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I’m really excited about this post. You see, I’m very passionate about food. I love to cook, bake, and eat. But it doesn’t just stop there – I love to talk about the interplay of flavors, the quality of the ingredients, the techniques that help take the dish to the next level. You will often find my family and I eating dinner or dessert with our eyes closed trying to describe the flavors and textures of our food. A bit much? Maybe. But my inner French girl is having a blast.

Most of you do not share my same enthusiasm for food and that’s okay! In this post, I’m going to share some tips that I’ve learned from years of meal planning. I promise to keep it simple. On my own journey of finding the “perfect” meal-planning system, I have noticed that people like to overcomplicate things. We try to mold our family’s meal plan to one we find on Pinterest or Youtube, we plan and cook a million different things, a ton of food gets wasted, and we end up hating meal planning. Sound familiar? I am giving you permission right now to implement the tips that you find useful in this post/episode and ignore the others. We are all different in so many ways, there is no way that one meal-planning system fits all. The goal is to make things easier, to open space in your week, to eliminate the constant “What’s for dinner?” questions and get you one step closer to your ideal work-life balance. We’re striving for elegance, remember? So, we need a system that is beautiful in it’s simplicity and effectiveness.

 Some of you might not be very excited about meal planning, but I encourage you to keep reading anyway and see if I can convince you that meal planning might be something worth considering. If not, I have an alternative suggestion and a special offer that I’ll share at the end of this post that might be helpful!

Why talk about meal-planning on a blog dedicated to work-life balance?

Most women shoulder the responsibility of feeding their families each week. They tend to do the majority of the planning, shopping, and cooking. In fact, a recent Gallup poll looked at heterosexual U.S. couples who were married or living together and found that women do the grocery shopping in 45% of households and prepare food in 51% of households (Gallup, 2020). Looking specifically at mothers, Pew Research found that 80% of women report being the one to grocery shop and prepare meals for their families (2019). Obviously, all this shopping and cooking takes time and energy and can quickly eat (see what I did there?) into their resources.

As I’ve mentioned before on this podcast, resources are SO important when we are talking about work-life balance. Without resources like time, energy, money, etc., we are unable to meet the demands of our work and life roles and put ourselves at risk of experiencing stress and burnout (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017; Hobfoll, 1989; Ten Brummelheis & Bakker, 2012). Thus, we need to be sure we are utilizing our resources intentionally and one way we can do that is by adapting a meal-planning routine.

Why might having a meal-planning routine be helpful?

I have been engaging in some sort of meal-planning routine since I first got married. Back then, I was still an undergraduate student and on a VERY tight budget. Meal planning was helpful because it allowed me to plan our meals around store sales and my coupons. Fast forward to today and it still helps us stick to our budget but has become necessary more for the sake of time management and self-care.

I believe that meal planning should be done from the mindset of self-care. As I mentioned before, taking the time to plan out the week’s meals will open up more space, more breathing room throughout the week. From a health standpoint, making an intentional plan for the food that you and your family are going to eat throughout the week is an opportunity to care for and love yourself well. It frees you from grabbing a $5 pizza on the way home (even though you know it’s not good for you) because you have a plan, have bought the groceries, and are ready to go!

In last week’s post, Planning for Balance, I discussed my weekly planning routine. If you didn’t catch it, I encourage you to check it out. When we pair meal-planning with other intentional actions like weekly planning, it gets us that much closer to our elegantly balanced life.

My Meal Planning with Ease Tips:

1. Don’t over-plan.

Yes, I just started a meal-planning routine with the recommendation to NOT plan. Confused yet? Early on, I would plan a different breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day of the week. I thought that it would be amazing. Think of all the variety of foods we would get to eat! You know what happened? I was stressed trying to fix so many different dishes, we couldn’t actually eat all that food, and a lot of things went to waste – basically the opposite of introducing more elegance and ease into my week.

We’ve gone very minimalist in terms of our weekly meal plan, which I think is the main reason that it can be done with ease instead of feeling like another chore. Each week I plan one breakfast dish and one lunch dish that we will eat throughout the week. Yes, I said ONE! Doesn’t that sound easy? Truth is, we are creatures of habit. My husband wants eggs and turkey sausage every morning. My daughter could live on mandarin oranges. By only planning for one breakfast meal and one lunch meal, I can prep those meals on Sunday evening and then not give them a second thought until the following week. This opens up mental and physical energy to do other things AND reduces the time I’m spending in the kitchen.

