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I love the idea of meal planning. Some people are incredibly good at it—and disciplined enough to actually stick with all that planned and prepped food.
I am not one of those people.
I will plan our weekly meals, buy all the food, and then somehow something comes up. We go with a simpler dinner, catch a quick bite out to eat, have a meal with family, or just don't feel like eating what I planned. And then my beautifully laid-out meal plan goes to pits.
I also really do NOT enjoy meal prepping on Sundays.
We try to relax and take it easy as much as possible on Sundays. Prepping multiple meals and making sure I have every single grocery in the house by Sunday afternoon is basically the complete opposite of relaxing for me.
But there is something I DO try to do that I've found much more manageable:
While I'm already cooking one meal, I double up on main ingredients or sides that I can use for the next meal.
It's basically meal prepping without having a "meal prep day."
Cook Once, Use It Twice
One of the simplest ways to do this is to plan two rice-heavy meals back-to-back.
For example:
Monday: Chicken and Rice Stir-Fry Tuesday: Chicken Quesadillas with Rice, Cannellini Beans, and Guacamole
On Monday, I can make double the chicken so I have enough for both meals. This may mean cooking the chicken a little differently than the stir-fry recipe originally suggests, but that's fine.
I also double the rice.
Now when Tuesday rolls around, two of the more time-consuming parts of dinner are already done.
All I really have to do is assemble the quesadillas, open or cook some beans, and mash up some avocados.
That's my kind of meal prep.
Then Keep the Ingredients Moving
The next couple of meals might look something like this:
Wednesday: Pasta with leftover cannellini beans, ground beef (I usually have a couple pounds precooked and in the freezer), sauce, and cheese Thursday: Leftovers from the first three nights
Wednesday uses the beans from Tuesday. You can even use whatever cheese is left from your Mexican dinner for a baked pasta dish.
Then comes Thursday.
As a kid, I hated leftovers.
As a mom of four kids now, I LOVE leftover night.
We clean out the fridge to make way for the weekend. Everyone doesn't even have to eat the same thing. If the kids want something simple like eggs or PB&J instead, I'm up for that too.
Dinner is dinner.
Friday Is Pizza Night
This is just how my family flows, but Friday has always been pizza night.
We used to buy frozen pizzas. Then we went on a kick to discover the best pizza restaurants in Southern PA. Then that got too expensive, so now we're making our own, which is extremely easy to do- do not be intimated to make your own pizza! We’re currently living in a 600 sqft apartment without a standard oven and I’ve been able to keep up my pizza baking game with our awesome Breville Joule Toaster Oven…I can even proof my dough in it! It has a proofing setting that allows you to set the temperature from 80F to 110F. It’s my favorite kitchen appliance, even more than my grandma’s 24 year old KitchenAid mixer that is still going strong today!
You can make pizza dough in bulk one night and freeze enough for the rest of the month. You'll love your Type A personality on all the subsequent pizza nights when you remember there's already dough waiting for you.
I've also been trying to ditch pre-shredded cheese, so I tend to have either a brick of mozzarella in my fridge. My balance between easy and not shredded is to use sliced provolone/mozzarella in my fridge. It makes dressing the pizza so easy.
AND—remember those vegetables from earlier in the week?
If you slice peppers and onions Monday or Tuesday, keep Friday in mind and set a little aside for your pizza.
A little bit of veggies on a pizza goes a long way!
Saturday Is the "What Do We Have?" Meal
Saturday is hit or miss because if there's going to be a day when we aren't home for dinner, it's usually Saturday or Sunday.
That's why I like to reserve sheet-pan meals for these days.
I almost always have some frozen chicken, a few potatoes, onions, and a frozen bag of some kind of vegetable in my freezer—although my favorite combo will always be broccoli, onions, and sweet potatoes (purple and orange look beautiful together!).
Lately we've been splurging a little and buying chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts. They're more expensive, but I find thighs much easier to gauge for how much my family will actually eat.
