These easy meal planning tips will help you as a busy mom.
Easy meal planning is essential for every mom’s life. It is a game-changer. While it does take some practice, it is worth it! Instead of scrambling around during the pre-dinner hour, you will have a plan that will help you prep without the stress.
More times than I can remember, I have spent the 4:30 pm-5 pm period of time, scrambling around my kitchen, trying to figure out what I can quickly throw together for dinner before soccer practice. Or there were moments of trying to soothe a fussy baby and determine what we have in the cabinet and fridge for dinner. Can you relate?!
As moms in the midst of the everyday moments of life, we can use meal planning to help eliminate one area of stress. Let’s dive into some easy meal planning tips!
This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Easy Meal Planning Tips for Moms
Use theme night dinners.
In the past, I would sit down and look through my cookbooks, Pinterest, and start to get overwhelmed because there were so many options. However, over this past year, I decided to use theme nights!
Instead of trying to come up with a new plan every week, theme night dinners give you a basic framework to follow.
Here is the current plan I am following:
- Sunday- Salad
- Monday- Crockpot
- Tuesday- Tacos
- Wednesday- Italian
- Thursday- Sheet Pan
- Friday- Pizza
- Saturday- Grilled
Other ideas are Instapot, Stir Fry, divide up depending on the protein, vegetarian, etc.
Make the plan and then go grocery shopping.
This may sound super simple but sometimes we need to be reminded to keep it simple. I typically go grocery shopping every two weeks, so I will make a general meal plan for two weeks.
Then I make my grocery list. This helps me to make sure to pick up the items I need for different meals.
Check your schedule for the week.
Trust me, I learned this the hard way as we were eating chicken chili on the way to soccer practice. Hello, mom fail. As you make your meal plan, look at the schedule for that week. This allows you to see if the meal you are planning fits with the events of that evening.
Keep the meals simple.
I mostly rotate through a list of our favorite meals and then throw in a new one here and there. However, the meals are super simple. In this season of life with three active kids, simple is what works best! That means we have a main dish and two sides. Usually, the sides are either a vegetable or salad.
Put the schedule somewhere you can see it.
Our meal schedule is in the command center. I have a laminated meal plan that I can easily write on with a dry erase marker each week.
Get the meal plan printable along with the whole Meal Planning Set.
You also can use a simple meal planner to keep things organized!
Involve your family.
As you are meal planning, ask if they have dinner suggestions. Or when you are making dinner, ask if one of them wants to help. Yes, it can be overwhelming to have extra hands in the kitchen, but it also can be some of the best teaching moments.
Do a morning meal prep.
One thing that I found is that even though I would have a meal plan, I would still forget to take action. This would result in me panicking at 4 pm because I forgot to start the crockpot (this is when an Instapot would be key), so I would still be scrambling!
In order to eliminate this issue, I have found it to be helpful to take 5 minutes every morning to glance at the plan for dinner and do prep if needed.
Are you ready to jump into meal planning now?!
If this is completely new to you, then take one step to start acting on today! Get the Meal Planning Printables Set to help you get organized!
Leave a Reply