Kitchen Sloth Meal Planning
Why meal plan? Here’s 3 reasons:
- Your sanity. Write it down, get it out of your precious brain space and give yourself some room to breathe. We make so many decisions on a daily basis- if you can take one off your plate, your brain will thank you!
- Your budget. The times I have consciously make an effort to plan out our meals, I have gone to the store less and spent WAY less money.
- Less waste. Planning helps ensure you have less food waste (which also helps with the budget). You can use half of that bag of cabbage for egg roll bowls on Monday, and the other half for cole slaw for fish tacos on Tuesday!
Here’s how I do it – Kitchen Sloth Meal Planning – my steps are:
Plus, my main key to not getting stressed out!
I have tried so many different types of meal planning over the years… unsuccessfully. Here’s my problem: I like to plan, I love lists… but then I get tired. It’s just too much. I also like to have flexibility. My month-long plan of meals would be staring at me, telling me I’m supposed to make enchiladas tonight. But now it’s raining, and it’s a Tuesday, and I want to make POTATO SOUP! I can’t though, my meal plan won’t let me!
WRONG.
Repeat after me. “I am the boss. This is my kitchen.”
You can print this out and put it next to your meal plan. It’s also a good reminder for anyone coming into your kitchen. Tell the meal plan you’re going to make SOUP TODAY If. You. Feel. Like. It. No one can tell you what to do!!!
Once I realized this (after way too long of thinking I was beholden to the freaking meal plan), I had a lot of freedom. Actually, it was a couple of years of NOT meal planning of any kind, being stressed out, and realizing that some kind of structure was helpful. It just needed to look different for me.
Here’s the happy medium I use that works for me. Again, do what works for you. Monthly plans might be your jam!
The Seasonal Recipe Lineup List
After my hiatus from meal planning, I accidentally backed into doing it again by just making lists of
food I was excited to eat.
I wasn’t trying to coordinate weeks, or days, or groceries, or what went where, I was just excited for spring and some fresh foods after a winter of heavy comfort food. Greek Chicken Bowls. Lemon Blueberry Bread. Cobb Salad. Green Salad with Salmon Cakes. Grilled Asparagus. Yum. (recipes coming soon!)
- What are you excited to eat in this next season? It can be seasonal or monthly or some other category. It’s whatever food I’m excited to eat and dreaming about. Mine goes something like this, starting with fall, because that’s usually when I decide to get things back on track:
- Pumpkin Spice and Football Season (Fall): breads, apple things, potato skins, buffalo chicken wings, chili…
- The Holidays: special family recipes, baked goods
- A Very Short Post Holidays Health Lineup: salads, smoothies, and kale things
- Dead of Winter Comfort Foods (aka it’s -5 degrees outside): mac and cheese, soups, stews
- Springtime: recipes that showcase fresh veggies and lighter, fresh food.
- Summertime Livin’– 99.99% GRILL RECIPES AND COLD DRINKS AND POPSICLES (can you tell this is the one is coming up- I’m so excited! Recipes coming soon!)
- Next, I pull from the Lineup List to fill in a weekly meal plan (more on this below). In really busy weeks, sometimes I don’t do this, and I go to the Lineup List at dinnertime, but I cannot tell you how much it helps my mental sanity to just PICK something and write down for Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. It can change!
- And onto my last point… half the time I DO change it… so why even plug in the days? It really helps me on the days when I cannot make another decision and its 5pm and everyone is hangry and I CANNOT LOOK at a list of 50 recipes I was excited about making 4 days ago- that is ancient history. I CANNOT THINK of any foods we like to eat- do we even make food in this house? CAN SOMEONE just tell me what to do??? In this instance, yes, your meal plan can tell you what to do. But only if you want it to.
Weekly Plan: Make it Easy
Plugging in meals into days of the week is still hard for me though- here are some tips I use to make it easy. Remember, it’s flexible! If you don’t want to have Meatballs on Monday this week, you don’t have to.
- Make Categories– Meatball Monday, Taco Tuesday, Fun Friday… usually we have pizza on Friday, but I’m thinking about switching it up to Fajita Friday, mmmm yes. Mine are currently:
- Meatball Monday (Italian)
- Taco Tuesday (Mexican)
- Wednesday – Soup, Sandwich, or Salad
- Thursday – Asian
- Fun Friday
- For us, weekends are a combination of leftovers, out with friends or family, or another recipe if I have time to putter around in the kitchen.
- This is just what works for me. Don’t get too hung up on it! Other categories you could use are crockpot meals, instant pot meals, sheet pan meals, or split up a category. For example, soup night AND salad night. You don’t have to use all the categories!
- As you’re planning this, some other things you can think about (or not- just get something down and see how you like it) is your schedule. I chose Italian food on Mondays (aka Meatball Monday) because Mondays are the worst. I’m so tired from teaching. Everything is terrible. I have frozen meatballs in the freezer I can use for a quick meal that everyone likes. And that is how I chose Meatball Monday. The end.
I have one final tip on making a weekly meal plan, and it’s very important.
simplify!
- Make a list of 10-15 meals that you already like that fit these categories. Not 500. Don’t get out cookbooks or Pinterest for this. What comes to mind quickly that you already make and love? Here are mine. (All recipes coming soon!)
- Italian: spaghetti and meatballs, garlic spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna
- Mexican: tacos, taco soup, taco salad
- Soup/Sandwich/Salad: grilled chicken on salad, potato soup, salad and salmon cakes
- Asian: egg roll bowls, salmon roll bowls, zoodle pad thai
- Fun: pizza, wings, burgers
Keep Track (if you want – optional)
After I have my weekly Meal Plan (in my phone- I use this app) I copy and paste that week to a note called “Meal Log.” Several reasons…
- Quick inspiration: if I’m in a rut, have zero ideas, and cannot even remember what I like to make or eat… which has happened on several (ok many) occasions… it’s helpful.
- Health: If I’ve been feeling particularly bad, I can scroll through and see that I made a lot of recipes with a huge amount of dairy or super processed food for the last 2 weeks… maybe you should make something green now, Hannah.
- You can look back on this and feel sooooo good about yourself and look at all your accomplishments or at least things you planned to accomplish. I also put a little emoji checkmark in my weekly meal plan and Lineup List to congratulate myself on another night I didn’t go get Taco Bell (…although it is my secret love). It’s the little things.
And that’s what I do! It keeps me sane, it keeps the budget and food waste in check, and it gets me excited for new seasons, recipes, and happy times ahead.
What works for you?