Do you struggle EVERY . SINGLE . WEEK to come up with meal ideas...and find you either end up eating the same thing all the time, or it's Uber Eats on speed dial? Follow my fool proof 5-step-plan on how to make meal planning easy-peasy (and save you $$$) !
STAPLES
First step is to gather your staple meals, you know the ones, your favourite meals that you can cook with your eyes closed, now go ahead and write those down...go on, do it now!
INSPO
Secondly, you're going to create an inspo file and SAVE any meals/recipes that interest you. I have a few different platforms that I search on. My faves are instagram/reels, make sure you hit the little save icon and create a folder called recipes or meals so you can reference it when you need to. Pinterest is another great source of inspo along with Tik Tok, again make sure you save what you like. The Free Coles and Woolworths Magazines also have great meal ideas, I like to flick through these and tear out any recipe's I like and make my own recipe book, or you can take photos / scan them and save them on your phone/computer. So now you have a few different places that you can source ideas and inspo from.
SCHEDULE
Now that you have your list of recipes and some new meal ideas, you're going to write down the ones that you want for the week. Remember to take your schedule into account, have you got any social events on that you wont be home and therefore don't need to cook for? Are you going to get takeaway one night? Are you doing lunch with the work girls on a Friday? Get your schedule/diary out and write out what events you have so you know how many meals you will actually need. I try to limit 'new' recipes to 1 or 2 for the week, as it can be stressful cooking something you've never cooked before and you don't know how it's going to turn out, and I normally leave this for a weekend, or when I have more time to cook.
PLAN
I like to keep a fair bit of variety to my meals, ie if i'm having chicken on a Monday night, i'll have fish on a Tuesday then beef on Wednesday and then maybe back to a chicken dish on Thursday. Same goes with the carbs if i'm having a rice dish, the next night might be pasta, then potato. This ensures i'm getting variety in my diet. Dinner leftovers will always generally be next days lunch as well. Write down what dishes you want to have on what days, so that you can create a 'menu'. This will also help other family members know whats for dinner, and maybe they can help out with some meal prep for you.
SHOP
Now you can easily create a shopping list. Look at the ingredients that each meal needs and then shop your own pantry and fridge first. You might find that you have most of the basic ingredients already. Then write down anything that you don't have to start creating your shopping list. Now you're all set to do your grocery shop for the week and I bet you've just cut your shopping time and bill in half.
If you feel like you need a little more help, apply for 1:1 online coaching with me where we will deep dive into nutrition and meal planning, helping to take the guess work out of your everyday eating.