As much as I love homemade food, I don’t especially want to be tied to the kitchen every single day for one to two hours as a slave to my meal planning. And who does, really? Definitely not busy work-at-home moms. And probably not you either.

Boxed and canned food doesn’t fly around here, and there are only so many 10-minute real-food meals you can make before you start craving things like slow-simmered stews, shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, roasts with mashed potatoes, butter chicken from scratch, taco salad with homemade guacamole and pico de gallo… (pardon me while I salivate.)

One of the things that used to really trip me up in my meal planning efforts was when I would plan meals like the above-mentioned every day. Inevitably I’d find myself on Wednesday or Thursday having run out of steam in the kitchen, texting hubs to bring home a rotisserie chicken and ditching the meal plan for the rest of the week.

This was my pattern for the longest time: I start out excited, but the reality of the daily work of it all starts to hit, and I long for a break.

So, one strategy that I use now is to work in breaks for myself, right into my meal plan. (Duh, right? But oh my, what a difference.) Now, the weeks are much more manageable, and I’ve learned to pace myself in my meal plan.

I usually find that it’s a nice balance of some days where I spend a therapeutic few hours in the kitchen chopping and simmering and creating, and other days where I sip a cup of tea on the couch with a good book while leftovers heat in the oven. Perfect.

So how I do it?

Here are four meal planning tips for when you don’t feel like cooking:

1) Roster of 10-Minute Meals

For us, it’s breakfast-for-dinner, quinoa pasta and peas, or bun-less burgers and steamed veg…. these are all things I can whip up in 10 minutes without notice or forethought. 

Instead of flaking out on your meal plan because you don’t want to cook another time or labour-intensive meal, PLAN to have some of those simple go-to meals from the start. My family loves all of them, and has zero complaints about these simple meals mixed into the week.

2) Leftovers

Leftovers are my best friend. (I mean it. My devotion runs deep.) Make double or triple of a recipe and plan to eat leftovers the next night. It’s homemade food you didn’t have to make on the night-of, and it. is. awesome.

The next night (or at lunch the next day) you’ll be congratulating yourself on your brilliance.

3) Use Your Crockpot

This one requires forethought, yes. But that shouldn’t be a problem now that you’re meal planning regularly, right? 🙂

Be sure to plan crockpot meals for busy days where you know that the dinner hour will be a stressful rush. Right now the kids are in swimming lessons at 5pm on Thursdays, which is a perfect night to pull out the slow cooker.

4) Freezer Cooking

There’s no rule that says you have to cook during the week if you don’t want to… but you can still have homemade meals. There are tons of great freezer recipes out there!

And if you’re really into it, why not do a day of freezer cooking? Then you can plan to use freezer meals in your weekly meal plan. I once did a huge freezer cooking day with several friends. We spent about eight hours cooking five or six recipes, and each went home with about forty meals for our freezers. It was the best.

Check out: Quick Healthy Meals Ultimate Guide (101 Tips, Recipes, and Strategies) for more ideas!

This is Week Two of our Plan It Like You Mean It meal planning challenge. Last week was FANTASTIC for me. It felt so much more relaxed and in control, knowing exactly which meals were coming up on the plan and prepping for them accordingly.

(Now we see if I can keep the momentum going!)

Side note: If you haven’t signed up for our meal planning challenge yet, you can jump in anytime. It includes weekly emails, a Facebook group, and the kick in the pants you know you need. Sign up here:

And join us in the Plan It Like You Mean It Facebook group for inspiration and community.

I LOVE not having to use valuable brain space for the last-minute dinner scramble, and I loved not having to resort to less-than-healthy options because I hadn’t planned properly.

Here’s a screenshot of my meal plan for this week, in my favourite online meal planning tool, Plan to Eat . It’s super handy to import recipes from the internet, drag and drop things, rearrange, and create your grocery list (that you can access from your phone)

The Plan It Like You Mean It challenge is sponsored by Plan to Eat. (Because eating at home should be easier, and they can help make that happen!)

Monday

Breakfast: Oatmeal for kids // eggs for parents
Lunch: Spicy vegetable soup and mixed greens salad with kale and pumpkin seeds
Dinner: Ricci Family Chili + green salad

Tuesday

Breakfast: Eggs for everyone + green smoothies
Lunch: Chili leftovers (freeze some for Friday)
Dinner: Potato-bacon soup + green salad

Wednesday

Breakfast: Oatmeal for kids // eggs for parents
Lunch: Potato-bacon soup leftovers
Dinner: Simple roast chicken + mashed potatoes + peas + gravy

Thursday

Breakfast: Eggs for everyone + green smoothies
Lunch: Roast chicken leftovers
Dinner: Leftovers -or- bun-less burgers with veg, depending on what’s left in the fridge

Friday

Breakfast: Almond meal pancakes + bacon
Lunch: Green salad with chicken
Dinner: Out at a wedding (chili leftovers from freezer for kids)

Saturday & Sunday

Aliza and I are headed to Toronto for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. Hubby is a totally capable cook and will take care of meals for the boys’ weekend at home!

Some notes:

• I kept it simple for this week because we just ended our special elimination diet (from the book, The Plan) and it was pretty intense in the kitchen.
• I’m trying out a “leftovers -or- burgers” plan, because I’m not really sure how many leftovers there will be when Thursday rolls around. Hopefully that’s enough of a contingency plan to let me roll with anything that might come shift or change.

Which meal are you most looking forward to this week?

This was post #3 in our Plan It Like You Mean It challenge. Here’s the series so far:

Plan It Like You Mean It (Join Me for an Eight-Week Meal Planning Challenge!)
Meal Planning & Procrastination (Plan It Like You Mean It, Week 1)
 >> 4 Meal Planning Tips for When You Want a Break from Cooking (Plan It Like You Mean It, Week 2)

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