Do you need some meal planning tips? This past month I finally listened to my husband. For years I’ve struggled with the familiar 5 o’clock dilemma: What am I cooking tonight? And for about the same time my husband has kindly suggested I make a meal plan. Well, I’m here to tell you I’m a convert. My biggest argument against creating a meals menu was always time. I always felt it would be so time consuming that I’d given up before trying it. Meanwhile, I would flounder around a good 15-30 minutes trying to figure what to cook. Here’s what I’ve learned from this month’s meal planning.
Meal Planning Tips
- Getting Menu Ideas:
- Magazines: One of my biggest problems was always finding that recipe I saw in a magazine. I would never be able to remember what page, never mind what magazine the Chicken Provencal recipe. Now as soon as I look through a magazine, I rip out the recipe and put them in a binder of recipes to try. That way, I can quickly run through one binder instead of a stack of magazines.
- Blog Recipe Linkups: This is a great way to get a bunch of meal ideas in one shot. Once you visit these sites, check some recipes and go ahead and print them. Keep them in your binder for later. Here are some of my favorites:
- Wake up Wednesday by Heather’s French Press
- Meatless Monday from A to Z by Better with Veggies
- Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop
- Healthy Living Blogs Recipe Wednesday
- Pinterest: While Pinterest has a ton of great recipes, I tend to get side tracked looking at all of the DIY projects and before I know it an hour has gone by and I have nothing written down.
- Shopping List
- Once you have narrowed down your meal ideas. its time to write down your shopping list. Ina Garden has a great process for organizing your shopping list to make shopping easier and quicker. You basically break down your shopping list by grouping the ingredients by store section. For example, write down all your meats together, all your dairy together, all your veggies/fruits together.
- Once you have narrowed down your meal ideas. its time to write down your shopping list. Ina Garden has a great process for organizing your shopping list to make shopping easier and quicker. You basically break down your shopping list by grouping the ingredients by store section. For example, write down all your meats together, all your dairy together, all your veggies/fruits together.
- Storing your recipes
- “Pin it” to your refrigerator. I can not tell you how many times, I would go through magazines, write down the ingredients, shop for the ingredients, get home ready to cook and the recipe was nowhere to be found. Frustrated much? Yes. So, now as simple as it sounds, I just find a magnet and on the refrigerator it goes. Voila. A simple solution.
I hope my quick and simple meal planning tips help you on your next meal planning adventure. Because I print recipes or I take them out of magazines as I find them, once I sit down to figure out a week’s worth of meals and write down the ingredients, it really only takes me about 10 minutes. If you have other tips for making meal planning easier, please share your tips with me in the comments below!
