If you’re ready to dial in my menu board meal planning system then you are going to love using these three tips to take it to a level deeper. Here are 3 quick tips I use to make healthy meals happen on the fly.

I share my meal planning process and the repeat grocery list I reuse week after week that my husband and I both know like the back of our hands. Plus, I you’ll get access to my own personal clean-eating meal plan that adapts to the whole family!! With these easy tips, you can keep your family healthy and cook healthy meals even when you’re super busy.

Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast

A Simple System for Great Home Cooked Meals on the Fly

As work-from-home moms, typically we are the ones who are bearing the weight of making sure that food is on the table most of the time. It is a huge undertaking to always make sure people are fed with things that we feel good about putting inside of their bodies and our bodies. Not to mention, just making sure we are not just eating our children’s leftovers and actually preparing a meal for ourselves, let alone hitting the goals for our nutrition that we want. I am breaking all of that down for you.

“This weekly meal plan will help you simplify meal prep and the meal planning process so that you can cook easy, healthy meals that you feel good about giving your family.”

There is a disclaimer to this—if you have not listened to the menu board meal planning system episode, you should listen to that one too. These three tips are not a replacement for my meal planning system. This just takes it a whole level deeper.

There is also a unit inside of my Facebook group that guides you through how I plan meals for my entire family. (You can find it under the guides tab.)

You Can Meal Plan Without Processed Foods

Let’s be real. I am super busy and I think you are too. I’m not about to sit and scour over my cookbooks. I also don’t want to sit in my kitchen for hours on end, planning and cooking these elaborate meals. It’s just not a reality for me right now. I prioritize my time for other things. That does not mean that I am sacrificing the quality and the quantity of food that I put on the table for me and my family.

When I started the menu board system, what came of that is an extremely predictable system for when I go to the store and when I create meals. This is an even more hyper-focused, simplified version of that. It helps us get real serious about what we are eating on a regular basis. This is what rides me through my week no matter how busy it is. If something happens and I can’t get my meal cards out, this is my go-to meal planning system. I have it memorized like the back of my hand. My husband and kids have even come to depend on these meals. Here is how you can put these weekly menus full of your favorite recipes in place at your house.

Step 1: Know Your Staple Items

First and foremost, I need you to start writing down your staples. I am going to give you mine, but I want you to come up with your own. What is the foundation of everything that you eat on a regular basis and what do you want it to look like?

If you haven’t gotten to your ideal meals yet, learn my menu board system. That will help you dial in your go-to meals that your family loves without a fuss. Inside of your staples, I want you to make sure it really is hitting the nutritional goals you want for your entire family. Your goal is to have all of your staples on hand at all times. Trust me, this will make grocery shopping so much easier!

Step 2: Make Meal Prep Even Easier

The second part of figuring out your staples is learning to be ok with buying things that are pre-chopped or prepared for you. This is one of a number of ways that I outsource. I let the store make parts of my meals for me.

Is there an extra cost for that? Yes, but we have made sure we have worked that in as part of our grocery budget. Do I make sure I shop at stores where the pre-made meals don’t have a ton of preservatives in them? Absolutely. Trader Joe’s and Sprouts are trustworthy most of the time, but I still read every single label. I read every label because I want to know what I am putting in my body and in the bodies of my family.

Go Generic!

I saw this incredible post that took all of these brands from a traditional store and it showed the price difference between their brand, versus the Target brand organic, and it was actually cheaper! If you take the time to do your homework and set up this foundation, you can find the best price for the healthiest option.

To cook a healthy dinner at the lowest price:

• Write out your list of staple items.
• Figure out what you can get pre-made or pre-prepped.
• Check which stores have your staple foods at the lowest price.

If all you have is Whole Foods, look at your budget. They are extremely overpriced. They do have their own brand that is a little more inexpensive but you will have to be more careful there.

