It’s fun getting older. You figure out what works and what doesn’t work for you, and you can really hone in on having a life that {mostly} runs smoothly using the systems you’ve put in place for your home! A meal plan is one such system that helps life run a little better without always having to think about what the family is going to eat next.
You’ve heard me say it before, I loathe meal planning…with a passion! I don’t want to do it…AT. ALL! That hasn’t changed over the past fifteen years, but what has changed is HOW I plan. I was in need a meal plan that I don’t have to…well…plan! Ha! Is that even possible?
Well, it is kind of…if you’re willing to put in a chunk of time all at once at the beginning to set yourself up for the season. Then you don’t have to worry about meal planning AT ALL until the next season! I typically revisit my meal plan twice a year. Once for spring/summer meals, and again for fall/winter meals. When I do this, I’ll add in some new recipes or take old ones out that we’re tired of. When it’s all said and done, I’m really only planning twice a year instead of every single week. In fact, it feels like I’m not really planning at all…mission accomplished!
Step 1: Compile Your List
Simply put, our meal plan is a nice long list of our favorite meals that go on a rotation. I’ve done this for several years and it works well. I started with around 20-30 meals and have slowly added more and more. (Check out our updated list of favorite meals for fall/winter here.)
The problem I was running into with this plan was that we got bored of the meals very quickly. I know 20 meals seems like a lot, but out of the 20, we had maybe 10 top favorites, so it really felt like we were eating the same things quite often.
Something else was needed. Enter Meal Anchors.
Step 2: Decide on Your Anchors
In the last year, I’ve carefully narrowed my meal plan down even further by adding daily meal anchors. This helps me out in two ways. First, we are not eating the same things over and over because now each day has a specific type of food I’m making. And second, it really helps me not to have so much stress over deciding on a meal because instead of having 25-30 meals to choose from for each day, I just have to choose from 5 or maybe 10. On Mondays, I know we’re having sandwiches, so I just need to decide what kind of sandwich to make off of my list of favorite sandwiches.
Here is a list of our Meal Anchors for Fall and Winter:
Monday: Sandwiches
I crave quick on Mondays because it’s just an off day trying to catch up from the weekend and planning ahead for a new week. Enter sandwiches…whatever sandwich sounds good that day, that’s what we’re having!
Tuesday: Tacos or Mexican
Because can Tuesday be anything else? I like this one because we have several good taco and Mexican recipes.
Wednesday: Leftovers or Quickies
Another day that I’m desperate for a quick meal…because prayer meeting and Bible Study!
Thursday: Soup
Does anything scream fall more than a savory bowl of warm soup?! I have been looking forward to this season just for the soups. I mostly use my instant pot for these. Also, can I convince you to make your own bone broths? It’s so much healthier (and tastier!), and not hard at all!
Friday: Pizza/Company
Notice I included “company” as an anchor. This has been a life-saver in deciding what to cook for guests. Under this, I have the best of the best crowd pleasing meals that are company-friendly. When we are having company, I choose from this list…no question. If we’re not having company, it’s family night…and with that comes homemade pizza!
Saturday: Meat and Potatoes
My husband is a meat and potato man. This meal is especially for him. A roast, honey mustard or garlic honey chicken, mini meat loaves, any kind of meat goes. Potatoes really means starches. You’ll mostly find potatoes or rice making up the starches in these well-rounded dinners.
Sunday: Leftovers or Out
Sundays are a crazy day for us. We are typically home on Sundays for a whopping one hour in the afternoons—two if we are lucky. Because of this, I make it a point to cook a good, big meal on Saturday so that we have some quick, easy leftovers that still feel like a special Sunday dinner.
Sunday Night Snack: Since we usually eat at weird hours on Sundays, we are usually starving by the time we get home from church in the evening. Our Sunday evening snack is always chips and salsa (might even get fancy and make Nacho Grande by spreading some chips out on a baking sheet and sprinkling them with cheese, onion and black beans, then baking till cheese melts and serving with sour cream, salsa, and whatever other good toppings we have on hand).
(To see a list of our favorite meals that go along with each of these anchors, click here.)
Step 3: Stock Your Fridge and Pantry
The MOST IMPORTANT part of making this non-planning meal plan work is to ALWAYS have a stocked pantry/fridge with needed ingredients for the meals on your rotation. This way you always have on hand what is needed to make pretty much anything on your recipe list! If you don’t feel like having sandwiches on Monday, no big deal…you have all the ingredients to make something else! It’s a beautiful plan, I tell ya! (More on this in the next point.)
