12 Steps To Simple Meal Planning & Prepping: A Beginners Guide
12 Steps To Simple Meal Planning & Prepping: A Beginners Guide
If you are like many busy moms, you have such a busy life, that making homemade, healthy meals each day can be a constant struggle. It often becomes easier in the moment to pick up take-out or order pizza. But next thing you know, you are living off of Postmates leftovers and feeling added stress when you finally try to set aside time to cook dinner.
That’s where meal planning and meal prepping come in. How many times do you feel like you “won” motherhood when you accomplish two things at once? What’s so amazing about meal planning and prepping is that you are dedicating a small, specific amount of your time, and getting a week’s (or more) worth of meals out of it.
You will find yourself saving time, money, and energy while preparing healthy meals you can serve to your family every day. Sounds great, right? But how do you start meal planning? How often should you prep your meals?
I will cover these questions and more throughout this post. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me, or comment below! I’d love to know any successes or challenges you have had with meal planning or meal prepping!
12 Steps To Simple Meal Planning & Prepping: A Beginners Guide
Is meal planning and meal prepping right for me?
What is meal planning?
How do you make a meal plan?
How do you start meal planning?
How detailed should a meal plan be?
Is meal planning and meal prepping flexible?
How is meal prepping different than meal planning?
How do you use leftovers in meal plans?
What are different types of meal prepping?
What containers should you use for meal prepping?
What are the best meal prepping tips?
What are good ideas for meals to prep?
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1. Is meal planning and meal prepping right for me?
Are you wondering if this is something you “need” to do?
If you have been around me for any amount of time, you will know that the last thing I am here to do is to put one more ‘should’ on a busy momma. As a Life Coach for busy moms, I help moms figure out how to manage their lives in a way that works for them.
If you need some help managing your family’s meals and think you can do more but you just don’t have the tools or systems in place to help you, then meal planning and meal prepping might be exactly what you need. But it is important to remember that you have the freedom to put your own spin on any system.
The advice I give you here will create a strong foundation for understanding how to meal plan and prep successfully, but it is not the end-all advice. Take some time to try out different approaches. Just like with any diet plan, it is all about what works for you and your lifestyle.
I ran a kitchen for 3 years feeding 150-225 people 3 meals a day. I know how this works. What I also know is that since becoming a mom I don’t like to meal prep and I’d rather eat out or dine in. Because I meal planned and prepped for so long, I usually have a general plan in my head of what we will eat, but it’s not detailed and there is a TON of room for freedom. If you are closer to my end of the meal planning spectrum, but you do have babes to feed, you can also look into meal services in your area or hiring another mom who loves it to prep for you.
So, if you want to try this, go for it! It is important to try to implement new strategies when you feel like your old ones are not working.
But, if you have a system that works, then stick with it! If you are only looking into meal planning and prepping out of guilt or some belief that to be a good mom you have to have homemade meals every night, even though you don’t value that, then go enjoy a different article!
This is your life, and your values are more important than anyone else’s!
So, if you’re ready to learn more, let’s dive in!
2. What is Meal Planning?
Meal planning is pretty much explained by its name. It is the plan you make for the meals you intend to cook to feed you and your family for a period of time in the near future, whether weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.
If you are new to meal planning, I would suggest starting with a weekly meal plan. It will take you some time to get into a routine and figure out what system works best for your family’s schedule.
Meal planning is an especially important first step when you are considering meal prepping. Just like with any other goal, you need to start with a basic plan, and that is how meal planning sets you up for successful meal prepping. Your meal plan can be as detailed as you want, though keep in mind the more information you include, the easier your meal prepping will be.
Effectively planning your meals will help save you time because you won’t have to schedule in stopping at the supermarket every day, or spend extra energy trying to throw together a meal at the last minute.
Meal planning will give you a good idea of the meals you intend to make at least a week beforehand. Next, let’s get into how to actually create a successful meal plan, customized to your family’s needs and schedule.
3. How do you make a meal plan?
There are 4 factors to consider when you are deciding how to create your meal plan. These include time, money, taste or variety, and storage room.
