There are several ways to start planning your meals, depending on your family’s needs, tastes, and budget. If you have ample storage space, you may want to consider “freezer cooking,” which is also known as “bulk cooking” and “once a month cooking”.
In this form of meal planning, you’ll plan your meals for a whole month and complete a month’s cooking during one weekend, freezing the entrees. This method can work well if you have a busy family and need quick meals that simply need to be taken out of the freezer, thawed, and heated. Taking some of your families favorite meals and making multiple portions will ensure that your family will eat dinner that night. But a plan does need to be in place or a weekend of cooking will turn into a long drawn-out process that is less fun.
If that type of cooking doesn’t appeal to you, you can also plan your meals weekly. This is a very flexible method and you can alter it slightly to fit your family’s needs each week. The weekly meal plans here on Once A Week Cooking are built around cooking a few hours on one day and freezing the meals for later use. However, you can easily take that weekly meal plan and cook the meals fresh each day.
If your family has an extremely busy week, plan several of these short-cut meals ahead of time. You’ll have peace of mind throughout your day that your family will have a satisfying meal that night. You won’t have to scramble at the end of a hard day to find something to feed them!
Depending on your level of organization and whether you find yourself favoring plain old paper or fancy electronic gadgets, you can choose to keep track of your meal plan on a simple piece of notebook paper, a calendar that is kept by the fridge or even on your computer.
If you want to be super-organized, one idea is to write out thirty of your family’s favorite meals and rotate them during each month. You can continue to do this, in one sitting, for the entire year. This will give you a menu plan to follow so you know what to cook each day.
When planning meals, I sometimes also make extra of something, such as ground beef or beans, and freeze them. They help make whipping up a quick meal much easier. I also like making my lunches the night before, but if I don’t have time I always have back up, ready-made meals in the freezer or pantry. I particularly like the ready-made meals from Tasty Bite, which are preservative-free, all natural, low fat/salt/cal, and are made from simple ingredients. I grab one of these and have it at work. These are a few of the things I do to make my life easier, but I’ll definitely be incorporating some of the tips in this article. Thanks!
Absolutely. There are times that I will freeze up food in single portions so my husband can take it to work with him or for those nights that someone doesn’t want to eat what the rest of us are having.