Feeling like you’re always scrambling to find something to make for dinner? Simplify your life by meal planning for the week! From breakfast to dinner and everything in between, this type A homemaker plans for it all!
Being able to cook a beautiful dinner every night is a privilege I do not take lightly. A lot of time and effort goes into meal planning for the week, and can be overwhelming to do at first. As a homemaker and avid meal planner, I am giving you a step by step beginner’s guide to meal planning for the week.
I will demonstrate my step by step meal planning process, from start to finish! You will learn how to successfully meal plan for the week without taking up significant time.
After you try meal planning for the week, I promise that you will feel more confident when dinner time rolls around!
This post is all about meal planning for the week.
The Benefits Of Meal Planning
Meal planning has been a practice I have used for about three years now, and I have found it to have so many benefits.
Saves Time
When I make my weekly meal plan, it never takes me more than two hours. As it is a commitment up-front, it saves me from scrambling to find a meal/recipe every night, or running to the grocery store multiple times a week for needed ingredients. It also makes for a smooth cooking process, because I am able to look at my recipe before hand and prep ingredients (read about how and why I prep my ingredients in my post 7 Simple Homemaking Tips To Help You Keep a Tidy Home). When I am able to prep my ingredients, I find cooking to be much more enjoyable!
Saves Money
When you meal plan every meal for the entire week and make your accompanying grocery list, it allows you to go grocery shopping with a purpose. No more are the days of roaming around aimlessly, trying to decide what to buy and overspending on unnecessary items. Having a clear list provides you with EXACTLY what you need to buy. No more, no less!
Provides Organization & Removes Stress
Having a well-thought out meal plan adds an element of organization to my home, and it trickles down to many different areas. Not only am I more organized when I go grocery shopping, but I am more organized in the kitchen when I am ready to make dinner. Having a meal plan to reference allows me to determine what meat I may need to take out of the freezer, and makes my kitchen feel structured and calm. My plan is clearly laid out, and each day I am able to check what I am making for that night with no thought at all.
Why I Meal Plan
Along with all the benefits listed above, meal planning ensures that I have everything I need, when I need it! I only go grocery shopping once a week, and my grocery store is about 15 minutes away from my house. Not too far, but far enough that it isn’t a quick trip if I forget an ingredient. I also view meal planning and cooking as a serious part of my job as a homemaker, and want to impress my husband when he comes home to a delicious meal we can enjoy together. Having a smooth process when it comes to making dinner allows me to better enjoy cooking it, and therefore, eating it! Meal planning also feels very intentional to me, and makes grocery shopping/cooking seem more purposeful and enjoyable.
I also want to make sure I always have an abundance of lunch items on hand for my husband. He works an office job, and is gone from 7:30am to 5:30pm, which requires A LOT of snacks! My husband has a huge appetite, and I never want him to be hungry and snack-less at work! When I plan out his lunches/snacks for the week, I am able to have everything on hand, and am able to sufficiently stuff his lunchbox with ALLLLL the goodies. And as if these aren’t enough reasons, meal planning for the week simply makes me HAPPY. It is a calming activity for me that I look forward to doing, and I know it is positively contributing to my household. I also take this time to enjoy some Gilmore Girls in the background, which makes meal planning seem more fun!
So, without further ado, here is my step by step weekly meal planning process.
The Meal Planning Process
In 5 Easy Steps
Step #1- Lay Out Days Of The Week
Using a piece of paper or a laptop, create a grid with all the days of the week, and with each meal for each day (breakfast, lunch, dinner). Use this time to think ahead about your schedule for the week, and determine if you will need any leftovers, or if you may not need a meal one night (like if you go out for dinner). This will help avoid getting an overabundance of food, and will avoid waste.
Another tip for this step is to choose a consistent day every week to meal plan, and to do groceries. That way, you will always be on the same schedule, and will always be on top of meal planning. I meal plan on Thursdays, and go to the grocery store on Fridays every week. This provides me with a routine that works for my household. I plan meals for that Friday to the next Thursday, but you can create a schedule that works best for you!
Step #2- Brainstorm Dinner Ideas
This is my favorite part of meal planning. I finally get to pull all those Pinterest recipes out and put them to good use! Mainly, I find recipes on Pinterest, but I also have different cookbooks, and a lot of different recipes from family members. I also have a large list of over 100 dinner ideas for those weeks that I am struggling with inspiration! Since I meal plan for 7 days at once, I try to make a list of 10-15 possible dinner ideas, and pare down from there. Once I have it down to 7, I fill in the dinner section of each day.
Step #3- Breakfast, Lunch, & Snacks
Now that you have the biggest meal of the day figured out, it’s time to fill in breakfast, lunch, and most importantly, snackies. Since my husband is at work for lunch, and I am home for lunch, we eat different things. That means that I plan my husband’s lunch, and my lunch separately. I first plan my husband’s lunch, which includes a main dish (salad, sandwich, etc.) and a TON of snacks, like I mentioned earlier. I write all the snacks down that I know he would like for the week, along with his main dish.
Then, I decide what I would like for lunch/snacks that next week; I keep it simple by eating the same thing every day, all week. I switch it up week to week. I then do the same for our breakfasts (usually we just do yogurt and muffins). The last thing to note is that you may want to plan a heartier breakfast and lunch on the weekend days. My husband and I are homebodies, and are usually home on the weekends. I always plan special breakfasts and bigger lunches for those days.
Step #4- Review Recipes & Write Down Ingredients
Now comes the more tedious part, which requires you to look at each dinner recipe, check your pantry/fridge/freezer, and make a grocery list. Do one recipe at a time, and make sure to double check so you don’t forget anything! Start with dinner, then move on to lunch and breakfast ingredients/items. Lastly, write down the snacks you want for the week. Don’t worry about how messy your list looks, we will fix that in the next step!
Step #5- Create Grocery List
Now comes the easy part! All that is left to do in this process is to organize your grocery list. If you’re anything like me, I NEED a physical list to go grocery shopping with. A list on my phone just doesn’t cut it for me, and I am always nervous it gets deleted by accident. I always organize my grocery list into the following categories: Produce, Deli, Meat, Grocery, Dairy, & Frozen. This is the order in which they come in the grocery store, so it is a good flow to organize my list this way as well.
I then go through my list, and organize each item into its respective category. I also have a Household category for any miscellaneous items we may need around the house, such as dish soap, paper towels, cleaning supplies, etc. Make sure you do not skip over ingredients when transferring them from your meal plan list to your grocery list! Once you are done creating your grocery list, you have completed meal planning for the week!
Now that you have meal planned for the week, you can focus on cooking all your beautifully planned meals! Meal planning for the week is a time-consuming activity that takes thought and intention, but as you continue to do it, it will become such a normal part of your routine. Once you start meal planning for the week, you will see the difference it makes in your life!
This post was all about a beginner’s guide to meal planning for the week.