Meal planning helps you reduce stress and stay organized in the kitchen, but at times, it can feel overwhelming. While each family will have their own style of planning, it’s useful to learn there are basic meal planning frameworks you can use to guide your process.
What is a meal planning framework?
A meal planning framework is a repeatable system for creating your weekly or monthly meal plan that guides your planning process. Implementing a framework for your meal planning removes the mental fatigue of deciding what to eat and when to create a streamlined approach that fits your family’s needs.
Common Meal Planning Frameworks
1. Meal plan around your schedule
Taking your schedule into account helps you incorporate meals that maximize your time, so nothing sneaks up on you and you’re prepared for the week ahead. Busy nights are great for reheating leftovers or crockpot meals that are ready when you get home.
2. Meal plan around what you have at home
If you have a large stock of staples and frozen ingredients, or you receive a food delivery, like Butcher Box or a CSA, this style of planning will help you use up what you have without overbuying at the store. This involves finding and choosing recipes based on what you have at home and only buying auxiliary items to complete a meal.
3. A meal planning template
Using a weekly template for your meal plan narrows down your recipe choices because when each day has a theme, all you need to do is find a recipe that fits into that category. Your daily themes may be based on protein type (chicken, tofu, pork, lentils, etc.), recipe category (tacos, pasta, pizza, soup, etc.), or anything that helps you simplify your choices to plan recipes quickly.
4. Meal plan for a large household
While not exactly a “plug and play” framework, planning for a large family means having enough food without buying too much while pleasing many people. Ask for input from your household on what recipes they would like to eat. Not all requests can be accommodated in every meal plan, but you can strive to make the majority happy. After you add recipes to your meal plan, adjust the servings of your recipes to feed everyone and prevent buying the wrong amounts.
5. Meal plan for a small household
The biggest hurdle for a small household is to over plan and prepare too much food. Two ways to avoid this are to plan fewer recipes each week and enjoy the leftovers, or scale recipes down so you’re only preparing exactly what you need.
6. Maximize leftovers
If you want to start utilizing leftovers in your meal plans, the first step is to plan less. Since you’re going to eat the same (or similar) meals more than once, you want to plan fewer recipes so you don’t end up with too much food. If you end up with way too many leftovers, you can always freeze a few servings and enjoy that meal again later.
7. Meal plan for flexibility
If you don’t want to cook every night or you like to eat out a few times a week, plan fewer recipes in your meal plan. This gives you a mix of planning and spontaneity so you’re not overwhelmed with food in the fridge if your plans change.
Adopting a system that suits your lifestyle – whether it’s planning around your schedule, maximizing leftovers, or using a weekly template – reduces decision fatigue, saves time, and ensures your family enjoys a variety of meals each week.
Plan to Eat is the meal planning app that allows you to plan with whatever framework or system works best for you. Start a free trial now to try it out!
