Our Family Meal Planning Tips
Safe to say, meal planning is an essential part of our week here at WonderMamas. I can’t imagine my life without a solid plan heading into the week when handling meals for my family, it saves my day more times than I can count! I know family meal planning seems like it takes a lot of work, time, and effort, but it saves you all 3 in the long run.
Why do I love family meal planning so much?
As I said, I am a massive advocate for sitting down and spending 30 minutes to an hour planning out family’s meals for the whole week. When you know what you are eating, you only have to go to the store once or twice a week instead of every day.
It also saves you so much mental energy because you don’t wake up every morning, asking yourself, “What are we going to have for dinner?” (Plus, when the kids ask, you can actually give them a response by having a truthful answer.)
If those two reasons aren’t enough for you, you’ll also be saving tons of money because there is no more excuse to skip the dishes by simply ordering take out.
To help you get started with meal planning for your family, here are my 3 favorite Family Meal Planning Tips for a easy whole-foods plant-based lifestyle.
My 3 Tips for Family Meal Planning
Tip 1: Follow Whole Food, Plant-Based Food Bloggers
The hardest part of meal planning is finding recipes that are simple and whole foods plant-based! Instead of making the same 5 meals on rotation, try to include a few new recipes every week. This is especially great with kids, so they don’t complain about eating the same thing every week. (Believe me, I’ve been there!)
Follow your top 5 food bloggers and start bookmarking recipes that look amazing and won’t take you 2 hours in the kitchen.
When the time comes to meal plan, pull up your saved recipes, and pick a couple to try every week! You don’t need to make something new every night, but mixing it up a couple of times a week keeps everyone somewhat interested and excited about what’s for dinner.
Also, don’t forget to check out our recipe section here.
Tip 2: Create a Go-To Family Favorite Recipes Stockpile
When your family finds a recipe that is being requested regularly, create a file on your computer or write it out on an old school recipe card. As time goes on and as your stockpile begins to grow, you can quickly flip through it and pick out recipes from there every week.
To get the whole family involved, let your kids browse through it and pick out a recipe that you’ll make for them each time. They’ll have something to look forward to during the week, and you already know that it will be Mom-Approved. It might also be a fun idea to have them draw pictures for the recipe cards too!
Tip 3: Prep your produce (or anything you can!) well in advance
My biggest tip is prepping your produce at the beginning of each week. By prepping, I mean anything from just washing and cutting, to thoroughly cooking if you’re really running low on time.
I prewash, cut and separate all of my produce I know I will be using, so when it is time to cook, I can grab it out of the refrigerator and throw it immediately in the skillet.
The Benefits of Joining a Family-Style Vegan Meal Plan
If meal planning for your family sounds like something you want to start doing, but you are unsure where to begin, I would highly recommend joining us in ‘WonderMamas Meal Plan Membership. I send out weekly meal plans which are super simple, incredibly delicious, and of course- kid-approved!
A few benefits from joining my meal plans:
Easy recipes from whole-food plant-based ingredients for the whole family to enjoy!
A new plan each week in your inbox and access to all our previous membership meal plans.
A fitness program and Kid Zone access with each membership!
Join our WonderMamas Meal Plan Membership to cut out all the stress and make living whole foods plant-based delicious for your entire family.
