How to Make a Meal Planning System that Works

Creating a tried-and-true quick, easy (and Healthy) dinner idea makes cooking dinner simple for you and your family. Today, we are going to share how to create a meal-planning system and give you tips on some easy meals to add to your weekly routine (affiliate). Follow along and create a meal-planning system that works!

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Jump to:

• Get your meal planning bins in order
• Decide on the dinner meals you will pull from each week.
• Sign up for Sabrina's Organizing Enlightened News!
• Vegetarian Dinner Options
• Caribbean Sweet Potato and Black Bean Stew Recipe
• Gluten-Free Pasta e Fagioli Recipe
• Dinner Recipes with Chicken Options
• Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Bean Stew Recipe
• Lemon Chicken with Spinach Recipe
• Delicious Grilled Rosemary Garlic Lemon Chicken Thigh Recipe
• Chicken Cacciatore Recipe in the Slow Cooker
• Quick Chicken Pasta Dinner Your Family Will Love
• Recipes with Turkey Options
• Zucchini Turkey Burger Recipe for a Weeknight Meal
• One Pan Turkey Breast with Brussel sprouts and Carrots Recipe
• Easy Turkey Chili Recipe {Freezer Meal, Make Ahead, DF, GF}
• White Turkey Chili Recipe
• Beef Recipes for Dinner Options
• Dairy Free Gluten Free Pesto Beef Burger Recipe
• Low-Carb Stuffed Peppers Soup Recipe
• Delicious Sunday Beef Roast Recipe
• Pork Recipes for Weeknight Meals
• Pork Sausage Meatballs Yams Cauliflower Recipe
• Homemade Sausage Ragù Recipe
• Eggs Bacon and Peas Spaghetti Recipe
• Now, it's time to plan your meal for the week.

If you do not have a dinner plan in place, everyone may start snack-binging with whatever is in the refrigerator and pantry (affiliate). It may be difficult for you to plan a meal because the ingredients you thought were in there are now mysteriously gone. So, planning and gathering staple items from the dinner menu to prevent their use is key.

Get your meal planning bins in order

First, let's find a place for these meal-planning bins. Meal planning bins can be placed in the fridge or the pantry (affiliate), depending on where most items are located. These bins can be acrylic or plastic, long or narrow, shallow or deep, and with color or clear. Stackable bins may be an issue if you have tall ingredients. It's your choice! Below are some I found on Amazon (affiliate) (affiliate).

Acrylic Storage Bins acrylic - 2 Pack, Clear

Buy Now →

Refrigerator 8 PACK Stackable Bins (3 sizes)

Buy Now →

(affiliate)

Wherever you place these bins, add a label for each day of the week you plan on cooking. No one likes to cook every day! Some people have a few days they order out or eat leftovers. So, buy bins for the days you will be cooking. If you have space for several bins in both your pantry (affiliate) and refrigerator, this option may work better for you to do a weekly planner.

You can also add the phrase "Tonight's Dinner" to the front of the bin if you want only one in the pantry (affiliate) and one in the refrigerator. Note that if you do it this way, you will need to pull out what you need for dinner the night before and place it into these bins.

After you install these bins in your fridge and/or pantry (affiliate), it's time to decide on your menu.

Decide on the dinner meals you will pull from each week.

This is where you need to do some investigating. Some people have go-to healthy meals each week; others (like my family) prefer variety. Creating an arsenal of healthy meals that you and your family love is key (affiliate) to keeping your family healthy, saving time on prep, and being more money-conscious.

Print out this page for one month and write the recipes your family enjoys. This can be done seasonally as well. Some people love to cook differently throughout the year. Some may want to use their grill more in the summer, while others may prefer the slow cooker (affiliate) during the winter. You can make your own, like the one below, or take a screenshot of it.

You can add up to 10 dinner meals per type on this sheet, but you do not have to use them all. If you feel comfortable with five dinner meal ideas per category, that works, too. I added a vegetarian column that can hold anything that is not meat-based. And, since people may eat a variety of meat in a month, I included the most popular types of meat-eating options. If you find that you often eat something unique, like duck, replace the column with that category name.

Fill out the form below and join our mailing list on Mailchimp! And get your free two-page planning sheet PDF, as seen above, along with all our other ebooks!

If you are still unsure what meals to add to your meal-planning arsenal, you can try some of our easy dinner recipes below.

Vegetarian Dinner Options

The link above shares all my vegetarian dinner recipes; below are just two of my favorites.

Dinner Recipes with Chicken Options

The link above shares only chicken dinner recipes that I have shared since starting my quick, healthy dinner recipes in 2015. The links below are to two recipes I love.

Recipes with Turkey Options

If you are like me and enjoy turkey all year round, the link above shares all my turkey dinner recipes. The two recipes below are my go-to ones for a quick, healthy dinner.

Beef Recipes for Dinner Options

The link above shares all my beef dinner recipes. The two recipes below are the most popular on my blog.

Pork Recipes for Weeknight Meals

If you love pork, the link above shares all my weeknight pork dinner recipes. Below are two of my favorites.

Now, it's time to plan your meal for the week.

Pick a day that is not busy for you. Pull out this list and create a menu for that week's dinner. Add each of the ingredients to the bins for that particular day. If you want, you can have bins labeled on the same day in both places. Alternatively, you can have one bin labeled "dinner for tonight" in both the fridge and the pantry (affiliate). Then, place the items needed for that dinner in those bins. Remember to place your "Meals my family loves list" in a safe (affiliate) place so you can refer to it often when you are planning that week's menu.

The above sheet can help you and your family determine what dinner will be and where the ingredients are located. For each day of the week, I added a dinner menu title column, a Where are the ingredients column, and a "Where is the recipe" column (if you need a recipe). I hope this helps keep you on track with the meal planning for each week.

By adding these columns, you will be able to delegate tasks. For example, you could establish a system where each family member cooks one day a week. You can also use this dinner menu sheet to plan takeout for the week.

I hope this meal planning system helps you and your family make healthy choices for dinner.

Below are some meal ideas I found online to further inspire you.

12 Fast & Frugal Meal Ideas for Busy Moms

Dinner idea list and menu

Looking for more interesting recipes? Visit our other recipe collection posts!