How do you feel about meal planning?

Even though I’m a nutritionist, I sometimes struggle with motivating myself to cook dinner, especially at the end of a busy day.

To combat this, I find it helpful to plan my meals each week. It only takes half an hour and I write my shopping list at the same time.

One way to make the planning process as quick and easy as possible (and ensure your family has a balanced diet) is to sort meals into categories, for example,

Monday – meat-free / egg-based

Tuesday – stir fry with noodles or rice

Wednesday – Italian

Thursday – soup / casserole

Friday – fish/seafood

Saturday – Mexican or Indian

Sunday – roast dinner / “meat and three veg”

My meal plans are never set in stone and I often swap meals around but I find that having some sort of plan helps me stay organised, saves me a lot of time and eliminates those stressful 5pm “what am I going to cook for dinner?” moments. You can even get the kids involved in the meal planning by asking them to choose meals for each category.

As an added bonus, meal planning saves money and reduces food waste as we tend to only buy what we need. Using a meal plan also reduces the need to rely on less healthy takeaway and fast food options.

Here are some suggestions for each category:

If you’d like help with meal planning, click here to sign up to my mailing list and I’ll send you my free meal planning guide and printable templates.