Chicken breasts are HUGE now. One isn't enough for my family, but two is too much, and then I'm left with an awkward amount of dry chicken breast because I still can't bake a tender chicken breast!
So chicken thighs it is.
Throw the chicken (don’t forget to thaw it!), potatoes, onions, and vegetables on a sheet pan, season everything, and dinner is basically done.
And Then There's Sunday: Grandma's Roast
Grandma's Sunday roast was actually a novel idea.
Pick a large piece of meat:
- Pork loin
- Pork butt
- One or two whole chickens
- A large chuck roast
- Whatever large cut works for your family
Cook it on Sunday. And yes…I can cook a WHOLE chicken in my Breville Toaster Oven too!
You can use some of it for a quick and easy Sunday dinner—maybe a salad, wrap, sandwiches, or meat with a couple of simple sides—and then use the rest as your protein for meals during the beginning of the week.
That means when Monday rolls around, you aren't necessarily starting with raw meat again.
And then the rhythm starts all over.
Bonus: It Makes Lunch Easier Too
I've also started using leftover chicken from whole roasted chickens for lunchtime instead of always making chicken nuggets.
When I realized my kids didn't really care what type of chicken they were consuming, just that they had enough Chick-fil-A sauce, I changed my chicken game to an easier, cheaper, and healthier version!
Leftover roast chicken + Chick-fil-A sauce = perfectly acceptable kid food.
# My No-Sunday-Meal-Prep Meal Prep Plan
In a nutshell, this is what my weekly dinner rhythm tends to look like….at least I dream that it looks this way. Again, schedules shift, especially during the summer and holiday season:
Sunday — Roast Night Cook a large piece of meat. Use it for an easy Sunday dinner and save the rest for meals during the week.
Monday — Asian-Inspired Dinner + Rice Use meat from Sunday when it works. If not, cook enough chicken for Monday and Tuesday. Make extra rice for Tuesday.
Tuesday — Mexican/Hispanic-Inspired Dinner Use Monday's rice and whatever leftover meat is available. Make or open extra beans to use Wednesday (cooking dry beans may sound intimidating but it’s really not that bad- just requires extra planning).
Wednesday — Italian/Pasta Night Use leftover beans and any cheese that needs to be used up. Add leftover meat if it works with the meal.
Thursday — Leftover Night Clean out the fridge. Supplement with eggs (breakfast for dinner), sandwiches, fruit, or another easy food if needed.
Friday — Pizza Night Use homemade or frozen dough and whatever cheese, meat, peppers, onions, or other toppings are hanging around.
Saturday — Sheet-Pan Dinner Use remaining vegetables—usually potatoes, onions, and broccoli for us—with chicken thighs or another easy protein like sausage (although I am trying to really reduce our deli meat consumption).
Sunday — Roast and Reset Keep dinner low-key, cook another large piece of meat, and start the rhythm again.
Important to note- I usually make a couple of loaves of fresh bread throughout the week to buff up our meals. My family can hound a loaf of bread in no time, especially if it's freshly made a few hours before dinner!. When it’s really hot, I even bake it on the grill. We do what works in this household. Sometimes it looks pretty and sometimes it’s simply functional- IYKYK!
Meal Planning Without a Meal Prep Day
The point isn't to perfectly plan seven dinners and stick to them no matter what happens because that's exactly the kind of meal planning that doesn't work particularly well for me.
Instead, I want each meal to do a tiny bit of work for the next one.
Cook the rice once. Cook extra chicken. Save half the beans. Chop an extra pepper. Shred enough cheese for two meals. You're already standing in the kitchen. You're already dirtying the cutting board. You're already waiting for the rice to cook. Just make a little more.
Then tomorrow, when it's 4:30 PM and everyone is hungry and you’re praying for patience and your husband to come home just 5 minutes earlier today, you can hasten the dinner process just a smidge!
And that's my ideal version of meal prep. And it doesn't require spending my Sunday afternoon filling containers.