Meal planning and meal prep for the week can either be the best or worst choice you make. We want to help make it the best with these 6 keys to doing it successfully.
Meal planning and preparation can be the most impactful things you do all week. Because come Tuesday night when you’ve worked a long day and your family is whining that they’re hungry, there’s no need to wonder what you’ll be making for dinner. Because you have a plan. And even better, it’s all prepped and ready to go.
But sometimes meal planning and prep can be a real drag. Because who wants to waste their precious weekend hours working in the kitchen instead of living it up or relaxing and enjoying those weekend hours away from the workday. Not too many of us.
The good news is, there is a middle ground. A place where you can have delicious meals at your finger-tips prepared and ready to cook yet spend far less time in the kitchen.
Here are the six keys to successful meal planning.
1. Make Meal Planning Specific To You
Our lives, needs, cravings, and desires are all a little different. That’s why it’s nearly impossible for anyone to create the ‘perfect’ meal plan for you. While we do offer a free weekly meal plan {click here to grab it} we highly advise you to take these ideas and pick and choose what is realistic for you.
Maybe you’re like Heidi who prefers to keep dinners spontaneous but needs something ready for breakfast and lunch. She focuses on meal prepping ingredients so she can be flexible and assemble as the week goes by.
Or you’re like Alexa who is perfectly fine using leftovers for breakfast and lunch but needs a more set-in-stone dinner plan so she is ready to go as soon as her three little kids get a case of pre-dinner hangrys.
Take a few minutes to understand your season of life and what your needs are, and then create your meal plan based on you.
2. Focus on Ingredients Not Meals
Let’s work to debunk two of the most common hurdles we hear about meal planning:
- You’re going to get bored eating the same foods every day.
and - You don’t have time to cook six full meals {or even one} for the week.
The good news, with our style of meal planning you can avoid both of these issues.
One of our best hacks is the foundation of our Batch Cooking Basics Guide. The secret ingredient? To focus on prepping ingredients and not meals.
Here’s how. Pick one protein, one grain, one veggie, one salad, and one dressing or sauce that compliment one another and prep just those things. Then, use those prepped ingredients to layer into any number of different meals. This method beats boredom, repetition, too many ingredients, is more friendly on the budget, and saves hours you would otherwise spend in the kitchen.
Change up your ingredients weekly to keep the ideas seasonal and fresh.
Learn more about doing this inside our Batch Cooking Basics Guide here
3. Create a Solid Plan
Now that you’ve determined what meals sound best, and which ingredients you’ll be working with, ask yourself these questions:
1. What are the most stressful meals to create during the week: breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks?
If you skip breakfast far too often, plan on prepping some slow cooker oatmeal to warm up in the office or egg muffin cups to grab on your way out the door. If you find yourself going out to eat way too often or not eating lunch at all, prep the fixings for healthful salads and add your meal prepped protein, grain and veggies and dress with your sauce.
2. How many eaters am I prepping for?
Keep this in mind when choosing the recipes you’re going to make and how much you need to prep for. Is your partner out of town for the week? Or maybe it’s girls night on Tuesday and Thursday you’re going to dinner with mom. Be realistic in your schedules and plan around them.
3. Are you a leftover lover or a fresh foodie?
Some people are perfectly okay with eating leftovers for 4 meals in a row. Others? Not so much. So for many, meal prepping success often comes by recycling main meals into new dishes through the week. Add prepped chopped broccoli and cooked whole wheat pasta stored in a gallon freezer bag to the leftovers from Sunday’s Oven Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Rosemary Butter or keep it simple with The Best Baked Chicken Breast and you have Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Whole Wheat Pasta come Monday dinner. Or prep chopped romaine lettuce, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers for a simple Chicken Caesar Salad for lunch.
Scroll through your favorite food blogs or flip through your cookbooks for ideas of ingredient combinations that work together or check out this list of apps to give you recipe ideas with ingredients you already have. Then create a grocery list based on how much you’ll need.
Grab your Grocery Shopping List here
4. Schedule It In
The one thing we know about time is if we don’t fill it, it will fill itself. We can also assure you that your time probably won’t be filled with meal planning and prep unless you schedule it. Unless of course, this is your jam.
Take a look at your schedule and set a time to meal prep and make a date with your kitchen. If you can commit to this as a standing appointment, it will more easily turn into a habit.
5. Get the Right Equipment
From containers to cutting boards, having the right tools can make this process much less painful and maybe even enjoy {that’s kind of what we’re going for}. We wanted to give you a few of our favorite must-have meal prep essentials to help you get started on the right foot!
Meal Prep Utensils:
- Worth every penny, there’s no greater kitchen utensil than this.
- The one essential you shouldn’t skimp on – these are solid, handmade and built to last.
- Change up you veggie game with this.
- Cook an entire meal on these and the smaller ones change everything.
- Slow cooked in less time these are all the rage and we know why.
Storage Containers:
- These are great for stacking, packing or freezing.
- We use these to pack soups in or extra broth and you have to get these lids.
- The smaller ones are great for sauces, juices and homemade condiments.
- For sturdier, longer-lasting options you can’t beat these.
- Of course these {the most inexpensive option} we can’t leave out.
6. Beat Meal Prep Shaming
From the beautiful and perfectly portioned meals you see others posting online, to the endless meal plans and meal prep guides you see online and magazines everywhere these days, meal prep can seem overwhelming. We get it. It looks easy, but can seem a big daunting. You may have even tapped your toe in the water only to see how much time and effort meal planning in the wrong way can become, so you’ve just thrown in the towel.
But instead of giving up, when you choose to meal prep the easy way meal prep you’ll kick meal prep shaming to the curb by finding when you discover a rhythm and routine that works for you.
Start easy, with baby steps. Prep just one meal that can turn into two, or prep only breakfast and snacks. Don’t feel like you aren’t successful if you don’t prep for the whole week. The point of meal prep is to make more time to enjoy your life and make things a little easier. Meal prep and planning should never add more stress to your life, it should be the key to reducing it.
Make Planning Easier with the 2026 Nourished Planner
You can purchase your very own 2026 Nourished Planner and change the way you live. Last year’s planner sold out so quickly so don’t delay! These won’t be around all year!
To see a quick run-down of what you can expect in this year’s version of the 2026 planner, click here.
Don’t forget to check out our Batch Cooking Basics Guide, where you’ll learn the REAL secrets to successful meal prep, and it starts with just a few simple recipes.