For those of you with kids who have to pack lunches, I encourage you to chat with your child about what they like to take to lunch. When my son was 3, he started going to preschool and I found myself wanting to be the Pinterest Perfect Mom when it came to his lunches. I wanted them to be organic, and beautifully arranged in his bento box. I also wanted him to have a wide variety of lunches, so I packed different lunches each day. (Let’s be honest, I only kept up with this for about a week). However, one day I thought he might be old enough to tell me what he wanted to take in his lunch. You know what he asked for? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, every day. I was making it too complicated! And I’m sure that I’m not alone here. My son is now 6 and takes the same lunch to school Monday through Friday. It varies each week, depending on what he requests, or which type of fruits are in season, but it’s the same thing all week long. Just like my own breakfasts and lunches, I can pack his lunches up on Sunday evening and then forget about it the rest of the week.

2. Take an Inventory

Before you sit down and list out your meals, take a few minutes to look in your freezer, fridge, and pantry. What ingredients do you already have on hand? Perhaps even more important, is there anything that needs to be used quickly? My husband and I get a crazy sense of joy when we’re able to use up everything in our fridge without it going to waste. We view it as a challenge. Take an inventory of what you have. Some people like to actually list out all of the things and then cross them off the list as they get used. If that’s you, then go for it! I think that’s too much work, so I just glance through and see if there is some chicken in the freezer or some pasta sauce in the pantry that could be the foundation of a meal this week. By doing this, you will save money (since you’re not buying things you already have AND you’re using things before they go bad) and you will have an idea of where to start with you list of meals for the week.

3. Embrace the elegance of soup

One year I decided to cook my way through a French cookbook. I was determined to introduce a variety of flavors and textures to my, then 2 year old, son. We did try a lot of fun and interesting dishes that year, but the biggest takeaway was that soup is a beautifully simple and effective dish – it’s elegant. Think about it… You can make a huge pot of soup at the beginning of the week and eat on it all week long by simply popping a bowl in the microwave. Not only that, but if planned accordingly, soup is a dish that can provide a well-balanced meal – all in one bowl.

Growing up in the rural Midwest, soup was often a dish reserved for cold weather and the soups that we did eat were very hearty (e.g., potato soup, chili, vegetable beef soup). If you have a similar background, you might have to shift your mindset around soup a bit but hear me out. There is a soup (multiple really) for every season. The key is to make the soup with seasonal vegetables. Pumpkin-Apple soup is amazing in the fall but a Sweet Pea-Asparagus soup is delightful in the spring!

For those of you with picky eaters (or even those of you who don’t really like vegetables), soup is a great way to introduce veggies into your diet. It might take some experimenting, but I have found that my family and I LOVE puréed vegetable soups like the Pumpkin-Apple soup and Sweet Pea-Asparagus soup I just mentioned. However, we don’t really care for soups with large chunks of vegetables in them (let alone a heaping plateful of steamed veggies).

Almost every week, I pick one soup to fix and plan on that being our lunch throughout the week.  

4. Don’t spend too much time searching for recipes

We’ve all done it. We sit down to plan out the meals for the week and 2 hours later we’ve gone down the Pinterest rabbit hole, added 100 recipes to our new meal planning board, and yet don’t really have anything planned for the upcoming week. It takes some trial and error, but finding 1-2 sources of really good recipes and then sticking to those can help. My favorite places to go are the Kitchn and my “French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook.” I highly recommend the Kitchn for recipes. I’ve been using them as my primary source for recipes for the past 3 years and have thoroughly enjoyed 99.99% of the things I’ve made. They have recipes for every diet and even have a section of their website dedicated to meal-planning and prep.

I’ve had some of you say you’re bored with eating the same thing over and over. If that’s you, try introducing 1 new recipe each week. We all have our different tolerances for repetition when it comes to our food, but I like to keep a running list/notebook of recipes that I know my family loves. There is nothing wrong with rotating 10-15 dinners every couple of weeks; especially if they are your favorite! We probably eat tacos every week, but we love them, and they are super easy to make. If you are going to try to add some new recipes to your week, pair them up with tried and true dinners that you could make in your sleep. We’re trying to keep this easy, remember?

5. Plan each meal accordingly

Building upon my first point about not overplanning, make sure that as you plan your meals for the week you take into consideration your activities for the week. This is where meal planning pairs really nicely with the weekly-planning routine I went over in last week’s post. If you haven’t read that, make sure to go back and check it out.

