A lot of people ask about meal planning! I LOVE IT! It helps us stay on track to eating healthy meals. For many people that know me, I also LOVE my crockpot! I use it at least 3 days a week for meals. It really is finding your own way that work best for your family to really get meal planning and prep down.
I usually sit down on Sundays and figure out what we want to eat for the week. Here is my process.
#1 Look for what ingredients you have on hand.
#2 Look at items on sale.
#3 Pick your meat/protein.
#4 Look at your schedule and see what nights you have time to make the meals and which nights are going to be made in the crockpot.
- I make a lot of meats/main dishes in the crockpot and then do a vegetable in the oven or stove top. We do A LOT of baked vegetables with olive oil and salt and pepper.
#5 Make your meal plan.
- I usually just plan main dishes and have multiple vegetable sides available to make to what we are feeling that day.
#6 Make your grocery list.
#7 Prep anything that can be done ahead of time:
- Cut up vegetables and fruit.
- Thaw any frozen meat.
- Cook any meat that can be used in multiple dishes.
- You can even cook a few meals and have them for reheating throughout the week!
I don’t go into detail of everything but I always buy our favorite vegetables and fruit to have as an add in. I also always have lettuce for a side salad. Sometimes I don’t even make all the food that we have on the list but I have all the ingredients ready if we want to!