Are you ready for another week of getting your meal plan organized?! It’s time to put pencil to paper, marker to dry erase board, or fingers to your keyboard. Whatever way you keep track of your meal plan, know that it’s okay to change your system if it’s not quite working for you.
Sometimes you need to make an adjustment as your season of life changes. For many, it’s the end of the school year and you may be juggling kid’s at home more often. Or trying to plan for camp lunches as well.
Maybe it’s time to sit down and plan some themes for your week, i.e. meatless monday, taco tuesday. Putting in even 10 minutes can make your week feel less stressful. If some part of your system isn’t working, try something new. Meal planning is effective if it saves you time and overwhelm. If it’s causing frustration, change course.
Take 10 minutes to write out what you plan to eat this week. (or just write down last week so you have a starting point!)
Here’s a little cheat sheet of different ways to record your meal plans each week:
- Your planner or Google calendar
- Monthly calendar (there’s a new one in the Wellness Library you can grab! Get the code here.)
- Weekly meal planner
- Evernote or Trello
- Pinterest: create a secret board called Meal Plans and add recipes as you plan them. If they are winners, keep them in the folder. If not, delete the pin.
- Dry erase board
- Journal (which is what sparked the Dinner: A Love Story cookbook)
- Plan to Eat app
- Order meal delivery from Blue Apron, Plated, etc.
Do you have another favorite way of keeping track of your dinners? Share a note in the comments.
On to the menu for this week!
As you write out your grocery list for the upcoming week check out these healthy family friendly recipes from this week’s menu plan. Each featured recipe includes link to the complete recipe.
Dinner {GF= Gluten Free, P=Paleo, DF=Dairy Free, NF= Nut Free}
Monday: Sweet Potato Hash with Fried Eggs. (GF) This takes a little longer than most recipes at 50 minutes, but it looks oh so good for a Meatless Monday.
Tuesday: Salmon Burgers
Wednesday: Spring Vegetable Soup (45 minutes total to prep and cook, GF + DF).
Thursday: Paleo Beef Short Ribs (P), and Honey Roasted Carrots
Friday: Pizza night with our homemade dough.
Weekend: Yogurt Marinated Chicken, plan 3 hours for the marinade, (GF). This makes enough for a crowd, or for leftover chicken served over salad. I recommend the Lemon Pepper flavor. Pairs well with Vegetable Kabobs. Once your prep is done, dinner cooks in about 10 minutes.
Lunch
Healthy Buffalo Chicken Wrap. This recipe may end up on our dinner rotation this summer while we are at the beach!
Breakfast
Chocolate Buckwheat Waffles with Berries. This recipe caught my eye in a story about increasing the amount of whole grains in our diet. I’ve started to pickup buckwheat flour from our local, natural food store’s bulk bins and just buy 1-2 cups a week for specific recipes. For an even healthier version, you can swap out the unsweetened cocoa powder for 1 tablespoon raw cacoa powder.
Snacks
Quinoa coconut granola bars. Just made these and they are a winner from Super Healthy Kids. Next time I’m going to make them with sun-butter and pumpkin seeds so the kids can take them to school.
For more inspiration, see years of past dinner plans here, my Pinterest collection here, or OrgJunkie for a link-up of weekly meal plans. Any Amazon links are affiliate links, thanks for shopping via my site.
