A Simple Meal Plan

Meal plans. I love them and wouldn’t be able to function without them. After battling a cold that had officially kicked my butt, I was in need of an easy meal plan for the week ahead. I quickly browsed through my past meal plans (yes, I keep just about all of them so I don’t forget favorites!) and was able to throw together a simple plan. My grocery list included five dinners, breakfast essentials, fresh produce, and snacks. I also ended up grabbing a couple extras such as toilet paper, a silverware organizer, and diapers. All the shopping was done at Aldi, my favorite, and I spent less than $130!

Here’s a look at our dinners:

• Burgers with homemade baked beans.

• Waffles with bacon, roasted breakfast potatoes, and fresh fruit.

• Crockpot Coconut Curry Chicken over rice with steamed broccoli.

• Stephanie’s Lentil Soup with sourdough boule bread.

• Creamed chicken over biscuits with steamed peas.

I made the recipes in this order and here’s why… The baked beans made on the first night needed 4 strips of bacon, so I went ahead and cooked the entire pack and saved the extras in the fridge. The baked beans also called for 1/2 an onion, but I went ahead and chopped all my onions and froze them to save for future recipes. But back to the bacon! The next night was breakfast for dinner. So on the side of the waffles, I went ahead and pulled out the bacon and quickly reheated it.

Speaking of waffles, I doubled my recipe and froze the extras. These were eaten for breakfast throughout the rest of the week. I just grab one out, break it in half, and pop it in the toaster to warm through. Then we top with either organic maple syrup or peanut butter with fresh fruit. Any time I make breakfasts, I try to double it and freeze the extras. This just makes future breakfasts that much easier.

Next up on the roster was crockpot coconut curry chicken. This is such a delicious comfort meal from Naptime Kitchen. The leftovers are fantastic too! It does call for diced onion, but luckily I had already prepped that and grabbed what I needed out of the bag in the freezer. Crockpot meals are about as easy as it gets. Which leads me to my next meal!

Stephanie’s lentil soup. Throw it all in the crockpot and come back to such a cozy, tasteful soup. I served this with leftover sourdough boule that I had made earlier in the week. But if you’re not a sourdough baker, any french bread would be great as well!

Last but not least, we finished the week with creamed chicken over biscuits. I let the chicken cook in the crockpot throughout the day so it would be ready by dinner. The cream sauce literally takes about 5 minutes to whip up and in the meantime, you can bake the biscuits in the oven and steam your peas. Y’all, this is so fast! And you finish off the week with an ultra filling, creamy dinner that the whole family will love.

“But don’t you have SO MANY leftovers?”

Yes! And we love leftovers! Anything that’s leftover is eaten for lunch in the consecutive days or is frozen. This makes every other meal that much easier to put together. Leftovers are my favorite for this very reason. Leftovers also give me some wiggle room in case there’s a night where I just really don’t feel like cooking, then that night is deemed leftover night!

A few extra notes:

Our snacks mainly consist of fresh fruit, trail mix, homemade bread/muffins, homemade crackers, veggies, and veggie straws.

Any dessert and all sandwich bread is homemade. This saves us a lot of money, I know exactly what’s in the ingredients, and I just really love baking!

We do eat out once or twice a week either for convenience, date night, or with friends. But we try to eat at home as much as possible with as many homemade foods as possible. Having your meals planned out in advance is super helpful! No rushing to the store multiple times a week or staring aimlessly at your pantry. Keep your grocery list/meal plan hung up in your kitchen throughout the week to easily refer back to.

Enjoy!