Time:
Think about how much time you have for meal planning and meal prepping. How complicated or intricate are your recipes? If you only have about 1 hour to 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon to plan, grocery shop, and prep your meals, you might want to plan meals that are more simple and use different variations of the same ingredients.Money:
If you don’t have a big budget for meals, you will want to consider multiple ways you can incorporate bulk ingredients into your meals. This will make it so you don’t have to buy a lot of different ingredients every single week. You might need to think of some creative combinations, but as moms, we have all found ways to make what we have available work for us.Taste/Variety:
This goes without saying, of course, you want to make meals that your family will actually eat. If you have a toddler, it might be important to make sure there is something that is part of every meal you know your child will eat. The goal of meal planning and prepping is to save time, so you never want to have to make different meals for each member of your family. You’ll also want to consider switching up the type of meal throughout the week, especially if your family likes variety. If they don’t, well then you’re lucky! But as always, make sure there’s a good balance of nutrients throughout the meals.4. Storage Room:
This is something that is often forgotten when we are wrapped up in the excitement of planning meals. It can be a huge win if you got that 5lb bag of rice on sale, but do you have a place to store it? You need to consider the storage room you have for both ingredients and prepped meals. You might have the time to prep 7 lasagnas in one day, but do you have the room in your freezer to store all of them?
Like with any new habit, it’s best to start small. Remember, you will be planning every meal your family eats daily. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snacks or desserts. I would suggest the biggest chunk of time you start with is a week. If you need to just try it out for one day, that’s fine too! You will find your groove once you get started, and figure out what works and what doesn’t.
4. How do you start meal planning?
The best place to start is where you’re at. Take stock of what you already have in your kitchen. Look at everything you have in your fridge, freezer, pantry, or out on your counters. Write it down, and then think about what meals you can make from those ingredients.
Once you know what you already have, you will be at a good place to start planning meals. Think about the different meals you could make that your family will like. Do you have any staples that you could rotate weekly?
Based on what you already have, you might just need to grab some filler ingredients, or more specific produce or spices if you’re trying something new. This can also be a really fun challenge if you want to save on the budget one week. Look at what you already have and try to make meals from just those items. You might be shocked by how much food you already have available!
When you are ready to decide on the meals, think about how they can be placed throughout the week. Are there dinners you could make that would be great as leftovers? Do you need to pack school lunches?
Also, consider how much time each meal will take to prepare. Do you need more meals that can be prepped ahead of time, frozen, and thrown in the oven for 10 minutes before dinner? Or are there meals that need to be put in the slower cooker in the morning?
When you are planning your meals, you want to build them into your family’s schedule, so you are not spending more time than you have on prepping or cooking. The meals you decide on should fit seamlessly with what you have available, in terms of both ingredients and time.
5. How detailed should a meal plan be?
Now that you know exactly what meals you want to prepare, you need to write them down somewhere so you don’t forget! My favorite way is to put some kind of a meal plan schedule on the fridge, because where else will I be looking when thinking about food? One really simple, and functional planning resource I love is the bloom daily planners Weekly Meal Planning Pad. It has a magnetic backing for your fridge, and a shopping list section you can tear off and bring with you to the supermarket.
Whatever system you use, you want to make sure to be as detailed as possible. If you plan to use leftovers from a chicken dinner on Monday for lunches on Tuesday and Wednesday, note that in the plan!
Once you have the meals planned, and know exactly how they are going to fit into your week, make a list with all the groceries you need to purchase, minus what you already have on hand. The planning pad is great for this because the grocery list is right next to the meals you plan on cooking.
6. Is meal planning and meal prepping flexible?
Just like with dieting, or changing your eating habits for weight loss, meal planning and meal prepping are meant to give you more freedom, not restrict you from living. Life comes first, and there are going to be some situations where the week does not go as expected, and plans need to change or shift.
Maybe your family is celebrating unexpected good news and you want to go out to eat. Don’t sacrifice that celebration just because you planned on making spaghetti that night.
