Recurring Meal Planning is a great way to save time, money, and stress throughout the week.
Having a meal plan goes a long way to making your life simpler and run more smoothly. Without a meal plan, it’s easy to buy groceries you don’t use, resulting in wasted food. Or not having the ingredients on hand you need, making it more difficult and frustrating to prepare a meal. It is also easy to order take-out more often than your health or budget might like!
Recurring meal planning can be challenging but it is possible to make it easy and recurring. It is definitely worth the work up front to have a stress-free week getting meals on the table.
Getting Started
The first step in recurring meal planning is deciding which days of the week you want to cook what type of meals. Depending on your available time, you may have some nights where the cooking is more involved than others.
Plan Ahead and Get Creative
Think about what meals you like. Gather favorite meal ideas and/or recipes. Once you know what type of meals you want to make each week, get creative with how you prepare them. For example, if tacos are one of your go-to meals for the week, switch up the protein or try different spices or toppings. This will give you various flavors and textures while still sticking to the basics of your regular meal plan.
Take Advantage of Leftovers
Leftovers are a great way to save time and money. Once you have cooked a meal, think how those ingredients could be used in other dishes. For instance, if you roasted chicken for one night’s dinner, shred some extra chicken for salads or sandwiches for during the week. This will help stretch your ingredients so that they last longer and give you more variety than just having the same dish every night/week.
Make Use Of Your Freezer
Freezing food is a great way to ensure that nothing goes bad before its expiration date. However, freezer meals can make meal prep so much easier. If something on your meal plan freezes well, you can double the batch and freeze half for later in the month. You can also prepare “freezer dump meals” for busy days. This will give you a break from prepping and cooking while ensuring that something nutritious is available.
It is essential to stick with your meal planning even when things get hectic. Simplifying life in the long term often requires some planning and forethought in the short term.
Having a long-term, rotating master meal plan in place makes recurring meal planning easier.
I have put together a free recurring meal planning template you can use to create your own master meal plan.
Grab it here!