In my last blog post, I spoke about all the reasons why I write a meal plan each week. In this post I'm going to give you all the tips and tricks I've learnt along the way about how to meal plan really well! 1. Don't write a meal plan when you're hungry! Maybe a slightly silly sounding one to begin with, but I find if I'm starving hungry when I sit down to write the meal plan, I end up planning meals that are unhealthier than I would normally choose. Just like going shopping, it's easier to make good choices when your brain isn't being swayed by the needs of your stomach. I like to sit down when I've got half an hour spare, grab a cuppa (when does a cuppa not help things along?!) and get to work. 2. Check your calendar Have a quick look over your calendar for the week and see if there's anything that might affect your food choices for your evening meals. Now at the moment, in these weird covid times, for the most part we don't have much going on in the evenings or after school, if the kids are even in school at all! But when life starts to return to normal again, on a Wednesday after school Miles will have a swimming lesson. I know that by the time we get home he'll be hungry after all that exercise, and dinner needs to be on the table fairly quickly. So for that night I might plan a quick pasta dinner or a batch cooked meal from the freezer. 3. Make a list of what you've got Have a proper look in your cupboards/fridge/freezer and write down what you've got that you can use to make meals out of. Sometimes just seeing it all written down gives you instant ideas for meals that you can make without even going shopping! Or at the very least, ideas for meals that you can make without needing to buy a huge amount. 4. Make the most of supermarket offers Have a look at the offers that are on in the supermarket that you use the most. We go to Aldi for nearly all of our shopping- so I check out the super 6 offers before I go and try to use some of those items in the meal plan for the week. It can really help to keep the cost of fruit and veg down. You could also do the same for the offers on meat too, but usually the more 'basic' (versatile!) meats that I buy- mince, whole chickens etc aren't the ones that are included in the offers. With other supermarkets there may be all kinds of offers that you can make the most of if you plan your meals around them! 5. Plan in some veggie meals Veggie meals can be much cheaper to make than meals containing meat, as well as being good for our health and for the environment too! Try using lentils or soya mince in a cottage pie instead of minced beef, or how about simply subbing the chicken for chickpeas and extra onions in a good curry? There are so many amazing blogs dedicated to veggie food out there with heaps of exciting ideas! A couple of good ones that I've found and used before are tinnedtomatoes.com and www.happyveggiekitchen.com. 6. Keep a list of regular meals Have a list of all the meals that you eat on a regular basis written down somewhere, and add to it if you cook something new that turns out to be a favourite! Mine is in the back of my recipe book, and that's where I also keep print-outs of recipes that I want to try, or recipes that I've pulled out of free supermarket magazines. It makes planning so easy, because all I need to do is look down the list and choose the meals. 7. Bulk is best Buying in bulk or larger packs where posssible, and using that thing in more meals throughout the week is a good way to keep costs down- if you can stretch to buying a large or extra large chicken instead of a small or medium one, you can plan to use the leftover meat in more meals over the following few days. Likewise, a large sack of potatoes or a big pack of carrots is more cost effective than smaller packs- so as long as you have somewhere to store them, these can also be good options. 8. Batch cooking for the win! Plan in one or more days where you batch cook something. The more you get stashed away in the freezer, the more flexibility you have over your meals for the week. If plans change and you need something speedy, they're there. If you've been up for most of the night before with a baby or toddler who won't sleep, they're there! It's nice to know that you have a backup ready and waiting and it also means that you can have a night off cooking sometimes too! 9. Newy Newness! Before I started meal planning, I'd see a recipe somewhere, think how amazing it looked, then look at the list of ingredients only to realise that I didn't have half of them. I'd plan to buy the unusual ingredient the next time I went shopping. However the reality was, that the next time I was at the supermarket I was so overwhelmed with just trying to make sure I'd got enough stuff to make meals out of, that the special ingredient would get forgotten about. These days we eat lots more new meals because I can plan them in and make sure I have what I need to make them with. For a while I tried to make one new thing every week- this probably only lasted for a month or two but it was a fun challenge! 10. Go easy on yourself
Finally, don't pile pressure on yourself trying to do all of these things every time you make a meal plan. This is supposed to be something that will remove some of the stress from your life! Some days you'll have lots of time and motivation to check out offers, look at new recipes and be super thoughtful about it all, and other weeks it will be all you can manage to use the same meal plan as the week before, scribble the shopping list down and hope for the best. That's just how life goes, right? I'm sure we've all been there. But I hope this has given you some food for thought and some pointers for when you write your own meal plan. Let me know if you decide to give it a go!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHi, I'm Laura. I'm part of Open Heaven Church in Loughborough and I run our Safehaven Cafe courses along with our amazing team of volunteers. Categories
All
Archives |