3 Meal Planning and Prep Tips that Will Save You Hours in the Kitchen

How much time do you spend every week planning and preparing meals? Sometimes it feels like most of my day is spent planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up the mess all around meal planning and prep. I needed to find shortcuts to make it all go faster! Today I want to share a few tips to get you working smarter, not harder when it comes to getting meals on the table.

I’m the cook around here. It just works out that way since I’m the one who’s home all day. I’m also more talented at cooking than my husband is, so cooking has always been my responsibility. Matthew will step up to the plate when I’m sick or when he wants to be nice and make me breakfast.

But when it comes to planning and preparing for the week, that’s all on me. Why? Because food is part of my love language. I grew up in a house where time together is usually set in the kitchen, eating.

So for all my fellow meal planners and preppers, here are some meal planning and prep tips I’ve been using to work smarter, not harder.

Tip #1: Make batch meals you can eat all week.

I typically prefer variety for dinner, but I can handle eating the same thing every day for breakfast. (I ate Eggo Waffles for breakfast every day for a year when I was a kid. Just ask my mom. )

Since morning is my most productive time, I don’t want to spend a ton of time making a big breakfast for my husband and me. I make one giant casserole that can last us most of the week. He can quickly put some in a bowl on his way out the door, and I can spend my time doing my morning routine.

I also make a big batch of some meal for lunch that can be taken on the go, or I’ll make enough dinner that it can be eaten for leftovers.

Making meals in batches saves a lot of time since I don’t have to spend extra hours preparing and cleaning up meals every single day. If you can handle eating the same thing every day for a week, this is definitely something to try.

Tip #2: Create a rotating meal plan.

After I’d been making the batch meals for a while, I realized I was making the same 5-6 meals all the time. Yet every single week I’d be asking my husband what he wants for breakfast and lunch (and dinner). Then it became kind of obvious. Why was I reinventing the wheel every single time I planned the meals for the week?

I created a list of all the breakfasts and lunches I make and planned out for 6 weeks which meals I would make. Now every week when it’s time to go shopping, I don’t have to decide what to make for breakfast and lunch. It’s already decided!

You could do the same thing for dinner too —read this post here!

Tip #3: Assign a meal prep day.

Like I said, I don’t want to spend extra time in the kitchen if I don’t have to. I usually do all my batch cooking in one day. Sometimes I even grocery shop on the same day. I call it Meal Prep Monday.

Your meal prep day doesn’t have to be Monday, but it works out that way for my family since my husband goes back to work on Tuesdays.

If I’m making a batch lunch in the crock pot, I’ll try to get that going sometime during the day. Otherwise, everything happens in the evening after dinner.

Doing it all at once means I’m only in the kitchen for an hour or two just one day instead of every day.

Bonus Tip: Have a master list of all the meals you make.

I’ve shared this tip a few times before, but it’s seriously so good! If you struggle to come up with what meals to make every single week like my family does, you definitely need a Meal Master List.

Write down every single meal you make. When it comes time to plan what you’re making that week, you can just glance at your list to decide.

And there you have it. Those are my 3 tips for making meal planning and prep way easier. We have to learn to work smarter, not harder so there’s more time to do other things we love and want to do.

Make meal planning easier by compiling a list of your favorite meals. Get a FREE Meal Master List printable below.