Meal Planning 101

I’m a new wife and it’s taken me a few weeks to get into a rhythm, but I have recently settled on a method for meal planning that I wanted to share! Note: this is not meal prep. I, personally, don’t care for Tupperware towers of the same recipe filling up my fridge and freezer. So, I make each meal the same day it will be eaten. However, since I don’t spend my weekends chopping 7 days’ worth of veggies, I do invest in some thoughtful planning and strategizing in an effort to streamline the food prep process day-of.

For starters, I strive to keep the kitchen stocked with our “staple” foods (listed below). I built this quite exhaustive list on the plane during my move to Washington by envisioning my mom’s kitchen and mentally taking inventory shelf-by-shelf. Upon arriving on the west coast, I bought the entire list during my first grocery haul and walked out of Safeway with an expensive cart load and a receipt over two feet long! But…now, whenever we run out of something, I just add it back to my shopping list. 

The next step in my meal plan method involves blocking some time each Sunday to decide what to make for the rest of the week. This can be a challenge, but all my type-A tendencies led me to create an alphabetized collection of my favorite recipes and I regularly browse Pinterest for extra inspiration. If any of the recipes I pick require ingredients that I don’t regularly keep stocked, I know to add those foods to my shopping list.

With this plan complete, I can head into Monday with a very specific list so that my grocery errand can be done in one quick and easy stop. And when I wake up Tuesday morning, I can rest assured that I have all the things I need to cook the next 18 meals.

Of course, life happens, schedules shift, and somedays I might need to switch it up—and I try to give myself grace for that. But with this list of staple foods, I know I can always grab a PBJ sandwich if need be and make Indian curry another day!