Non-Stressful Meal Planning Guide

Every homemaker who cooks from-scratch meals falls into two different categories: the one who meal plans and the one who just cooks whatever she feels that day. Personally, meal planning kind of stresses me out. So if you are anything like me, it does not bring you joy to sit down and write out a meal plan for the entire month. How am I supposed to know what I will want to eat two weeks from today? Some days I’m feeling soup while other days potato and salad sound better. With that being said, I do like to know what ingredients I have on hand and have an idea of what I can make with them in the next couple of days whenever I feel like it!

Tips for Non-Stressful Meal Planning

I will give you some tips to be able to easily whip a meal together quickly at any point! Whether you just got back from the grocery store or you are running low on produce, these tips will make your cooking run much smoother and be able to pull off a delicious meal any time!

Tip #1: Have a Stocked Fridge and Pantry

Having staple ingredients in your kitchen will make it a lot easier to pull a meal together at any point. For example, in the pantry I like to keep grains such as rice, buckwheat, and quinoa on hand as well as different kinds of pastas. Other staples are potatoes, onions, and garlic. I also keep canned goods stocked like tomatoes, beans, and other vegetables.

Then, in the fridge I keep fresh produce on hand for salads like greens, cucumbers, cabbage, peppers, and fresh tomatoes. In the summertime, I like to have these veggies grown in the garden so they are readily available and way more yummy! Also I stock on dairy like a variety of cheeses, milk, and heavy whipping cream. We have our own chickens and ducks so we have eggs on hand all the time. Have your choice of meat stocked in the freezer. I like to keep ground beef, beef roasts, chicken thighs, wings, and breasts in the freezer and pull them out when needed.

Tip #2: Have a List of 5-10 Easy Meals that Can Be Made Under 30 Minutes

Every family has their favorite dishes that are a go-to. Keep a list of them on the fridge or in your binder as a reminder of what can quickly be pulled together in thirty minutes for when you are in a jam.

Here are some ideas of easy meals:

Beef Stroganoff
Shrimp Spaghetti
Tacos
Chicken Fried Rice
Potato Soup

Tip #3: Remember that Every Meal is Complete With Just the Grain, Veggie, & Protein Rule

As long as you have a grain, vegetable, and some sort of protein, you got a meal pulled together! So this can be white rice with steamed broccoli and fried chicken. Or a quinoa salad that has other veggies and meat in it as well. I love doing this when we are running low on things, I just take a peek in my pantry and fridge and am able to pull a hearty and delicious meal together quickly without any stress!

Tip #4: Cook Dinner Daily and Heat Leftovers for Lunch

Around here, we like to keep lunch fairly simple. I’ll either heat up leftovers or we will have sandwiches with my homemade sourdough bread. Sometimes I will check the freezer and see if I have meals that I froze before that we can quickly have. For example, I will make a lot of pelemeni (a Russian dish), or egg rolls and will just freeze them for a later day! Cooking just one meal a day can save you a lot of time and extra hassle spent in the kitchen.

My Style of Meal Planning

I go grocery shopping about once every one or two weeks. We live up in the foothills, so I like to get the shopping done when we are in town. For my family, I like to shop at Aldi because they have the perfect proportions and prices for us. I buy almost the same exact things every week. But I might change it up if I am cooking a specific special meal that week or something. Also, always look at sales and try to shop what is in season. We go to Costco once every two months to stock up on flour, rice, cheese, butter, sour cream, and other household items. For us, our grocery budget is $350 per month but if we are hosting a lot we are okay with it coming up to $400.

Back in the kitchen, I will meal plan exactly what I want to make when we are having company just to relieve some stress. Other than that, I will just cook whatever my husband and I want to eat that day. We have all the ingredients usually for food that we regularly enjoy so I will make a soup at least once a week. We enjoy meatball soup, chicken noodle soup, borscht, and really any type of soup! Then I would say we have some sort of potato dish, pasta dish, and rice dish regularly as well. I like to try new recipes also and have learned to just substitute ingredients if I don’t have them all on hand.

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Conclusion

I hope this eliminates stress for you in the kitchen! There are so many different ways of doing things so I hope you enjoyed taking a peek at how I run my kitchen! Whether you enjoy meal planning or not, I hope you got some inspiration. If you would like to learn more about homemaking, join the Two Peas in Two Pods Community! We would love for you to join!