Meal Planning Ideas

~ 5 Tips to Start Today! ~

Meal Planning Ideas are especially important with our busy lifestyles! After all, time is of the essence and organization is essential. However, any distraction and stress can make your meal planning difficult.  Therefore, today’s blog will teach you 5 tips to start meal planning, which will also get those Meal Plan Ideas flowing!

Consequently, meal planning can solve those “what’s for dinner dilemmas.” Hooray! In case you missed it, be sure to check out Meal Planning vs. a Meal Plan to understand the key differences. Additionally, the blog, Meal Prep Recipes is another great resource to inspire your dinners. 

This post was sponsored by the Egg Farmers of Ontario, as always, all opinions are genuine.

What are Meal Planning Ideas?

Firstly, Meal Planning is the act of getting dinners and/or lunches organized for the week ahead. This comes down to planning your actual meal ideas based on your schedule, the foods you have in your fridge and your preference for leftovers if you don’t have time for cooking. Specifically, Meal Planning Ideas cover the inspiration for what to make when you are feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start.

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5 Steps to Start Meal Planning

1. Take Stock Before you Shop!

The first step in Meal Planning is to open your fridge and write down all the perishable foods that will go bad! On your blank Meal Planning template (FREE here), you’ll see this in the top section under the title, “Foods to Use Up.”

Taking stock of perishable foods is a crucial step in making a realistic and sustainable strategy for meal planning ideas. This quick grocery inventory will allow you to use existing groceries first so you only buy what you need.

Benefit of Taking Stock of What’s In Your Fridge?

• By writing down all your perishable items, you will remember to use them. 
• Consequently, we will throw out less food AND save more money! Food waste is a real issue that is preventable with proper Meal Planning. Interestingly, the average Canadian household wastes over $1,766 per year (or $33 a week) on good, uneaten food. Therefore, cutting down on food waste can save over 10% of your grocery bill.  
• The foods we need to use up can act as inspiration for your meals! Thus, they help you decide what to make. For example, if you have lots of tomatoes, why not make a Lentil Bruschetta?

2. Know your Schedule!

Second step of using your FREE Meal Planning Template is to use the Notes section! After all, one of the biggest complaints I hear about Meal Plans not working is that they aren’t realistic for a person’s schedule. For example, if the kids have soccer practice and you’re working late, it’s truly not realistic to have time to cook an involved dinner. Therefore, with the notes section, you can write down all work/social commitments for the week ahead that you’ll need to consider.

Reviewing your schedule means you’re creating a customized Meal Plan that WORKS with your busy schedule. As a result, on those busy nights, you can choose quick meals, or plan to reheat leftovers so there’s no cooking needed! For example, this week I had limited time for cooking so I pulled out a bag of Jerk Chicken from the freezer. I used this to make Spicy Hummus Flatbreads topped with veggies. 

Conversely, on the nights when you have time, plan ahead to batch cook. For example, on Sunday I batch cooked Pumpkin French Toast and stored it in the freezer to later re-heat for a quick breakfast, lunch or dinner! Additionally, you could try batch cooking chili, with freezer batches for those busy nights. Therefore, leftover Chili can become a buddha bowl topped with fresh tomatoes, grated cheese and fresh green onions. You can also top nacho chips with leftover freezer chili and crack an egg on top for elegant chili nachos! 

Here are examples of some of the items you might include in your Notes section:

• Work or Social Commitments
• Vacations or Business Trips
• Family Events
• Sports or Lessons
• Work Schedules for Family Members
• Anticipated Energy Level (Fridays may not feel like cooking)

What I love about the Notes section is that when reviewing your weekly schedule, it becomes easier to plan appropriate meals and harder to make excuses!

Dietitian Tip:Always consider the notes section for the week ahead BEFORE planning your meals. And be sure to PRACTICE Meal Planning. It truly is an art and takes time to get into the habit of looking at your schedule and coming up with appropriate, realistic meals to enjoy.

3. Get Creative with Meal Planning Ideas!

Getting creative with Meal Planning Ideas is my favourite step, but it can cause discomfort/overwhelmingness if you’re not quite sure what to make. However, at Dietetic Directions we pride ourselves on our Meal Planning Ideas. Plus, the Meal Plan like a Pro resource covers a surplus of meal ideas!

