5 Ways to Make Meal Planning Simpler

Naomi Middleton

Meal planning has always been frustrating for me. The funny thing is, once I actually start cooking, I usually enjoy it! It's everything leading up to cooking—the planning, finding recipes, making grocery lists, and shopping—that tends to overwhelm me. And when life gets busy, meal planning is often one of the first things to go. Unfortunately, that usually means we're eating out more, spending more money, and not eating as healthy as I'd like.

Over the years, I've found a few simple ways to make meal planning feel much more manageable. I still don't do it perfectly, but these five habits have helped me spend less time planning, make fewer trips to the grocery store, and enjoy cooking more. Here are five ways to simplify your meal planning.

1. Have a Seasonal Menu

This is by far my most important tip! You need to repeat meals more than you think. Instead of starting from scratch every week, I create a seasonal menu (click here) that I only have to plan four times a year. For each season, I choose:

4 breakfast options
2 lunch options
8 dinner options

That's it! These are meals our family enjoys, and we simply rotate through them throughout the season.

On the back of my seasonal menu, I keep a grocery list with everything I need to make those meals. This makes grocery shopping so much easier because I'm buying many of the same ingredients each time. Not only does this save me time, but it also helps me waste less food and stick to a more consistent grocery budget. And when the next season rolls around, I can swap out a few meals to reflect the weather, seasonal ingredients, or what our family is enjoying.

2. Make Larger Amounts

One of the reasons I can get away with grocery shopping about every two weeks is that I intentionally make larger amounts when I cook. Most of the time, I make enough for at least two meals. That means we can either eat the leftovers the next day or I can freeze the extra portion for another time.

I love knowing that the time I spend cooking today is also saving me time later in the week. Soups, casseroles, pasta sauces, and shredded meats are all great options for making larger batches. If you're already going through the effort of cooking, why not make enough for another meal? It doesn't usually take much more time, but it can make a big difference on a busy day.

3. Always Have an Emergency Meal

There are so many times when having an emergency meal ready has saved us from ordering takeout! An emergency meal is simply something you can make with very little effort and without needing to run to the grocery store. It could be a meal you've already prepared and stored in the freezer, or something made entirely from pantry and freezer staples. A few easy ideas include:

Frozen soup or chili
Pasta with jarred sauce and frozen meatballs
Quesadillas with frozen chicken and cheese
Breakfast for dinner
A frozen casserole

The goal isn't to make something elaborate. It's to have an easy option available when the day doesn't go as planned. Having one or two emergency meals on hand means a busy evening doesn't have to completely derail your plans to eat at home.

4. Collect Recipes You Actually Make

It's easy to save hundreds of recipes on Pinterest that look amazing but never actually make it to the dinner table. Instead of constantly searching for new recipes, focus on building a collection of meals you know your family enjoys.

Whenever I find a recipe we love, I save it to my collection. Over time, I've built up a list of tried-and-true meals that I know our family will actually eat. Every once in a while, when I have a little extra margin, I'll try something new. If it's a hit, it gets added to the collection. If not, we move on!

The goal isn't to collect as many recipes as possible. It's to build a collection of meals you'll actually make again and again. Having a go-to collection of family favorites makes putting together my seasonal menu so much easier because I'm not starting from scratch every time.

5. Print Out Your Favorite Reciples

Once you've collected recipes your family loves, I highly recommend printing them out! I created a simple recipe template (Click Here) to print out our favorite meals and organize them in a binder. I know we live in a digital world, but there's something so much easier about having all our recipes printed and in one place.

When it's time to cook, I don't have to scroll through Pinterest, search my phone, or remember which website I found a recipe on. I can simply pull out my binder and get started. It also makes it easier to jot down adjustments, substitutions, or little notes about what worked well.

And because everything is organized in one place, anyone in our family can easily find a recipe and help prepare dinner. Sometimes the simplest systems are the ones that work best. Having a physical collection of recipes we actually use has made both meal planning and cooking feel a little less overwhelming.