Meal planning can be overwhelming, especially if cooking is not your favorite thing to do! It's so easy to run through the drive-thru or order takeout. If you are trying to eat healthy or save money on food expenses, meal planning and prep is essential. The best way to combat the last-minute fast food habit is to plan ahead and have easy-to-prep meals on hand. For me, the biggest barrier to healthy eating used to be a lack of available healthy food options that were quick and easy to prepare. With a little bit of advanced planning and preparing ahead of time, this barrier (and many more!) are overcome.
These 9 easy steps for planning and preparing meals will have you eating healthier and saving money in no time!
1. Look at the calendar
Schedule time for meal planning, shopping, and meal prep. Mark it on your calendar and block the time, so you do not book something else. Decide how much prep you intend to do. In other words, are you prepping for one week, two weeks, or a month? Evaluate which days during that period you want to cook at home and how much time you will have for cooking on each day. Do the kids have activities? Are you heading out of town? Do you have an extra long day at work that will sap your energy? Plan difficult meals for your day off or a time when you'll have plenty of time and energy to prepare. Pick the days you want to cook at home and how many family members will be home. This will help you determine whether to halve a recipe or double it and how many recipes you need to plan for.
Consider cooking in bulk for the month or cooking with a friend. I don't know about you, but everything is more fun for me with a friend. I could be cleaning out the sewer, but if I'm hanging out with a friend while doing it, it's fun! Cooking used to feel equivalent to cleaning out the sewer for me until I discovered cooking in bulk. I'd rather sacrifice an entire day in order to avoid cooking each night. The basic concept is that you make multiples of each meal and freeze them. Each day, you pull a meal from the freezer and either re-heat or cook it. For more information about bulk cooking, Google "once a month cooking" or "freezer cooking." It's fantastic!
2. Clean out the fridge
Do not wait until you just hauled in a trunk full of groceries to clean out the fridge! To clarify, take time to do it before you even pick out your recipes. Throw away all expired food and leftovers you will not eat, and then check the expiration date on staples like salad dressing, spices, and eggs. Write down any staples that need to be replaced on your grocery list. Do you have any food that needs to be eaten right away before it goes bad? Did you have a leftover package of bacon that will expire in the next week? This information is crucial to planning meals and selecting recipes. Check out our article about organizing the inside & outside of your fridge.
3. Select meal recipes
In step 1, you determined whether you are cooking alone or with a friend and how many meals you are planning to prep. In step 2, you discovered any food that needs to get eaten right away, so try to incorporate those in your recipe selections. One idea to simplify meal planning is to create theme nights. Monday is beef, Tuesday is Mexican, Wednesday is chicken, Thursday is pasta, Friday is fish. Think about your family's favorite types of foods and see if you can rotate them in order to serve a variety of food, yet simplify the planning process.
This step is the most difficult if you are cooking with a friend. It helps to find someone who has a similar taste in food or is following the same healthy eating plan. It is possible to make some modifications during the prep process also. For example, if you are not a fan of onions, you may add a few more to your friend's bag/container and leave them out in yours. Be sure to write names on the ones that are specific to each person.
4. Multiply & tally
If you are cooking with a friend, it is easiest to split the food 50/50. Have one person pay for all of the groceries, and then split the cost 50/50 also. Each person can store the meal differently. For example, one recipe may be one meal for one family and two meals for the other family.
How many of each recipe do you want? Pay close attention to the serving size. Sometimes a recipe is 8 servings, and sometimes it is 4. Does your family love the recipe? Is it brand new? Most likely, you don’t want to multiply a new recipe by 4 if you aren’t sure you’ll like it. Take each type of ingredient (ground beef, chicken breasts, garlic powder, etc.) and add it up for all recipes combined. Then, create your master grocery list.
Account for prep items like foil, spices, or Ziplock® bags when you are tallying. Check to see what staple items you have on hand. When I am cooking with a friend, we keep a bin of shared items so we are not using the host person’s staples each time.
5. Prep vs. cook
For each recipe, decide what you need to do on prep day. You can cook it fully on prep day, and reheat it on serving day. Or, prep it on prep day and cook it on serving day. Do your research ahead of time to be sure you are choosing recipes that can be frozen. If you are only preparing a week's worth of food, you will not need to freeze it. You can look for specific freezer friendly recipes online. Also, take a little time to understand which ingredients fare well in the freezer. The last thing you want is to prepare a meal, and then have to throw it away because it did not last well until serving day.