Remember to start with your Step #1 of Meal Planning, with using the foods you have on hand for inspiration and then take into account your schedule (Step #2). For meal inspiration examples, using Meal Themes like Breakfast for Dinner, Taco Tuesday or Homemade Pizza Night or Sandwich Saturday can help in coming up with meal ideas.  

For example, if you have mushrooms, use these to inspire what you’re going to cook AND choose this meal based on how much time you have to cook. I love a Mushroom Swiss Quiche to use up lots of mushrooms. What about you?

Help with Meal Planning Ideas?

• Ask family members for meal requests. Have a sheet of paper or Google Document for writing down ideas when they come to us.
• Reflect on childhood favourite foods or traditional foods you’d like to make.
• Give family members two options – Would you like Mushroom Swiss Quiche for dinner or a Spinach and Cheddar Omelet?
• Check what’s in your pantry to inspire meal ideas. For example, I have canned clams in my pantry – I could make a Clam Pasta or a Clam Chowder. Then I meal plan it and add other ingredients I will need.
• Check Pinterest, blogs, cook books, ask friends for their favourite recipes or meals that are quick and easy or good options for leftovers.
• Do a Freezer Inventory or use a Meal Theme to reduce the meal possibilities. For example, every week could be Taco Tuesday or Monday is Breakfast for Dinner theme. Check out 15 Favourite Fun (and Unique) Meal Themes for more inspiration.

Have you Tried “Breakfast for Dinner” Theme?

To keep the Meal Planning Ideas rolling, try Breakfast for Dinner Meal Theme because it’s fun and so much variety. Besides breakfast foods being awesome, they also tend to be faster options to pull together. For example, you can whip together an egg sandwich ready in under 15-minutes complete with cheese and veggies on it. Speedy and delicious! Other quick and tasty meals that fall under this theme include: French Toast, Scrambled Eggs on Avocado Toast, Classic Egg Sandwich on English Muffin, Quiche and more!

4. Grocery List!

The fourth step in Meal Planning is to use your selected meal ideas to generate a grocery list. In our FREE Meal Planning template, you’ll see there’s a handy grocery list on the bottom with each section of the grocery store outlined so you can gather items in the same section.

Therefore, as you’re coming up with dinner/lunch meals in the previous step, think of the ingredients you need to make this dish. For example, on Wednesday we have Pizza Night – ask yourself, do I need anything – pizza dough or naan bread? Sauce? Cheese? Do I need any extra veggies? If you need anything, you simply write it in the appropriate column of the grocery list! This is setting your future self up for success.

Expert TIP:Use a grocery list ordered by section of the grocery store! This means that you’ll have all the produce items listed together and can shop more efficiently.

5. Meals to Make!

Finally, we’ve come to the final section of the Meal Planning Template – the line for Meals to Make. This line allows you to write down meal ideas that come to you during the busy week! For example, these could include: requests from family members for Maple Glazed Salmon or a Pinterest recipe like Mini Egg Muffins. Clients always tell me, “Andrea when I have my meal plan ready for the week, it becomes easier to come up with more ideas!” This is exactly why this line is here for you!

Be sure to post your Meal Plan in the kitchen (on your fridge) so that everyone knows what’s coming up! You can also assign tasks to family members to help with executing meals – for example, for pizza night on Thursday, we need to pull the frozen dough from freezer on Tuesday. Or, you could assign a child/teen in the family to grate the mozzarella and dice tomatoes and/or chop peppers in advance.

Bottom Line:

Meal Planning Ideas organize us and can truly save the day. Similarly, this strategy can help you save time, money and improve your nutrition through more thoughtful planning. You’ll be able to use up the produce effectively and come up with a plan for the week ahead! Consequently, this allows you to Meal Plan Like a Pro so your mind focuses on other things. Additionally, when we have to plan, we set ourselves up for success. And, as I like to say, healthy eating does not happen by accident.  

I hope you enjoyed the walk-through of how to use the FREE Meal Planning Template (download or order your copy here)! And remember, for beginners, the act of Meal Planning is more important than the level of skill in your meals. So keep it simple and have fun Meal Planning!