different categories so that we have a variety each week and that just makes it so much easier. I do have a workbook if you're kind of like, well, I don't even, I can't even make a master list. Then I do have a workbook on my Etsy shop that I'll put a link to if you're interested in that where it has all kinds of dinner ideas and then also ideas for side dishes as well. Okay, so my second tip for meal planning is to shop with a list. Don't go to the store just thinking, ah, I'll pick up some things. Because what happens is, A, you pick up too much and you come home and you realize, oh, you already had that in the pantry or the freezer. And B, you don't get what you really need. So you end up having to go back to the store and get something later during the week to make a meal. So definitely shop with a list. The way that you do that is you start with your meal plan and say, okay, what is it that I'm having this week? And then what are the items that I'm gonna need for each meal, including side dishes, including lunches, including snacks and breakfast foods. And then go to your pantry, go to your freezer and see what you have in your pantry and your freezer already so that you aren't buying duplicates and so that you're just making your list off of the items that you need to purchase. That is just a really helpful thing to do whenever you are meal planning. So make sure you shop with a list. And then the third thing is to simplify. And I talk about this so much. And the tagline on my blog, Queen of the Household, is simplified home management for moms. Because I think when you simplify things, then you don't feel as overwhelmed and it requires less energy, less mind, less thinking. And it just makes life a lot easier, including meal planning. So these are just some things that have worked for our family. They may or may not work for yours, but I thought that I would share them just to give you some ideas. One of the things that I do to simplify is I limit the number of new recipes that I try each month. So I try to stick to one or two new recipes each month. That's enough for me and my family. Maybe for you, it would be like once a week you try a new recipe. But you gotta realize that every time that you do a new recipe, you're probably using different ingredients than you're used to. You're probably having to learn a new skill. You definitely have to follow different directions, which take time and energy. So it really does simplify your meal planning when you limit the number of new recipes that you're trying. Another thing is to simplify your side dishes. So we try to stick to a fruit, a vegetable, and a starch. And we keep them really simple. We stick to a lot of fruits and vegetables and rice or potatoes, rolls, because that is just, they're easy to do and they're nutritious. So I stick to a lot of side dishes that don't require a whole lot of recipes. They don't require a whole lot of time. Which brings me to the next point, which is to food prep. And what I like to do when I come home from the grocery store, as soon as possible, not always right away because I have kids, right? But as soon as possible, I will try to cut up the fruits and vegetables and wash them if they need to be washed or peeled, whatever, just to prepare them so that they're easy to use as a side dish. So if it's vegetables, then I can quickly roast them or I can steam them for dinner and it won't take long. If it's fruit, it's just an easy side to put out on the table or I can even put a few fruit together that have already been cut up and use it as a fruit salad. So those are really just simple sides that we like to use in our family. Another way that I simplify our meal planning is to serve simple meat dishes. So instead of trying to follow a main dish recipe every single night, a lot of times I will just marinate some meat like pork chops or chicken and it's really easy just to put it in the refrigerator, marinate it for the day and then bake it or grill it and it's really tasty, but it's super easy and also it's pretty healthy. And then the last way that I simplify our meal planning is to simply have quick and easy frozen meals on hand. So I have no shame in my game. Every once in a while, we will have a frozen pizza. We'll have frozen chicken tenders. I'll make tacos, just really simple dishes that don't take a lot of time, don't take a lot of energy or mental thought and that I can just put together without spending a lot of time in the kitchen. And that makes meal planning easier. I try to do one or two of those a week so that I'm not making an elaborate meal every single night of the week because you run out of energy, you run out of steam and then you kind of just don't want to meal plan anymore and you don't want to make meals. So having those easy meals every once in a while during the week is a great way to simplify your meal planning as well. So I hope that that has been an inspiration to you. I will leave a link below to the workbook with the dinner ideas to my Etsy shop if you're interested in that. I would love to hear more inspiration if you have ideas for meal planning as well, then leave them in the comments and we'll check those out. Thanks for watching.