5 Ways You Can Make Meal Planning Easier
Meal planning can often feel like a big chore. This is especially true if you are juggling family, work and everything else that you have going on in your life.
However, with a few smart strategies you can make meal planning a lot more effective and stress free.
Start With a Weekly Template
You should start out with a weekly template that will assist you with getting everything done. It’s always a great idea to assign themes for each day.
For example, you should have pasta Wednesdays or slow cooker Fridays. These are a few ideas, you can come up with your very own. This will give you a lot of structure and reduce the fatigue that you may have from meal planning.
You Should Use Digital Tools to Stay Organized
Apps as well as digital planners can be very useful when it is time for you to meal plan. There are many of these online that you can use to assist you. They will organize recipes for you, generate your shopping list and even schedule your meals.
You can also see your favorite local options on your phone for those backup days and cooking just is not in the cards. You can search for keywords such as pizza takeout near me and then save the best local options on your apps.
Plan Around Tour Schedule
It’s not just about planning around your recipes, you should also make sure that you take a quick look at your upcoming schedule before you plan out any of the meals. If Tuesday is packed with activities or even late evening meetings, then it’s a good time for you to have a prep meal
or even leftovers.
This will keep you from becoming stressed out about where to go. You should try to reserve the recipes that are more time consuming to weekends or those days when your schedule is a lot lighter. This will help to reduce any type of overwhelm and it also makes your plans a lot more realistic.
Leave Room for Flexibility and Treats
You don’t have to cook every meal from scratch. You can have one or two nights when you ear simple sandwiches, leftovers or a well-deserved treat. It could be ordering your favorite Thai food or googling pizza take out near me to order in. Making sure that you have a buffer will keep you from feeling overwhelmed at any given time and it also helps you to stay consistent with your meal planning and this is beneficial for you in the long run.
Prep Your Ingredients in Batches
You may want to consider preparing your ingredients in batches instead of doing every meal from scratch every day. When you batch prep the key ingredients it usually means that you will marinate your proteins, cook your grains and chop vegetables.
This makes your weeknight meals go a lot faster. You can even portion out your snacks and your lunches well ahead of time. This is going to reduce any last minute decisions on your part and it will keep everyone firmly on track.
