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Are you one of those people who can consistently open up the fridge and, with just a glance at the food inside, whip up a fresh, tasty meal?
If you answered no, then keep reading. This article is for you.
Thanks to the ease and availability of pre-made, packaged and prepared foods (and the scarcity of time), knowing how to plan and prepare meals for yourself or your family is a dying art. Instead of dinner being a destination for families, a planned event to look forward to at the end of every day, dinner is often an afterthought that leaves parents scrambling to put food on the table — or to put the kids in the car and head to the nearest drive-thru window.
That’s why Liz Edmunds — known as “The Food Nanny” on her BYUtv show and in her book — has made it her mission to rescue dinner. The mother of seven children, she knows how hectic real life can be and that dinnertime can often get lost in the shuffle.
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The truth is, most people need more than a peek in the fridge or pantry to make dinner, they need a plan — a meal plan.
Meal planning (or menu planning) allows you to not only have meals mapped out in advance, it will ensure that you have all the fresh, healthy ingredients you need before you need them. By planning ahead and cooking from scratch at home, you can save hundreds of dollars each month and get healthier at the same time.
Edmunds sums it up this way: Meal planning “is about taking the stress from all you moms and dads who are wondering what to fix for dinner. It’s about helping you get organized. It’s about helping you and your family to eat more healthfully. … It’s about good food that your whole family will eat that can be made with your family’s budget in mind. It’s about consistency and simplicity.”
By planning ahead and cooking from scratch at home, you can save hundreds of dollars each month and get healthier at the same time.
Kindra at mealplanning101.com stumbled onto meal planning as a newlywed.
“I loved to cook, but with no direction and no plan, I'd look through recipes and find something that sounded good, but I was always missing ingredients,” she said. “One day it dawned on me that if I shopped for the ingredients in the recipe then I could actually make something new. This slowly evolved into a loose plan of meals for the week, and even with this small change, I was saving us hundreds of dollars on food each month.”
Kindra has made an art form out of meal planning, the benefits of which are as varied as the meals you can make at home for a fraction of the cost — and calorie count — of prepared or restaurant food. Here are some of her favorite reasons to meal plan:
- You will eat out less and eat fewer pre-packaged meals.
- You will always have the groceries you need and you will waste fewer groceries.
- You will eat a variety of meals that are healthier than eating out or eating processed foods.
- You will take fewer trips to the grocery store and you will save money by only buying what you need.
- You will avoid the annoying “What’s for dinner? ” question by your family, because the menu will be posted for all to see.
- You will be able to work around food allergies.
- You can plan for busy days.
Edmunds’ solution is to map out meals one or two weeks at a time. After that, the rest is easy. Simply follow these five-steps for easy and effective meal planning:
- Get out your calendar. Take a look at your upcoming week (or weeks, if you’re planning even further ahead). See if you may be going out or if you're having guests. See if any activities may get in the way of dinner, such as an outing or event that may require you to plan something quick or eat leftovers. This will help you decide what to make and when.
- Choose your recipes. Go through your cookbooks or search the Internet for recipes, or select some of your tried- and-true family favorites. “Make sure what you choose will fit within your budget if you have one,” Edmunds says. “You can see which dishes are inexpensive to prepare,” like those with few items and basic ingredients. If you can find recipes and meals with similar ingredients, you’ll minimize the number of items to buy.
- Write your chosen meals down. Keeping track of your menu can be as simple as sticking a piece of paper on the fridge, or you can use a printed, laminated or framed menu template. There are also a number of online meal planning tools. Whichever method you choose, be sure you put your menu where everyone can see it.
- Make a grocery list. Study your recipe ingredients, then go through your fridge, freezer and pantry to see which ingredients you already have. Put the ingredients you don’t have onto your shopping list. Add to it the basic essentials, such as milk and bread, as well as any healthy snacks or other non-food items you will need that week. If you want to keep your pantry or your food storage stocked, add a few additional items for long- term storage to each trip.
- Go shopping. To save money, be sure to only buy items on your grocery list. “Don’t get distracted,” Kindra warns, and watch out for impulse buying. “The exception to the rule is if something is on sale for a really good price and you want to stock up, such as ground beef, chicken or laundry detergent.”
That’s all there is to it. When you get to the end of the week, start the process all over again. There are many other tips and tricks for stepping up your meal planning, but if this is your first shot, get going with these five steps before you try anything else.
“If it seems like too much, just stick with these basics for a little bit until you feel more comfortable with the whole process,” Kindra says. “You will get the hang of it and then be looking for those ways to make your job more efficient.”
“Soon you will find that it takes just a short time to choose your meals and write down the ingredients you will need to buy,” Edmunds says. “This makes dinnertime so much less stressful.”
If it still seems daunting, here’s some food for thought: “Food is the heart and soul of our lives,” Edmunds writes. “You can’t put a price on the smells and chemistry that permeate the home at the dinner hour. This is what everyone wants in their home. Harmony and peace and love abound in a house where dinner is being cooked and served.”
