How to Meal Plan for an Entire Month

Today I have a guest post written by the lovely Jessica. Jessica is an entrepreneur, aspiring chef, master of kitchen efficiency, organization lover, and meal planning enthusiast. Be sure to check out her blog at Blend with Style to stay in the know about all things food related!

We’ve all been there. Dinnertime is on the horizon, yet both your brain and stomach are completely drained from a day of meetings, calls, or watching Frozen for the seven hundredth time. The idea of dreaming up a tasty meal much less preparing one from scratch is just too much.

Delivery anyone?

In moments like these, you need a plan. But not just any plan, you need a detailed, scalable lifestyle enhancing meal plan. Whether you’ve never heard of meal planning or are a seasoned weekly meal planning pro, I’ve worked out a thirty-day flexible system that helps put the plan in meal planning.

Better yet, you only have to do the grunt work once a month.

Here’s how to do it.

The Importance of Monthly Meal Planning

Setting yourself up for success when it comes to eating healthy is about more than just sticking to your diet. It’s also about saving money, time, and energy while taking advantage of the corporate principle called economies of scale. Hold on now, things just got technical! Stick with me and let’s discuss.

For example, business owners can often maximize their profits by making their production processes more efficient, buying in bulk, and bundling similar work together. If businesses can do it, then why can’t we?!

Now, let’s put this in a meal planning perspective.

If you already have the cutting board on the counter, knife in hand, and three carrots diced to perfection, then the amount of energy you spend chopping one additional carrot is very low. Better yet, it saves time later on from having to get washed up, find the cutting board, sharpen knives, and rummage around in the fridge for that lone carrot.

This principle also applies to menu preparation, which is one of the most crucial elements of success when it comes to creating a household scalable meal system.

The Monthly Meal Planning Method

I developed this system because I hated using my free time on the weekend, every single weekend, to make the same decisions about food over and over again. By the time Sunday night rolled around, it felt as if I had spent the entire day just sorting out what to eat in the upcoming week. Nevermind that I still had to go grocery shopping and begin actually preparing the meals.

In short, my method was created out of a desire to continue eating fresh, healthy foods without spending hours of my precious free time planning, deciding, shopping, and prepping. I am aiming to achieve the state of kitchen efficiency, if you will.

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty details when it comes to meal planning for an entire month. There are a few ways to go about this, but I’m going to focus on the method that has brought me the most success.

1. Build a Recipe Catalogue

First, take some time to build your recipe catalogue. Aim to find at least fifteen to twenty recipes per main meal of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in order to prevent getting bored from eating the same things over and over again. If you are feeling fancy, go ahead and find five to ten snack recipes as well. By the end of this step, you should have at least forty-five different recipes to work with.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, use a recipe keeper app on your phone to help you get started. It’s highly likely that you already have at least ten recipes on hand. Yes, a bowl of cereal or healthy green smoothie totally counts as a recipe! The goal here isn’t to be too strict, but to enable you with lots of awesome food choices.

To build my catalogue, I used Pinterest and various food blogs to find recipes that would work for me and my family. I searched things like ‘vegan salads without corn’ and ‘dairy-free desserts’ to make my search a little faster.

I will admit, though, that if you are managing various food allergies within your household that this part can be a bit time consuming while you read through ingredients. It may take a few nights of recipe scrolling during Netflix and chill to fully populate your catalogue.

2. Prepare a Monthly Calendar System

Second, find a monthly calendar that suits your personal preferences. Any type of calendar will work. From digital, to dry erase, to large paper wall calendars. The most important thing to ensure is that you can see the entire month in one view. It’s quite challenging to plan for a month if you must keep flipping between weekly pages. Personally, I use a digital calendar on my iPad along with my stylus.

Now that you’ve got your calendar in hand, flip or scroll to the upcoming month. You can also start mid-month if you like, but I’ve found it easier to align my thirty days of meal planning with the days of the month.

Next, grab your freshly populated recipe catalogue and arrange your recipes in a way where you can see as many of them as possible. If you are working with a small screen or limited space, try grouping your recipes by meal such as “breakfast ideas” or “snacks”.

Since I use digital tools to manage both my recipes and calendar, I take the time to type out the names of each one of my recipes in a pretty font simply because I like looking at beautiful scripts. This is not a requirement of course, but I will admit that reading the words “chopped kale salad” in a gorgeous font does make me feel more excited to eat it.

3. Make Your Monthly Meal Plan

Next, it’s time to choose meals for each day of the month. Beginning with the first week, fill in meals that you would like to eat. If staring at a totally blank calendar is overwhelming, begin by just filling in what you would like to eat for dinner. From here, move on to lunch, then breakfast.

Keep working in this pattern until you have filled up the entire calendar for the month. I usually fill in dinner and lunch ideas first since breakfast in my household typically consists of smoothies, yogurt, or fresh fruit. However, if breakfast is a big thing in your household, then take some extra time to be mindful during your planning.

The first time I did this type of monthly planning, it took me about three hours mostly because I wasn’t properly prepared with enough recipes to choose from. I’ve now got this process down to about an hour or less.

Above all, don’t forget to have some fun while planning! This is the perfect time to be intentional about trying a new recipe or practice gratitude for the ability and resources to be able to eat delicious foods.

