Meal Planning

Happy New Year! This month, I wanted to share my meal planning system. This has been an ever-evolving process, but it is currently working well for my husband and me in this season!

My goal in working through this has been to find a system that:

Limits my time in the grocery store
Reduces the brain power it takes to plan meals
Fuels us with relatively healthy and protein rich meals
Keeps us within out monthly grocery budget

When it comes to those goals, here is what is working well for us right now:

Meal planning one month at a time, with a “theme” for each day – consistency with some room for variety and creativity
Monthly Costco trips for meat, eggs, frozen vegetables, and some other misc. items (sometimes this turns into a second trip for a couple of things, but I try to keep it to once a month)
Monthly or every other month Azure standard orders for grains and a few other misc. items
Weekly Kroger pickup orders or quick trip into the store if I just need a few items that week

Here’s a sample of the meal planning template I use (click the link at the end of this post for a free download of this template):

In short, this is how the schedule goes:

On Monday evening, I plan to make double and eat it on Wednesday evening as well. This is typically some kind of bowl meal with meat, eggs, and grain. Wednesdays tend to be busier days for us so not having to cook makes the day much easier.
On Tuesdays for dinner, we have some variation of tacos and have leftovers for Wednesday lunch.
On Thursdays, we have shrimp or fish.
On Fridays, we eat out for dinner.
On Saturdays, we typically have burgers or leftovers.
For lunches, at least right now in the winter, sandwiches and soup has been working well. I also like prepping bowls with meat, veggies, and rice or quinoa.
For breakfasts, I typically have precooked breakfast meat on hand. We typically eat that and eggs. Often I will make ahead and freeze meat/egg/cheese burritos for my husband to make mornings easier. I’ll have some general plan that I add to my template, but as long as I have precooked meat and eggs, it’s pretty easy.
Sometimes I will note snacks we have on hand for the week.
The “groceries” section is for anything I don’t buy at Costco that we need for the next week.

A few other tips around planning:

I plan what meat we use around what I plan to pick up at Costco – typically 2 whole chickens, ground beef and/or ground turkey, salmon, shrimp, burger patties and/or brats, breakfast meats, precooked sausage, sometimes pork loin or pot roast. Aside from some issues I’ve had with their chicken breasts, my experience with Costco’s meat has consistently been the best quality for the price.
I almost never buy fresh vegetables, outside of carrots and potatoes. I found I was wasting too much because plans would change or I would forget to use something. I love that Costco has several options for vegetable blends as well as individual vegetables. Do fresh veggies taste better, though? Sometimes, yes. But this has been the best way for us to consistently actually eat vegetables because I always have them on hand ready to throw into a recipe.
I truly love Costco and Azure standard. Different items are cheaper at different places, so I have certain items I get from each place. We have a small space, but buying in bulk for good quality is so worth it. Maybe I’ll do a post on bulk buying in a small kitchen soon.

I hope this has been helpful for you! Let me know if you have any tips to share as well!

Click the link below to download my meal planning template for free.

Meal Planning Template