My dad lives in a really small town and he only has Walmart. They have amazing options there! You just have to get to know your store. It’s going to take you more time to go grocery shopping the first time. But once you dive in and look at labels, you’ll be able to cook your meal master list quickly and easily.

Step 3: Create A Repeat Grocery List for Easy Meal Planning

Here is my repeat grocery list. I use this list over and over and over again. I’m to the point I don’t even have to write it out. This is the foundation for my entire family. We have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I also have go tos for breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

My dinner menu is broken up into 3 categories. I have a category for greens, protein, and a category for clean carbs. On a piece of paper, write down dinner and then add 3 sections under that. Title those sections protein, greens and clean carbs.

Here are my staple items to help you get started:

Healthy Dinner Ideas – Greens

Every week for greens I get green beans, brussell sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, and avocado. Avocado just gets thrown in there. The green beans I get in a steamer bag. Do I love that? No, but it’s much quicker.

The other greens all get cooked and bought fresh. Each of them gets put in a cast iron skillet with coconut oil and liberal salt. Brussels sprouts and broccoli get roasted at 400 for 30 minutes and come out tasting like the best thing you have had in your life. Asparagus and zucchini are at the same temperature but it’s about 8 to 10 minutes to cook time. We do this every week.

If your kids aren’t eating greens yet, put one piece on their plate cut it up and try it. Just be happy it is on their plate. What matters is that they get used to seeing it on their plate and at some point, they will try it. Then you can tell them what we tell them, “you can either love it or like it”. Blane’s motto is you have to try everything twice. When we don’t have any of those cooked greens, we do a side of avocado. It’s still green on their plate.

Healthy Dinner Ideas – Protein

Here is the protein list. I have 6 of these as well.

The first protein I have every single week is rotisserie chicken. I can buy a rotisserie chicken with no hormones and no additives for the same price I can buy one that isn’t cooked. Bet your buttons I am buying the one that is already cooked! I usually save the bones then I make bone broth out of it.

Ground organic beef and ground organic turkey are also staple items at our house. I always get a type of sausage too, sometimes chicken sausage, sometimes pork. Then, we will always have one to two prepared types of meat on hand. I’ll buy orange chicken from Trader Joe’s or the fajitas from Trader Joe’s.

That just helps me to not have to cook meat one to two nights a week. We use protein for all different kinds of meals. Sometimes if I don’t want to do ground turkey, I’ll go with turkey cutlets or drumsticks.

Healthy Dinner Ideas – Clean Carbs

What do my clean carbs look like? Sweet potatoes at all times, brown rice or white rice, gluten-free pasta, potatoes, some type of potato medley, and spaghetti squash. I always have these things on hand to be able to just whip any one of these items. Our plate consists of protein, green, and clean carbs. Done. That is on our plates every night of the week.

What happens if it’s taco night? Well, I planned for that, and that goes on top of these staples. These staples don’t cover every single meal seven days a week. If I don’t plan any other meals, these staples with get us through at least 5 nights out of the week, then we will run to Chipotle one night on our busy weeks. This is a fail-proof way to make sure we eat at home at least 5 nights out of the week. For me, it feels like we are killing it if we do that.

For more healthy dinner recipes, check out my Top 5 Super Fast Meal Ideas.

Healthy Meal Ideas – Breakfast

There are 8 things I have on hand as a staple for breakfast:

1. Eggs, lots of eggs.
2. Breakfast meats like sausage and bacon, turkey bacon, some kind of chicken breakfast sausage, usually not pork.
3. I always have a spring mix on hand, it tastes like you are eating butter and it is amazing. When you get spring mix, it’s all the baby greens and they are so tender.
4. I also get keto breakfast sandwiches. I don’t eat keto, I eat more paleo, the only difference is the cheese. My husband loves it, I just take my cheese off. I’ll put it with roasted bell pepper or a side of greens, depending on which one I have prepped.
5. We also always have berries. If you are not on the organic berry train you should be. There are so many reasons to be, but if the only reason you do it is for taste, you will never need another reason. Pick up a package of organic strawberries and smell it. It smells like heaven. We don’t get a bunch because they are expensive, it’s just a little treat and everyone gets a small hand full in the mornings.
6. Then we have breakfast carbs. Birch Benders paleo pancakes are some of our favorites. You can get them on Amazon, Costco, or at health food stores. I also get hash brown patties, gluten-free waffles, and traditional bagels. I love Dave’s Bread. His brand has so much protein, it is unreal.
7. We also get snack rounds with nuts, seeds, and dried fruit.
8. Then if you are doing dairy, greek yogurt. If you are not doing dairy, goat or cashew yogurt is my go-to.

