Planning a weekly meal can prove to be a bit of a challenge. Between working long hours, taking care of families, pets, seniors, and all the things we try to squeeze in on top of our daily expectations means that sometimes meal planning slips away and fast food ends up in our laps. However, the benefits of a weakly home-cooked meal far outweigh the minor inconveniences.

Foods prepared at home can prove to be much healthier compared to fast food or restaurant prepared meals. A lot of foods that are packaged in a box or a can are saturated with sodium, sugar, and the bad kind of fats. Foods in a box generally lack the vitamins that are essential to our bodies. These types of processed foods put us at high risk for heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. If you already have a genetic component to these diseases, you are even more at risk than the average person.

Basics of Balancing Nutrition in Your Meals

When you are working on your meal planning, you want each meal to have a good balance of nutrients. This means including enough carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats. Depending on your nutrition needs or dietary restrictions, it might include fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, dairy, or other options. It’s good to aim for a colorful plate, as that ensures you are getting a wide range of vitamins and minerals. The focus should always be on whole foods and none to little processed foods. Even homemade macaroni and cheese is a better option than the boxed version.

Cooking Methods

Experiment with different cooking methods. The temperature that you choose to cook can change the chemistry of the food. For example, cooking a tomato can increase its concentration of folate and antioxidants.

Changing how you cook can also help with the meal prep process. For example, you can have multiple appliances going at once to cook different parts of your meals, such as potatoes in the air fryer, chicken breasts in the pressure cooker, and chili in the slow cooker. This frees up your oven and stove for other things, or you can skip the oven altogether and avoid getting your house too hot from all the cooking.

I often start the week by roasting a whole chicken in the oven. This can be broken down into several meals throughout the week like chicken noodle soup, chicken salad sandwiches, or chicken tacos. It also saves time because this part of my weekly meals is already cooked for me. If I decide not to use it, I can freeze it for the following week.

Start With Family Favorites

When you start working on what meals to prepare or even prep for the week, start with some favorites you know your family enjoys. You already know the ingredients and cooking process, so this is going to make it easy. It also ensures you have at least a few meals that you don’t have to think too much about. Another great place to find family recipes is to ask a trusted relative. Grandmothers and Aunts are a wealth of information for secret family recipes.

Use Current Ingredients

Don’t buy all new ingredients! Meal planning is easier and more cost-effective when you can work from what you already have, whether that is herbs or seasonings, meat in the freezer, or milk and butter in the fridge. You can even use some leftovers for different types of meals. Some recipe websites have a feature that allows you to search for recipes based on ingredients you already have. All Recipes is one that I use often to find recipes based on ingredients. You can save recipes or print them which is useful when meal planning.

Meal Planner

A handy tool for planning weekly meals is a printable meal planner. As a thank you and Free Gift for reading this blog post, here is a link to our Meal Planner. Enjoy!

Free Meal Planner

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