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I truly enjoy meal planning. I’ve been doing it since I started living on my own. You could argue it’s the only way I know. But it’s working! There are so many benefits to meal planning that I don’t see a day when I would choose to stop this helpful habit. I’m excited to share this week’s healthy family meal planning in this article to give you ideas. Who knows, you might want to try it for yourself.
I wrote an entire blog post on meal planning for beginners. It covers the main benefits, has countless tips, and has a detailed step-by-step approach. If you are new to meal planning, I highly encourage you to take a look.
Healthy family meal planning
Step 1- Taking inventory and assessing what needs to be used
This week happened to be my freezer, refrigerator, and freezer clean-up. I was able to get a good look at what we have on hand, especially what needs to be used up. I try to clean the fridge monthly, the pantry every other month, and the freezer twice a year.
Here is an example of the cleaning schedule I follow to balance the big chores more evenly throughout the year.
Pro tip: As I go through the cleaning process, I use GoodNotes to write down the items I need to utilize this week. I love this app. I created a notebook in the app with one page for my grocery list and two pages for my 7-day dinner menu. On the last page, I quickly write down the items that will need to be in this week’s recipes. You could easily do this on paper if you prefer. I like having the list with me at all times.
The items to use up this week were:
- Frozen chicken meatballs
- 2 frozen steaks
- a large bag of frozen cod
- a container of real crab in the refrigerator
Step 2 – Look at the calendar
The only thing going on this week is a work dinner that my husband has on Tuesday. This is helpful to know so that I can plan accordingly. He is not a huge fan of meatballs spaghetti, so I note that this might be a good day to use the chicken meatballs.
I also review my schedule and see that I will be going into the office on Tuesday and Wednesday. Therefore, I will start dinner a bit later than when I work from home. I try to have quicker recipes for those days.
Steps 3 & 4- Choose our meals and recipes for the week and make our grocery list
I grocery shop on Saturday. My meal planning goes from Saturday to Friday. I don’t plan for lunches. The children make their own lunches for school. I just ensure to have what they like to pack. My husband usually eats lunch outside the house. As for me, I will often reuse leftovers, or make salads, soups, or sandwiches. I have some staples I like to have and I use my imagination based on what I feel like eating.
In my GoodNotes app, I have a very simple template to list all of our dinners and write my grocery list.
I will usually start to find recipes for the items I identified in step 1.
Pro tip: I use Pinterest for the majority of my recipes. I have my personal Pinterest organized by type of protein (beef, chicken/turkey, fish/seafood, pork, meatless). This makes it really easy to find recipes for what I have on hand.
As I eluded earlier, I decided to pick a chicken meatballs spaghetti for Tuesday night. I don’t have an exact recipe for this. Here is how I plan to make it:
Ingredients:
- 1 jar of Rao’s marinara sauce
- 8 oz of spaghetti
- 1/2 onion
- 1 zucchini
- a couple of handfuls of baby spinach
- frozen chicken meatballs
- parmesan cheese
- Fresh parsley
- Avocado oil
Step 1: Bring salted water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and cook according to the package directions. Drain and set aside when they are done.
Step 2: Heat about 1 tablespoon of avocado oil and grill finely diced onion until it becomes translucent. Then add the diced zucchini and continue grilling for a few minutes.
Step 3: Add the sauce and let it come to a low boil. Add the frozen chicken meatballs and let everything simmer for about 15 minutes or until the meatballs are hot on the inside.
Step 4: Add your spinach and let it wilt down.
Step 5: Add your pasta and stir well until the noodles are completely coated with the sauce.
Step 6: Sprinkle some fresh parsley and parmesan cheese and enjoy!
I chose an instant pot beef and broccoli recipe to use the frozen steak and added it to our Monday night dinner on the meal plan. I plan to serve it on a bead of white steamed rice.
Pro tip: As I select a recipe, I look at the ingredients needed and automatically add what I don’t have to my grocery list before I move on to the next recipe.
The entire family loves fish. One of my favorite way to make frozen fish in the oven (especially for white fish) is to coat it in Panko bread crumbs. I added this recipe for Sunday night with some mashed potatoes and green beans.
Our last must-use food for this week is a can of real crab meat. One can is not quite enough to make crab cakes for 4. I found this quick and easy crab pasta recipe that we are very excited to try. I plan to serve it with a side salad.
Now that I’ve used up all the ingredients identified in step 1, I will fill the rest of the meal plan with recipes that require food that is different from what is planned so far. The most obvious animal protein missing is chicken.
On the day I wrote my meal plan and grocery list (Saturday), the weather was brutally cold. I landed on this instant pot Italian chicken soup. This soup is delicious and makes several leftovers for our family. We served it with freshly baked bread.
At this point, I needed 2 more dinners to complete this week’s meal plan. I landed on a recipe for ground chicken and brussels sprouts that I plan to serve with steamed white rice. However, because our family doesn’t love ground chicken by itself, I plan to substitute it for diced chicken thighs.
The final dinner to plan for is Friday night. I always try to go for something super simple because it’s the end of the week and I’m tired. This week’s Friday winner is a recipe for spinach and artichokes gnocchis. Our family doesn’t do a lot of vegetarian meals. My son and I are allergic to legumes. I am severely allergic to soy. And both the children and I are allergic to nuts and peanuts. We truly are a joy to cook for! With that said, I try to have one meal without meat each week.
Healthy Family meal planning – Weekly menu summary
To recap all of this, here is what our weekly menu looks like for this week:
| Saturday | Instant pot Italian chicken soup with fresh bread |
| Sunday | Panko crusted cod with mashed potatoes and green beans |
| Monday | Instant pot beef and broccoli on rice |
| Tuesday | Spaghetti with chicken meatballs |
| Wednesday | Chicken and brussel sprouts with rice |
| Thursday | Easy crab pasta with salad |
| Friday | Spinach and artichokes gnocchis |
In conclusion
I hope this healthy family meal planning article inspired you to give meal planning a try. It’s a great way to eat better, spend less, and reduce your food waste. Furthermore, I hope you found a few new recipes to try for you and your family.
Let me know what are some of your favorite recipes.
Bon apetit!
Cat xx
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