Healthy Meal Ideas – Lunch

We keep things pretty simple for lunch. I always have bagged salad on hand that I can just dump in a bowl, mix with my dressing, put some rotisserie chicken on it and I’m done. We always have stuff for sandwiches on hand. We can also eat leftovers for lunch.

Healthy Meal Ideas – Snacks

As far as snacks go, I always have fruit on hand. Apples, oranges, bananas, all the berries, and two seasonal fruits. I always have fruit because I want my kids to go to what is in the fridge before they go to what is in the pantry.

I also keep lots of fresh vegetables on hand like snacking carrots, snacking cucumbers, bell peppers cut up, green beans, frozen peas, and corn for the little ones. They love it!

We also have grain-free chips and tortilla chips. We do have bars on hand but I am still looking for a bar that has the same amount or more protein than carbs. I really love Perfect bars.

We also have nuts on hand and, mostly for me, chia seed pudding. We also will have some type of traditional snack. For example, peanut butter crackers, popcorn, green pea snacks, pretzels, plantains, and or other things that are a little more processed. I keep all of those in the pantry.

Meal Planning Tip: Sauces And Condiments

I always keep peanut butter, jelly, a paleo ranch, paleo buffalo sauce, salsa, mayo, honey mustard, and sometimes catsup on hand. It makes meal planning easier to know I already have healthy versions of those staples in the house.

I always keep everything on hand for my smoothies which is a bonus. This leads me right to my personal meal plan.

Meal Planning Tip: Avoid Sugar

Here is what I do most of the time: I shoot for my version of a paleo. I allow myself to have some added sugar because I am a sugarholic hardcore. I’ll sometimes have a couple of Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups at the end of the day or this amazing candy bar that is dairy free with some dairy-free caramel.

I also allow myself to have rice and potatoes but that is because I know my body type and I know the way that it responds. It doesn’t pack on the pounds and those don’t flair up my auto-immune issues.

I’ve tested it over time. You will have to do that with yourself and you will have to create your own goals for the meals you eat. Right now, I am full paleo two days of the week, all the other days I am full paleo except for one meal I allow myself to have grains then I give myself one cheat day.

I am able to adjust each meal. If the family is having burgers, I leave off the bun and turn it into a bowl. Boom, paleo. It helps me not have to cook a separate meal for myself and I can eat the same thing as the rest of my family.

Create Your Own Healthy Meal Planning System

I know this was a lot. Ultimately, I want you to take this meal planning system to make your meal master list and repeatable grocery list. If you want to steal mine join our Facebook group and then head over to the guides tab.

Or, if you want to do a deep dive into all the systems I use to keep my home and business running smoothly, join my 12-month coaching program, Systemize to Scale.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I learn more about your meal planning process and meal planning system?

Go to my podcast vault and hit command + f. You can search for “meal planning” and it will populate every episode I’ve done on meal planning. You can also find some of my favorite healthy meal ideas and healthy eating tips. I truly believe that how we fuel our bodies determines how we are able to show up for our families and our businesses.

Why is it a good idea to have specific repeatable meals?

Knowing which healthy meals your family loves and what you need to have on hand to cook them makes creating a weekly meal plan so much quicker. It ensures that you can cook a healthy dinner even when you are short or time! It takes some time to set up but this meal planning process will make your life so much easier. You can do this! We are rooting for you!