4. Review Your Monthly Meal Plan

Now that you have filled in your entire monthly meal plan, step away from it for a few moments to give your brain a little break. You’ve just done some serious planning. Once you have rested, take another look at your monthly plan. With fresh eyes, it’s easy to spot if you have accidentally planned black beans for five nights in a row.

It’s also a good time to cross reference your events calendar to note any birthday or holiday events that may cause changes to the type of foods that you should prepare for the days surrounding the event.

Another practice to do during this step, depending on your diet, budget, and willingness to switch on the oven, is to make notes of any place where you can create cost savings by stretching meals across several days or choosing to cook through the weekend rather than order pizza.

Lastly, give your meal plan one last look to ensure that what you have planned supports your unique dietary goals. For me, if I’m aiming to trim down or boost my nutrient intake, knowing that I have spent time planning meals means that I am more likely to stick to my salad rather than spend extra money on takeout.

Putting the Monthly Meal Plan into Action

So, the plan has been set, reviewed, and finalized. It’s time to make it happen! This is where the fun really begins because now you get to start eating all of the awesome meals that you have planned.

Meal Preparation Grocery Shopping

As the start date for your meal month approaches, grab your calendar and take a look at the first week of meals. From here, use your recipe catalogue to help you make a quick shopping list of any grocery items that you will need to pick up for the week.

Additionally, look ahead at the entire month and make notes on any ingredients that you may be able to buy in bulk or spread across several meals. This strategy also works well with supporting your monthly budget as you can easily plan on exactly what you are going to spend on groceries.

I usually make a larger shopping trip at the beginning of the month to purchase dried foods like pasta, cereal, nuts, and rice. I also use this trip to buy any canned goods, spices, or frozen foods. Essentially, if it still tastes good after being stored for up to a month, then I’m adding it to my grocery cart and crossing it off the list!

Overall, it’s a great opportunity to buy in bulk, use coupons, and double down on managing a grocery budget.

Shopping and Preparing Fresh Produce

If you are aiming to incorporate fresh foods into your meal plan, then you will need to set aside some time each week to shop for fresh produce. Luckily, since you have already done the heavy lifting of deciding what to eat, all that is left to do is create your shopping list and hit the grocery store.

Once you return from your shopping trip, take some time to quickly wash, chop, and store any ingredients for fresh meals throughout the week. Chopping things ahead of time, like peppers, onions, and fruits, can be a huge time saver when it’s time to actually prepare your planned meal.

I usually use Sunday afternoon as my time to quickly shop for any fresh produce that I need for my weekly meals. After that, I make time to wash and chop any fresh ingredients that I intend to use during the week.

Monthly Meal Planning Tips

As with most things, there are ways to make monthly meal planning as easy as possible. After all, a plan isn’t a good plan unless it is achievable. Let’s explore a few tips and tricks.

Meal Plan Resources

When setting up your plan, take some time to think about all of the resources available to you. Understanding what you are working with will help ensure that you are able to meet your meal planning goals. These resources can include grocery coupons, meal subscription services, food delivery app deals, extra freezer space, seasonal vegetable discounts, or additional help in the kitchen.

If you live with others, such as partners, teenagers, or roommates, make sure that you include a recipe on your meal schedule that says individuals can make independently. This trick serves double duty of freeing up some time for you as well as sharing any household responsibilities.

Additionally, there is absolutely nothing wrong with planning a few or even all meals based entirely around a delivery service. In fact, sometimes this can be the best way to get started with learning how to prepare fresh meals.

In my planning, I go for a hybrid approach of mostly fresh meals Monday through Friday and opt for delivery on some weekends. I do this because I love supporting local restaurants and also because sometimes, I just want to enjoy food that I did not prepare. Real talk!

Meal Ideas to Enhance Monthly Meal Planning

Emphatically, there are certain meals that make meal planning much easier. For example, I have at least eight crockpot meals in my recipe catalogue. I usually schedule these for Monday and Tuesday night because my family doesn’t mind eating the same dinner two nights in a row. I also love crockpot meals because I can chop everything on Sunday during my prep time.

For lunches, I usually alternate with salads and roasted vegetables because it’s easy to prep these things ahead of time during my Sunday afternoon shop, wash, and chop party. I’ll take some time to roast a few sweet potatoes or summer vegetables while I wash and chop fresh salad ingredients.

Another helpful tip is to give yourself a break from cooking and dishes by subbing in an easy meal like “pasta with sauce from a jar” or “peanut butter and jelly”. These easy meals also work great at the end of the week when you just can’t handle another salad for lunch.

Overall, the meal plan should work for you and not against you. If you find, after one month, that you feel drained from cooking, then try scheduling in a few more easy meals that anyone in the household can easily prepare.

Conclusion

Meal planning for an entire month can seem intimidating, but equipped with the right resources, you will be well on your way to taking back your health, budget, and schedule! In fact, if you don’t mind eating the same things over and over again, you can get started with just a few simple recipes.

The best meal plan is the one that works for your lifestyle and household. Your plans should enable your goals and therefore, your overall well-being. So, new meal planning master, clear your mind, set your intentions, and make a plan.

-Xo

Kimora