But in order to have a stocked fridge and pantry, you have to take the deep dive to get it stocked! It’s easiest to just bite the bullet and do this all at once, but you certainly don’t have to do it like that. You can spread out your pantry purchases over several weeks. Just keep in mind that you won’t have all the ingredients for everything on your rotation, so your meal plan won’t work like it should until all ingredients are purchased.
Once your pantry is stocked with all ingredients needed, this plan will work like a charm! You’ll see.
Note: Several recipes call for veggies. We typically keep our fridge stocked with common fresh veggies because we eat them often for snacks or as a side for lunch, so having fresh veggies on hand hasn’t been a problem for us, but it is something to think about if you’re not a fresh veggie eater.
Step 4: Keep Your Fridge and Pantry Stocked
Hear me: This is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF NOT HAVING TO PLAN YOUR MEAL PLAN!!!!!
But how do you keep a stocked pantry at all times with all the ingredients you need?
HERE IS THE KEY. Write down on your grocery list what you need as soon AS SOON AS YOU RUN OUT OF IT. If you use the last of the boxed tomato soup as well as the last thyme while cooking one day, take a few seconds to write those things down right away.
Even better, if you do grocery pick up, add it TO YOUR CART immediately! I’m telling you, this is a dream!!! You literally don’t have to think about or revisit the item again until the day you click “check out.”
This little hack of writing it down or adding it to your cart as soon as it runs out, will save you hours of checking your pantry and fridge for things you need before you go grocery shopping…or trying to hopelessly remember what you told yourself to add to the list the other day…or coming up with several meals to make for the week and making a list for all needed ingredients.
(Note: Adding to my cart as soon as I run out of something works well for me because I go grocery shopping once a week, but if you only go every other week, or once a month, you will want to get into the habit of adding things to your list or cart when you are getting CLOSE to running out…not when it’s already gone! If you run out of something at the beginning of the month, and aren’t going shopping again till next month, that will be a problem. Adjust when you “add to cart,” and it’s all taken care of!)
It takes some training to get yourself into this habit, but I promise you, it will take so much stress off of your life! It is the key that unlocks the door of never having to meal plan!!!!
This hack works wonders! We had company one night who stayed till 12:15 in the morning. After they left, I remembered I hadn’t ordered my groceries yet for pick-up the next day (or that day rather). It was 1:00 in the morning when I got to it, but all I had to do was hit “check out,” because my list was already made and in my cart! Like I said, it’s a dream!
And that’s that! With a pantry stocked with everything I need, and a list of favorite meals and anchors, I’m ready to make whatever I want from my list of delicious recipes with no immediate planning required! Sometime in the evening, I’ll take a peek at my meal rotation and decide on what sounds good for the next day. The following morning as I’m groggily wandering around the house turning on music, lighting candles and all the other homey things, I’ll stop by the freezer to pull out my meat to thaw for dinner that day. And sometimes, I’ll even do it all that morning! It works both ways because I have EVERYTHING I need!
Another bonus about keeping your pantry stocked, is that you don’t HAVE to always cook meals that are on your rotation! WHAT?! It’s true. If you have a freezer with different kinds of meat and bone broth, a fridge stocked with fresh veggies and a pantry full of beans and rice and common herbs and spices, no one is MAKING you have chicken tacos on Tuesday. You might run across a recipe that sounds good, and decide that that very day that you’re going to try that instead! It really gives you the freedom to be creative in the kitchen for those days you want to take on a new recipe.
The Lunch Dilemma
I always make enough food so we can have it for lunch the next day. This solves the never ending lunch dilemma. Planning leftovers for lunch gives me one less thing to think about, and it makes for a quick, healthy meal we can just heat up in the middle of a busy homeschool day. I’m always happy for LESS time in the kitchen.
And my poor husband was sick of 14 years of sandwiches and chips, so we got him a handy dandy lunch box oven for his birthday last year, and we pack him leftovers too! He’s eating like a king on the job!
This meal plan has been a blessing for all of us!
And what about breakfasts and desserts you may ask? Well, that is another topic for another day! But hopefully there are enough ideas here to get your brain working to change up your own meal plan system!
Happy meal planning…er, planning to not plan,
Sarah