In addition, pay special attention to recipes that have multiple steps. The goal is to do as much prep as possible on prep day, so on serving day, it's quick and easy to make the meal. Think about what you use to prep and be sure you have enough supplies on hand. For example, if you are making a frozen fruit salad times 8, be sure you've got a massive bowl or several large bowls in which to mix the salad.
When I cooked in bulk with a friend, we ended up purchasing a few items together that we put into our bin of shared items (like a giant bowl and a large strainer). If you are cooking with a friend, decide whose house you are cooking at and what supplies the other person needs to bring. Do you both have a food processor, baking sheets, stock pot, electric can opener? You probably do not need two of everything, and you want to transport as little as possible.
6. Shop
Keep track of where you shop and which items you shop for at each store. (Where are the best deals?) One particular item that I use frequently is almost double the cost at a different store. Within each store, track the order you shop in. I traditionally start in the back of the store and work my way toward the front. When you write out the grocery list, write it in the order you shop in, so you don’t waste time going back to an aisle for an item you missed. Double and triple check your recipes against your tally, as it's even more of a waste of time to run back to the store on prep day for one item!
Part of the joy of cooking in bulk is spending less money per item by purchasing in bulk. If you are shopping for meat at a warehouse store, you can typically buy a larger item (like a pork tenderloin) and have the meat department slice it or cut it for free. This is much more cost effective than purchasing the same quantity of boneless pork chops. If you are cooking with a friend, you can alternate who grocery shops or go together.
7. Prep Day
Look closely at each recipe to determine how it’s being cooked. If you have multiple things that need to go in the oven, which one should go in first? Are they using the same temperature? Sometimes, you need to cook an ingredient, and then cool it before adding it to the recipe. Try not to select recipes that all need to be cooked in the same manner on prep day. Or, pinch hit with the Instant Pot when the oven is overstuffed. I like to cook almost everything on prep day, unless it can be thrown in the oven, Crockpot, or Instant Pot. If I have to perform four steps to cook it on serving day, this whole process seems like a waste! The goal is simple, easy-to-cook meals that will keep me from eating out.
8. Storing your meals
Let’s talk portions. Will your family eat a whole lasagna in one meal? If not, you can bake it on prep day, and then package it into two or three meals. Or you can prep it into two smaller pans on prep day to be cooked on serving day.
Do you prefer plastic or glass containers? Ziplock® bags are the most space-efficient way to store food in a freezer (especially if you are cooking for the whole month), but be cautious if the recipe is full of liquid. Do you use a food saver? Be sure to account for containers and storage before you shop. If you are using glass jars or containers, it’s especially important to do step 2 (clean out fridge), so you have clean, empty containers prior to prep.
As you finish a recipe and store it, write the basic instructions on the label, so you don’t have to look up the recipe on serving day. For example, “Cook at 350º, and sprinkle cheese on top after.”
9. Schedule Cooking Day
Lastly, cook in order of the most difficult/time consuming recipe to the easiest. You will be tired by the end and so grateful that you did! Maximize your time and only get the bowl or pot dirty once, if possible. Chop onions for all the recipes at the same time instead of chopping multiple times throughout the day. Brown all of the ground beef at the same time. Pay attention to whether part of the ground beef needs to be made into patties or meatloaf and part needs to be browned.
Allow time for cleaning up the kitchen and for taking a lunch break (if you are bulk cooking). If you are cooking with a friend, plan out your lunch food and purchase it with your groceries. No matter how many times I have cooked in bulk, it typically takes me longer than anticipated, so plan on scheduling a whole day and don't schedule anything for the evening that requires a lot of energy.
When the recipe has been prepped and stored, write it on a list with the quantity, so you know how much you have. I always recommend having an inventory of what is stored in your freezer, so you do not forget about it and end up throwing it away three years later.
Conclusion
In summary, cooking in bulk, planning meals, and prepping ahead of time is my favorite way to cook. The more organized you are, the less time the whole process takes. You will most likely learn some lessons the hard way, but the more you do it, the easier it gets! You will definitely make a huge mess and be exhausted at the end of a huge bulk cooking day, but the amount of time and mess you save yourself on a daily basis makes it all worthwhile! Reach out to us at info@lastingorder.net if you have further questions about how to simplify your cooking!