Maybe there was some unexpected bad news, and you just don’t have the time you planned on to make dinner. That’s ok, too. Take the night off if you need to, and order take out. If meal planning is getting in the way of your success and happiness, then it is not working as it should. It is all about how it helps your life, and should not make you feel restricted or guilty.
7. How do you use leftovers in meal plans?
I touched on this in questions 3, 4, and 5, but it’s too important not to address it in its own section.
Leftovers and multi-purpose ingredients are like a bonus when it comes to meal planning. Creating meal plans that multi-task will make your whole system so much easier. You will save time, money, and energy throughout the whole process.
If you need to buy chicken breasts for chicken and dumplings, buy a pack that has more than you need for just that meal. You could freeze the remainder for meals at other times, or you could cook up the extra and throw it on top of a salad or in a sandwich.
Always try to think about leftovers or using certain ingredients in multiple ways when you are making your meal plan, and prepping meals. There might even be a week after you’ve been planning and prepping for a while where you realize you have meals already prepped in your freezer or fridge from past weeks, and you can basically take the week off.
If you have the storage room for it, and always stay on top of how long it’s been in your freezer, buying extra is never a bad thing when meal planning and meal prepping.
8. How is Meal Prepping Different Than Meal Planning?
Meal planning and meal prepping are often confused as the same thing, but they are actually two entirely different actions. If you read up until this point, you will have learned that meal planning is the foundational part of meal prepping, but can also just exist on its own. Meal planning is just deciding ahead of time what your future meals will be. Just because you have a meal plan, does not mean you have to meal prep.
However, if you want to meal prep, it is a very good idea to plan beforehand. Meal prepping takes meal planning one step further. When you meal prep, you buy the ingredients you need, or take inventory of what you already have, and then start preparing certain aspects of the meal you planned. The goal is to start the meal (or meals) ahead of time so that very little needs to be done when you intend to eat the meal, and time, money, and energy are all saved in the process.
9. What are the different types of meal prepping?
There are two essential elements to meal prepping: the cold prep and the hot prep.
The cold prep is preparing what can be stored in the fridge before it is ready to be cooked. This could include chopping vegetables, setting out specific spices, portioning out or marinating meats, and putting any ingredients for your daily meals into containers. This will make it so when you go to cook the food, all you have to do is throw everything together, and cook as needed.
The second element is the hot prep. This is where you cook some or all parts of the meal and freeze it for later consumption. This could be making a lasagna that you put in the freezer until you eat it later in the week, or cooking all the chicken you will later use for sandwiches, soups, or salads.
You can do one or both of these options depending on how much time you will be able to dedicate. Some people only do the prep work, such as getting all their veggies chopped up, rice measured, and snacks into portion baggies to be used during the week. Others cook the casseroles and meats and then freeze them so that dinner just involves popping them in the oven.
Remember to look at your meal prepping as the whole picture. You might have to sacrifice some time on your prep day to get everything done for the week, but you will not have to spend as much time in the kitchen on the other days of the week. It’s all a give and take when it comes to the time you have available, make use of it the best way it works for you.
10. What containers should you use for meal prepping?
When you are planning on prepping meals, a huge part of the process is the containers you choose to use. Because you are preparing ingredients ahead of time, it is important these containers can keep your items fresh in the refrigerator or freezer for an extended period of time.
For this reason, you should consider what you choose to store items in and how they are stored. First, let’s start with some recommendations for food storage containers.
Choose containers with airtight lids.
The only way your prepared food will stay fresh is if it is in an airtight container. If you intend to use Tupperware-type containers, try filling them with water, then turn them upside down and make sure no water leaks out. This is a good way to tell how airtight your containers are, and how fresh your food will keep.
Try storing items in mason jars.
Mason jars are perfect for storing specific items and prepped meals. They are my favorite meal prep container for salads, especially if I plan to travel with it. Try prepping each day’s salad in it’s own mason jar. Start with a wide-mouth container, add the denser items at the bottom, and put the greens in last so they don’t get wilted or weighed down. Also, as obvious as it might seem, remember to keep your salad dressing in a separate container.
Be careful with plastic storage items.
