Tips on Meal Planning

charish_doty

I have a family of 4 with two young kiddos. I never really plan meals just kind of wing it. Which Im sure has contributed to added weight gain. therefore I am going to start planning meals better but I need some tips. Questions are How often do you go to the grocery store? How can you eat healthy but keep food for a (just in case) meal? Do you eat the same food as your family? What are quick go to ideas? Any tips are welcome

Also if this isn't the correct place to post this question let me know

thanks

CountryGirl8542

I don't really plan too much... but what I do plan is having meat, veggies and carbs at dinner. For us, we buy 2 weeks worth of meet but I go to the store probably once a week to buy veggies and every 2nd or 3rd day to buy fruit because it doesn't last very long here.

I don't like making more than one meal... if my family does not like what's on the menu that is just too bad... but that has yet to happen. Sometimes I will make something that is easy (a can of cream corn) for my hubby just because I don't really eat it very much.

We have fish 1-2 times a week, turkey once, chicken once, ground beef once, steak once and pork once. That is the extent to my meal planning. I never stick with meals plans.

WestCoastJo82

I go to the store once a week, and vaguely plan out what I want to cook for the week before going shopping with my list. I'm not much of a recipe cook, and I get a lot of my produce from a farm share mid-week, so I can't be super precise, but I can decide in general what I think I'll want to do. For me, the trick to meal planning was being realistic about if we were going to eat out that week, and learning to account for leftovers. I'd always plan seven meals and never actually get to cooking seven meals - it usually ends up about five or six. I only make one meal, but I don't do crazy diet-food things. If I'm trying to cut, I just take down the portion, I don't change the food. I like to have a few meals in the freezer that are my go-tos (right now I have soup, pasta sauce, tamales, ravioli, and spanikopita all in the freezer ready to go) if I just don't feel like cooking one night, or get home later than expected and don't want to wait for full dinner prep.
I really like cooking, and don't have kids, so I might not be the best for recommendations for what to cook (I find it very stress-relieving to get home and cook for an hour). When I was first learning how to cook though, Cooking Light had a lot of great recipes that taught me how to blend spices and flavors, and they always feature several 20-minute recipes.
Good luck!

bachooka

An awesome website to check out if you want to start meal planning: www.yumprint.com

I use it and it is fantastic!

Francl27

I do groceries twice a week. I typically buy meat/fish (different kinds of fish, chicken sausage, chicken breast, steak, chicken thighs/drumsticks, ground beef/turkey for tacos/burgers) for 3/4 days. Then fruit because it goes bad fast, and yogurts, bread, milk, eggs pretty much. Typically I just buy what's on sale or convenient at the time (depending on the weather and if we can grill or not). I guess we get some kind of tacos or burgers once a week, the rest of the time we just cook one protein with frozen veggies and add couscous or egg noodles - those things I buy when we get low, so maybe once or twice a month. I don't always eat the carb if I'm low but I eat the rest (last night we had tacos but I had a taco salad for example). I'd buy ham more often, but there's too much sodium for hubby, and I'm not fond of pork (except ribs... so yeahno).

Our 'I'm lazy and don't want to cook' meal is pizza (rarely) or whole grain pasta (we keep tomato sauce and frozen turkey meatballs). Unfortunately they're both high on calories. I have frozen grilled chicken breasts in the freezer I can prepare in a pinch if needed too though, but I usually save them for lunch for me... but really none of the stuff we make takes more than 20 minutes to prepare, and as most meats expire within 4 days of their buying date, we usually just cook what we have.

Once in a blue moon (like tomorrow) we make a big crockpot of chili or taco soup or something then we can have leftovers a couple times, but the kids don't like it and it gets annoying. Really got to figure out more crockpot recipes.

Frankly at times the biggest challenge is figuring out what I'm going to eat for lunch that's both filling and not too high in calories, lol.

sunsetzen

How often do you go to the grocery store?

Once a week, and I only buy what is on my list

How can you eat healthy but keep food for a (just in case) meal?

We all eat healthy and I dont keep extra food just in case. Even unhealthy snacks like chips are planned.

Do you eat the same food as your family?

We all eat the same thing for dinner, but I eat hot grain cereal for breakfast and leftovers for lunch and everyone else eats sandwiches.

What are quick go to ideas?

I keep a list of our favourite recipes as well as looking for more on Pinterest. It really depends on what your family likes. We eat normal food made healthier. Like baked fries instead of deep fried. Use less butter. Use greek yoghurt instead of sour cream. Use less fatty cheese like gouda. One favourite is homemade french onion soup from scratch with the cheese bread. Or warm german potato salad with tuna, hard boiled egg, cucumber, potato and baguette. Our dinners usually max out between 500 and 700 calories.

Acg67

I have a family of 4 with two young kiddos. I never really plan meals just kind of wing it. Which Im sure has contributed to added weight gain. therefore I am going to start planning meals better but I need some tips. Questions are How often do you go to the grocery store? How can you eat healthy but keep food for a (just in case) meal? Do you eat the same food as your family? What are quick go to ideas? Any tips are welcome

Also if this isn't the correct place to post this question let me know

thanks

Nearly everyday

What is your definition of healthy eating?

