Maria Gracia responds
Hi Sheila,
Thank you for asking. When it comes to meal planning, I suggest a very simple plan to start. Plan dinners only and plan 3 to 5 days at most. Once you feel comfortable with that and it's working well, you can add other meals (breakfast and lunch), or go up to all seven days if you would like
to.
Let's look at a sample 3-day meal plan that would be great for meal-planning for beginners.
Monday: Meatless Meal (plan on a pasta recipe, or a veggie and rice stir fry)
Wednesday: Chicken (Perhaps grilled chicken, corn on the cob, and a kale salad)
Friday: Fish (Baked salmon, sautéed spinach, and rosemary potatoes)
Here are some start-up meal-planning tips:
- Do your meal planning on the same day every week, at the same time. Get this appointment on your calendar.
- Give each day a "theme" like meatless, chicken, fish, pasta, beef, pizza, etc. This way, you can look for recipes that match that theme.
- Make enough for two meals every time you cook and freeze one portion. Then, as you're planning, you can toss in a "planned leftovers" night...which is great for those busy nights. Just heat and eat.
- For the most part, make meals you know how to make already. Doing so makes meal planning easier. If you want to choose meals from cookbooks, chose easy meals to start (like 5 ingredients or less, or 15 minutes prep or less).
- Don't forget, portions of your meals don't have to be "cooked." I'll often serve a chicken dish with raw veggies and/or fresh fruit.
I hope this helps you get started! Feel free to reply with any questions and I'll cover those in a future issue.