Plastic is okay to use, but you should know what type of plastic you are using. Make sure it is refrigerator, freezer, microwave, and dishwasher-safe. Also, check that the plastic containers don’t have any BPA. BPA can be dangerous when storing or cooking food in these containers. Check out these BPA-free options.
Consider casserole dishes that work for baking and storage.
You didn’t think I was done talking about multi-purpose items, did you?
When you are cooking bigger meals ahead of time, you want to use multi-purpose casserole dishes. My favorite are glass dishes like these Pyrex ones that come with their own cover. You can store the prepped meal in the freezer, take it out to thaw down to room temperature to protect the glass from cracking (you could do this overnight in the fridge), and then put it right into the oven to heat up for dinner.
11. What are the best meal prepping tips?
As you get started with meal prepping, there are some other things you need to keep in mind. Follow these simple tips for prepping your meals after you are done with meal planning:
Cook all your meat at once
This will save you time and help you divide up exactly where it needs to go for the week.
Label every container, so you know when to use it by.
Life happens, sometimes you don’t always eat the meals you prepped on the exact day you planned. But you want to avoid food waste as much as possible. By labeling your food, you will know when to eat it, even if it’s a couple of days later than you expected.
Labels are also great for prepared frozen meals or uncooked frozen meat you separated. Freezer burn is a real concern when meal prepping, but you can avoid it by labeling everything in your freezer.
Note what meal prepping is being done for leftovers.
I know I’m repeating myself with this one, but I promise, if you take nothing else away from this article, please remember to consider your leftovers, and how you can use them as bonus meals. Your budget and energy levels will thank you.
Use ingredients that can be prepped for multiple meals.
Similar to using your leftovers, try to get creative with ingredients that can be used throughout different meals. Chicken can take on many different flavors and types of meals. It can be a lot of fun experimenting with variations on familiar meals while you start meal planning and meal prepping.
Get freezer bags together with ingredients that will go in the slow cooker.
Some meals need to be cooked the day you intend to eat them, but you can still prep every part up until that point. If you are making something in a slow cooker, everything usually goes right in at the same time. So, put it in a freezer bag, and when you wake up you can put it all in the slow cooker and have a great meal by the time you need it!
Use an Instant Pot for quickly cooking grains, soups, and beans!
12. What are good ideas for meals to prep?
Here are some different meal ideas that work perfectly with meal planning and meal prepping.
Overnight Oatmeal Jars:
A really easy, healthy breakfast is overnight oatmeal. Add regular, old-fashioned oats to multiple jars, one for each day of the week. In addition to the oats, you can add different toppings for each day. Some toppings I love are cinnamon and sugar, slivered almonds or other nuts, dried fruit, berries or other fresh fruit, raisins, and granola.
Roast your vegetables beforehand.
To get vegetables ready for lunches and dinners throughout the week, spend one day roasting all the vegetables at one time. Choose vegetables with about the same cooking time, roast them together, then place in airtight containers and freeze them.
Use a vegetable spiralizer instead of pasta.
To make healthy, low-carb meals and meal prep at the same time, consider using a vegetable spiralizer. This takes vegetables like zucchini and squash and creates pasta out of them. Spiralize your veggies on a Sunday, then save them for the week’s worth of ‘pasta’ meals.
Bake all of your meat, then freeze portions for each meal.
Decide what meat you want to use for multiple meals, then bake or cook it all at the same time. Do this in the oven or your slow cooker— meat like chicken breasts, fish fillets, and strips of steak work great for this.
Keep salad veggies and toppings in one container.
For your salads, you can make it faster to put them together by having all of the greens and vegetables together in containers. Keep all your greens in one big container, and all the chopped veggies, cheese, and other toppings in a separate container. Then, you can combine parts of both when you’re ready to make a salad.
With these tips, you will be on your way to successful meal planning and meal prepping. This will save you a lot of time, and help you make healthy meals for you and your family.
If you have any questions about how to integrate meal planning and meal prepping into your specific family’s schedule, feel free to reach out! I aim to help moms like you take control of your busy life, calm the chaos, and live your happiest and healthiest life!
If you are a meal prepping pro what is a piece of advice you would tell someone just starting out? Comment below!