Pasta is my quick lazy meal

Bailey532

I have struggled with this very thing. I have started doing crockpot dinners most nights because it's so much easier to do that instead of trying to cook and then clean up, bathe kids, get them to bed.... It have started planning my "menu" on Fridays, going to the store and keeping my list of meals i have ingredietns for on my kitchen island, then I throw the stuff in the crockpot and get on with my day. I also have been trying to make a big pot of soup for lunches and days that I forget/didn't have time to put something in the crockpot.

cwolfman13

We grocery shop once per week...we'll often forget an items here or there and may have to take a mid week trip to pick something up, but for the most part, we do our shopping on Sundays.

We used to meticulously outline each and every meal throughout the week and then hit the store...this became very tedious to say the least and took up a lot of time...but it was actually helpful in establishing a sort of "standard" inventory. Eventually we realized that we were more or less rotating the same recipes in and out and pretty much had a standard list going week in/week out. At this point, we pretty much stopped planning everything out in detail and just made sure our "inventory" was full each week. The only exceptions are "special request" meals...we might have one or two per week, but they're usually on the weekends when we can just pretty much do what we want to anyway.

Most of our weeknight fare is pretty quick...grill up some kind of meat, fish, or poultry...serve with either potatoes, rice, or quinoa and a side of veg. As the weather turns we will start doing a lot more soups, stews, casseroles, etc...we'll use the crockpot a lot more and may have an interim period of adjustment to a new inventory, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

blink1021

I shop once a week. The night before I go to the store I sit down and plan all our dinners out for the week ( I ask the family if they have anything they want for dinner) I even plan lunches (because we all pack) and I plan breakfasts for hubby and me the kids eat at the babysitters. I go to the store and buy only what is on my list. Everything I buy is pre planned that includes if I buy a treat I still buy chips and ice cream on occasion for hubby and the kids. If I buy my hubby bagels and cream cheese for his breakfasts I make him take it to work so its not in my house. I find its easier to pre plan otherwise we would be living on boxed mac and cheese and frozen chicken nuggets. I also have cut down how much time I spend at the store especially when I have two kids in tow.

I buy quite a bit of frozen fruit and veggies because I do not have the time to go to the store every few days to make sure there is a ton of fresh produce. I still buy fresh but not as much as I would like to. I only make 1 meal in my house and I do not care if the kids do not want to eat it. I grew up with you eat what I cook or go hungry and so do my kids. I do not make anything over the top or unreasonably so there is no reason for them to eat it ( My 9 year old loves black bean burgers and to this day he doesn't know that it wasn't real meat). I do not have the time or the energy to make 4 different meals and we still have pizza and chinese food on occasion I just limit the intake like when we get pizza I will make a salad to go with it or with chinese food order more with veggies and try to stay away from the sauces. In the winter I live by my crockpot and homemade soups they make a ton and are easy to freeze for later.

Beckboo0912

I shop once a week, sometimes if we are having salad for dinner I will go to the store and buy the stuff that day. I plan out 7 main entrees, usually 2 veggies and a small carb so my brother and dad don't complain. I plan lunches and breakfasts as well, my son eats what everyone else eats, I also plan for one extra meal in the week so if someone complains I have a quick easy meal. I can't eat fish but I try to plan fish once a week for everyone else. I usually plan chicken dinners but I also try to sneak beef and pork in once in a while. I feel if I write down what we are having it's not so hard to plan ahead, I buy only what's on my list unless something is really cheap, like Sunday I went shopping and they had the perdue perfect portions chicken for 2.99/package which feeds my family just fine so I bought a ton and threw them in the freezer. Happy planning!

JulieAnn72

We grocery shop once a week and go to the farmers market almost every week. We have a monthly meat CSA and then sometimes get more meat at the farmers market mid-month if we want something specific.

For dinners, I plan meals around the meat we have in the freezer. On Sundays, I plan out meals for Sun - Thurs nights (we eat out every Fri and Sat). We generally have a meat, grain and vegetable with every dinner. Once I figure out our meals, we go to the grocery store to get whatever we need. We all eat the same meals for dinners. I have a little chalkboard in my kitchen where I write our dinners each Sunday so everyone knows what we're having. The kids' evening activities are making it a lot harder right now but we make it work.

We all eat separately for breakfast and lunch, except on weekends if we make something like pancakes.

We honestly don't eat a lot of fruit because it goes bad so fast. In the summer we tend to eat more since it's in season at the farmers market. Right now, there really isn't any fruit in season, so I'd have to get it at the grocery store. And I don't do that very often.

kimmymayhall

No kids but my BF and I shop twice a week. I used to be a great meal planner but have fallen off in the past few years. Once a week I would sit down with the sale papers to plan out all the dinners I would cook that week, have enough leftovers to take for lunches, figure out how to use leftovers for second meals, and get my booze and snacks stocked up. Now shopping is more like going to the market to see what looks good with an rough idea in mind of what we'd like to eat that week. Being in a CSA last year was a great lesson in learning to just work with what you're given. We also keep a lot of not-so-perishable staples on hand so we can throw something together when we don't have much in the fridge - dried beans, rice, pasta, sweet potatoes, onion and garlic, canned tomatoes, eggs, frozen veg, canned sardines, butter, flour, oils and vinegars, sauces,etc.

charish_doty

Thanks every one this gives me a start!