7 Frameworks to Guide Your Meal Planning Process

Meal planning helps you cut back stress and keep organized within the kitchen, however at occasions, it might really feel overwhelming. Whereas every household could have their very own type of planning, it’s helpful to study there are primary meal planning frameworks you should utilize to information your course of. 

What’s a meal planning framework?

A meal planning framework is a repeatable system for creating your weekly or month-to-month meal plan that guides your planning course of. Implementing a framework on your meal planning removes the psychological fatigue of deciding what to eat and when to create a streamlined strategy that matches your loved ones’s wants.

Widespread Meal Planning Frameworks

1. Meal plan around your schedule

Taking your schedule under consideration helps you incorporate meals that maximize your time, so nothing sneaks up on you and also you’re ready for the week forward. Busy nights are nice for reheating leftovers or crockpot meals which might be prepared once you get house. 

2. Meal plan around what you have at home

In case you have a big inventory of staples and frozen components, otherwise you obtain a meals supply, like Butcher Field or a CSA, this type of planning will assist you dissipate what you’ve gotten with out overbuying on the retailer. This entails discovering and selecting recipes based mostly on what you’ve gotten at house and solely shopping for auxiliary objects to finish a meal. 

3. A meal planning template

Utilizing a weekly template on your meal plan narrows down your recipe decisions as a result of when every day has a theme, all you could do is discover a recipe that matches into that class. Your each day themes could also be based mostly on protein kind (rooster, tofu, pork, lentils, and many others.), recipe class (tacos, pasta, pizza, soup, and many others.), or something that helps you simplify your decisions to plan recipes shortly.  

4. Meal plan for a large household

Whereas not precisely a “plug and play” framework, planning for a big household means having sufficient meals with out shopping for an excessive amount of whereas pleasing many individuals. Ask for enter out of your family on what recipes they wish to eat. Not all requests will be accommodated in each meal plan, however you possibly can try to make the bulk pleased. After you add recipes to your meal plan, alter the servings of your recipes to feed everybody and forestall shopping for the unsuitable quantities.  

5. Meal plan for a small household

The largest hurdle for a small family is to over plan and put together an excessive amount of meals. Two methods to keep away from this are to plan fewer recipes every week and benefit from the leftovers, or scale recipes down so that you’re solely getting ready precisely what you want. 

6. Maximize leftovers

If you wish to begin using leftovers in your meal plans, step one is to plan much less. Because you’re going to eat the identical (or comparable) meals greater than as soon as, you need to plan fewer recipes so that you don’t find yourself with an excessive amount of meals. If you find yourself with method too many leftovers, you possibly can at all times freeze a number of servings and revel in that meal once more later. 

7. Meal plan for flexibility

In the event you don’t need to prepare dinner each evening otherwise you wish to eat out a number of occasions per week, plan fewer recipes in your meal plan. This provides you a mixture of planning and spontaneity so that you’re not overwhelmed with meals within the fridge in case your plans change. 

Adopting a system that fits your way of life – whether or not it’s planning round your schedule, maximizing leftovers, or utilizing a weekly template – reduces resolution fatigue, saves time, and ensures your loved ones enjoys a wide range of meals every week.

Plan to Eat is the meal planning app that means that you can plan with no matter framework or system works finest for you. Begin a free trial now to strive it out!

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