A Simple Meal Planning System for Busy Homemakers
Inside: Meal planning doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple system can help reduce decision fatigue and simplify your week.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Why Meal Planning Is Worth the Effort
Mealtime decision fatigue is real. I know because I’ve experienced it many times over my 40 years as a homemaker. We plan (and execute) thousands of meals in our lifetime, so I’m always looking for ways to reduce that decision fatigue.
Years ago I created a menu planning course, and the simple principles I’m sharing here are the same ones I’ve used in our home for years. It’s how most of my weeks function, and it’s especially helpful in seasons like the one I’m in right now, when routines are disrupted and the days feel a bit unpredictable.
Maybe you’ve had a meal planning system that worked well for years, but life got busy, schedules changed, or you simply found yourself in a bit of a rut. That’s where I’ve been lately. Sometimes we simply need a little encouragement to get back to the habits that have served us well.
Meal planning is an act of stewardship. It’s one of the ways we lovingly care for those the Lord has entrusted to us. A simple plan helps us serve our families well, use our grocery budget wisely, and spend less time wondering what’s for dinner.
How Theme Days Simplify My Planning
One of the easiest ways I’ve found to simplify meal planning is to assign a theme to each day of the week. When I do this, I already have a framework to start with. It removes much of the mental load of trying to decide what to make for dinner each night.
The beauty of this system is that you’re not forcing your family into someone else’s meal plan. You’re simply creating categories that fit your home and the way you already cook and the meals your family enjoys. Choose the ones that best fit the way your family eats.
Here are a few theme day ideas to get you started:
- Slow Cooker
- Air Fryer
- Soup
- Quick & Easy
- Pasta Night
- Pizza Night
- Taco/Mexican
- Grill Out
- Leftover Night
- Salad for Dinner
- Breakfast for Dinner
- Chicken Night
- Sandwich Night
- Sheet Pan Meals
- Meatless
- Seafood Night
- Emergency Dinners
How to Build a List of Family Favorites
Choose six or seven categories that are a good fit for your family. I would even include your family in the discussion so you’re not making all the decisions yourself. It’s helpful to know everyone’s favorites.
Then begin adding three to five meals under each one. Don’t overthink it. Start with the meals you already know your family enjoys. It takes a little time to put together, but it saves so much time in the future because you’re no longer starting from scratch each week.
As you build your list, make sure some of your meals are especially easy for busy days. When I’m planning my week, I always note our calendar commitments. If we have a meeting at 6:30 in the evening, I’m choosing a meal that’s simple to prepare and easy to clean up afterward. If I know I’ll be gone most of the day, I may choose something I can toss in the slow cooker before I leave in the morning.
One thing that has simplified meal planning in our home is making good use of leftovers. Most of our lunches are simple leftovers from the night before, so I don’t do a lot of separate lunch planning around here. I usually cook our dinners with that in mind, making enough so we have another meal the next day. We often turn leftover meat into rice bowls, salads, wraps, or grain bowls for lunches. Planning with leftovers in mind helps stretch both our time and our grocery budget.
Keep Your Meal Ideas in One Place
Another thing that helps is keeping all of your meal ideas in one place. I keep mine in my Remarkable tablet, and I also have a running list in Apple Notes. But you can store yours in whatever system works best for you—a notes app, Pinterest boards, the Paprika recipe app, a binder, notebook, or even a simple file folder.
I’ve especially appreciated using the Paprika app for storing recipes. I’m not an affiliate for it, but it has been such a helpful tool because I can keep both my own recipes and ones I find online all in one place. Pinterest never worked that well for me as a place to store recipes, so this was a great find. I also appreciate having the app with me when I travel. If we’re cooking at an Airbnb or I’m at the grocery store and want to quickly check the ingredients for a recipe, it’s all right there.
The important thing isn’t which system you choose. It’s simply having one place where you can easily find the meals your family already enjoys. You don’t want your meal ideas scattered in five different places where you can never remember what you saved or where you wrote it down. The simpler the system, the more likely you are to keep using it.
Make It Even Simpler
Now, if theme days feel like too much right now, just start by making a list of twenty meals your family enjoys. That alone gives you a month’s worth of meal-planning ideas and removes the pressure of starting from scratch each week.
You don’t have to build a perfect system all at once. Just start with the meals you know your family already likes. Write them down in one place. Then over time, you can sort them into categories if you want to.
As you continue adding meals, your list becomes more valuable over time. That’s one of the nice things about building a simple system like this. It grows with you. The more you use it, the more helpful it becomes.
You can use this same idea for other areas of meal planning too. If it’s helpful, you might keep a short list of simple breakfasts, easy lunches, company meals, or even a few favorite snacks and desserts. But I’d encourage you to start with dinner meals first and build from there.
Start with What You Already Have
When I sit down to plan the week, I usually begin by checking my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer to see what I already have on hand. It’s one of the easiest ways to use up food before it goes to waste and keep our grocery budget in check.
If I have ground beef in the freezer, leftover chicken in the fridge, or vegetables I need to use up, I build my meals around those first. It helps me make good use of what I already have before buying more.
Once I’ve looked at what we have on hand, I make my grocery list based on the meals I’ve chosen for the week. If it’s helpful to have a simple place to write out your meals and grocery list for the week, I also have a free weekly menu planning PDF that you’re welcome to use.
On busy weeks, I also make use of online grocery shopping. It’s been a helpful option because I tend to buy what I actually need and skip a lot of the extras that can end up in the cart when I’m shopping in the store.
Creating a Weekly Meal Plan in Minutes
Once you have your categories built, meal planning becomes choosing from a list rather than starting from scratch every week.
Instead of wondering what to make, you’re simply selecting meals from categories you’ve already created. That removes much of the mental load and makes planning faster and easier.
I’m not trying to create the perfect meal-planning system. I’m simply trying to remove as much unnecessary mental clutter as I can so I can use that time and energy in better ways.
You certainly don’t need to use my exact categories or meal ideas, but sometimes it helps to see what this looks like in real life. Here are a few examples from my own meal lists:
Air Fryer
- Chicken, potatoes, and salad
- Salmon bites with broccoli
Slow Cooker
- BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
- Pot Roast and Vegetables
Soup
Quick & Easy
- Rice bowls from leftovers
- Breakfast for dinner
Pasta Night
- Protein pasta with chicken and spinach
- Spaghetti and meatballs
Pizza Night
- BBQ chicken pizza on Joseph’s pitas
- Naan bread pizzas
Taco/Mexican Night
- Ground beef tacos
- Burrito bowls
Grill Out
- Burgers, brats, or hot dogs
- Chicken
Final Thoughts
Don’t feel like you need to build the perfect meal planning system this week.
Start small. Choose a few theme days, list some family favorites, and keep them all in one place. Add new meals as you discover them.
Before long, you’ll have a personalized meal planning system that saves time, reduces decision fatigue, and makes answering the question, “What’s for dinner?” much easier.
It doesn’t have to be complicated to be helpful. A simple meal planning system can bring a little more order to your week and help you steward your time, your resources, and the care of your family well.
And as with all of our homemaking, the goal isn’t perfection. It’s simply faithfulness in the work the Lord has given us to do today. Even in something as ordinary as planning meals, that work matters.
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