Meal Planning for the Busy Bee

If you ever find yourself spending far too much time in the kitchen and not enough time doing other things, like helping your kids with homework or having some quality time with your spouse, then look no further – we’re here to help!  The answer to your dreadful cooking nightmares is meal planning!  Here are some helpful tips for how to go about meal planning:

Plan out your week in advance.  Trust me, this will keep you from going insane!  Choose a day to plan out the upcoming week and spend some time coming up with recipes and ideas.  There are some great printable meal planners out there to help you!  I love the planners that have a place to write up your grocery list so that everything is in one place – it helps to keep me organized.  There’s also meal planning services out there, such as The 6 O’Clock Scramble and Plan to Eat, that can help make your life a little easier.

Designate a day of the week to meal prep.  Sunday always works best for me, but, by all means, pick the day that works best for you!  This is the day to do all your slicing and dicing, as well as prep anything that can be cooked ahead of time, such as hard boiled eggs, muffins, and home-made granola bars.  I would suggest prepping a week’s worth of food since most of these food items can only last up to a week in the fridge.

Double recipes so that you’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.  If you’re making orange chicken, broccoli, and rice, double the recipe so that you won’t have to worry about making dinner or lunch tomorrow!  Another great idea is to use the “doubled” ingredients to make a different dish.  For example, say you’re going to make tacos tonight, you can double your taco recipe and use half of it to make a Mexican casserole dish.  Throw the casserole in the freezer and all you’ll have to do tomorrow is put it in the oven!

Make the slow cooker your best friend.  My Crock-Pot is literally a life saver!  I prep all the ingredients the night before (or on Sunday) and then throw everything together into the Crock-Pot in the morning and, voila, it’s ready by the time I get home in the evening – it’s amazing!  Another awesome idea is to prep the ingredients, place them in a freezer bag, and freeze them for whenever you need them!  Sidetracked Sarah provides a TON of incredible freezer-to-slow cooker recipes.  She’s laid out 6 recipes per week and gives us 12 weeks’ worth of recipes – amazing!