Our goal is to reduce the demands on our time and energy so that we can avoid feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Thus, we don’t want to pile on the demand of cooking a brand-new gourmet meal the same day that we have 5 zoom meetings, childcare pickup, afterschool soccer, and church community group. On your really busy days, plan to make a simple meal. Better yet, when you make dinner the night before, make enough to have leftovers and eat those the following day. Sometimes people will say that they never have leftovers; but you will if you plan for it. Like I said, the key is to line up your meal plan with the weekly planning routine so that you can make things easier on yourself.

If leftovers aren’t your thing or you have some back-to-back busy days, give yourself some grace and instead of planning a meal for that night, plan to eat out or pick-up carryout. By planning for it, you can choose the restaurant ahead of time (instead of mindlessly rushing through the drive-thru) and you can budget for it. This means that you can eat out without the guilt because you planned on it.

 6. Make your grocery list in order of your store layout.

There is nothing worse than being in a busy grocery store only to realize that you forgot to grab the milk and it’s at the other side of the store. This used to drive me crazy. I would spend half of my shopping trip backtracking to aisles I’d already been in. The solution? Make your grocery list in order of the store layout. This can seriously cut your shopping time in half; especially on a busy day. You can do this the old-fashioned way by just listing out the different sections of the store (e.g., produce, frozen, dry goods, dairy, meat, etc.) in the order that you would normally walk through them and then categorize the items on your list. More and more stores allow you to build your grocery list on their website or app. A lot of times if you select your location, the list will populate the aisle number for you. Target even has a map of the store in it’s app. Take advantage of these tools!

Still not a fan of going to the store? Look into curbside pick-up or delivery. When taking this route, you can skip the list-making step and just add items directly to your cart. This option does require a little planning ahead, but it really depends on your store. For example, here we have an H-E-B and it feels like you have to know your grocery list 3 days in advance to get a curbside slot there, especially in the middle of a pandemic. However, I have found that Walmart only requires about 4 hours’ notice.

7. When all else fails, consider a meal-delivery kit

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “there is no way I have time for all of this.” I totally get that! I’ve been there! I’m a tenure-track professor and when I returned to work after my maternity leave, there was no time to be spent on planning, shopping, and prepping. Instead, we used Hello Fresh, a meal-kit delivery service. By using a meal-kit delivery service, you cut out the time spent on meal planning and shopping, and in my opinion you get to skip to the fun part; the cooking and eating!

I’ve tried a few different ones, but Hello Fresh is definitely my favorite. Not only did it make meal planning easier (you literally click through their menu and select the meals that look good and if you don’t even want to do that, they will pre-select the meals for you based on the preferences you entered), but the food was delicious. It was fun to pick out new, exciting dishes; things that I wouldn’t necessarily have planned for (e.g., Pecan-Crusted Trout with an Apple-Studded Salad & Thyme-Roasted Potatoes). Meals like this allowed me to expand my cooking skills and introduce my family to a wider variety of flavors; all without having to spend a ton of time.

If you’re interested in giving it a try, this link will give you $40 off your first box. In full transparency, it will also give me $20 credit toward my next box.

Want some more guidance?

I hope you found today’s post helpful. I know meal planning can be an overwhelming task and because of that we like to avoid it. However, the weeks that I meal plan on Sundays are definitely the ones that I experience the most ease and peace. To help you get started with your meal planning, I created a “Meal Planning with Ease” guide. In it I provide a sample meal plan to help illustrate the tips I just covered. It also has a template for you to fill in as you plan your meals and make your grocery list. Finally, I list out some of my favorite resources (e.g., recipes, tips for picky eaters, etc.). Make sure to grab your copy here!

Do you have a meal-planning routine that you love? Any tips to share?

I’d love to hear about them!

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2017). Job demands–resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000056

Brenan, M. (2020). Women still handle main household tasks in U. S. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/poll/283979/women-handle-main-household-tasks.aspx.

Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513-524.

Schaeffer, K. (2019). Among U.S. couples, women do more cooking and grocery shopping than men. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/24/among-u-s-couples-women-do-more-cooking-and-grocery-shopping-than-men/.

Ten Brummelhuis, L. L., & Bakker, A. B. (2012). A resource perspective on the work–home interface: The work–home resources model. American Psychologist, 67(7), 545-556. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027974