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I stumbled on this method for meal planning somewhat accidentally.
Dave and I were going pretty religiously to the gym one week (Dave goes all the time, me…not so much) and I was feeling the urge to eat healthier.
Whenever we are very focused on eating healthy, variety becomes less important and we make it a priority to plan ahead and stick to a routine. Good habits feed good habits.
In order to be prepared for healthy dinners, we picked up a large pack of chicken at Costco, about 7 pounds, and Dave grilled all of it and we put it in a container in the fridge.
I planned ahead several meals to make throughout the week with the already grilled chicken. Some dinner and some lunch.
The meals we made from the one pack of chicken were:
- Fajitas – cooked onions and peppers then reheated the chicken with them and some seasoning. Ate them with tortillas and all the fixin’s
- Salads – picked up some caesar salad kits from Publix (my personal addiction) to make easy salads and chicken caesar wraps
- Flatbreads – used lavash to make buffalo chicken flatbreads with mozzarella cheese, hot sauce, bleu cheese and onions and bbq chicken flatbreads with mozzarella cheese, bbq sauce and red onions. Just put them together and popped them in the oven to heat up the chicken and melt the cheese
While my gym habit didn’t exactly stick, the idea of creating meals based around one main ingredient did. Albeit again, by accident the following week.
We made another Costco run and stocked our freezer with a variety of proteins. However, we accidentally forgot to get the ground beef into the freezer in time – we needed to wait for some space to free up and the expiration was approaching. We came really close to wasting all 7 pounds! Tiny house, tiny freezer.
Instead of letting it go to waste, I spent about an hour cooking up all of our meals for the week from the single pack of meat.
The meals I made from the ground beef were:
- Instant pot goulash (I call it American Chop Suey, but most would know it as goulash) with onions, peppers, tomato sauce and pasta
- An easy meatloaf with some breadcrumbs, egg and seasoning topped with ketchup and brown sugar – all ingredients I had on hand
- Meat sauce combining cooked beef with some jarred sauce we picked up at Costco. I let the beef, onion and garlic cook and then simmer with the jarred sauce for a bit before putting it back into the jars to store for spaghetti night
- Veggie Beef Sloppy Joes – one of my favorite eMeals recipes
Luckily, my husband and I don’t mind eating leftovers or reheated meals. While I may not always want to cook all of our meals on a single day, it made dinnertime much easier throughout the week. Not to mention, it cut down on dishes every night.
If you don’t prefer reheated food, this method would also work just as well cooking fresh every night. You can cook a main component ahead of time, like we did with the grilled chicken, or plan out your meals and portion ahead and cook each night.
No matter how you choose to go about the cooking, this method is excellent for staying focused on planning meals for the week. Finding a few chicken recipes your family will enjoy will take less time searching than trying to find meals for several different proteins all week. It is also easier to select recipes that use similar components, such as onions, peppers, rice, etc. That way you can buy other components in bulk for the week as well.
It is also a great way to help you stay on budget. Both the chicken and beef cost around $20 for the pack that lasted our family for a week. Since we have a good stock of grains, we just need to pick up some fresh produce, breakfast and lunch options and snacks. There is less chance of wasting anything if we have a plan for everything we buy.
I am always a fan of anything that takes extra work out of planning and helps us stay on budget.
Steps to Simplified Weekly Dinner Planning
- Create a meal plan that bases most or all of your meals off of one main ingredient or protein
- Shop at bulk stores for your main ingredients
- Vary your meals – use themes to switch it up, e.g. Mexican, Italian, Asian themed nights
- Prep everything on one day, prep your main component on one day or cook fresh each day
- Stay on budget!
Cook Once Eat All Week
It turns out that there is a book specifically about this meal planning style! Coincidentally I discovered this while catching up on some of my favorite YouTube channels this week!
In Cook Once Eat All Week, Cassy Joy Garcia shares three healthy dinner recipes per week along with a list of all of the items you’ll need to create the tasty dishes based on three main ingredients. Bonus: all of the meals are gluten free.
She also offers options to meet other dietary requirements as well as instructions for Instant Pot and crockpot preparation. Needless to say I have ordered my copy and it is on the way!
The book contains 26 weeks of meal plans, which gives you a huge variety to try! If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely narrow down a few sets of recipes and master them to repeat over and over again. But, if you prefer a greater variety, you can certainly work your way through the entire book.
Would you cook once for the entire week? Or do you prefer a variety of meals?
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