The difference between our meals during weeks when we take the time to plan and prep and the weeks when we don’t are night and day. I’ve shared a few of our weekly meal plans in some of my Monday morning weekend recap blog posts, but I’ve had more than a few of you request a more elaborate post about our meal planning routine. Today’s post will take you through our weekly meal plan for this week and includes details as to what I prepped ahead over the weekend to make throwing dinner together a breeze at the end of a long day.
Please note: All recipes I followed for this week’s meal plan are linked below.
One Week Meal Plan: Prepping 5 Healthy Dinners
- Monday: Vegetable Noodle Soup with Fresh Berries
Prep ahead: Chop celery, carrot, garlic and onion.
Day of: Cook soup on stove top. (I added some frozen shelled edamame to our soup on Monday night for a punch of protein and made a double batch so we’d have leftovers.) Serve with fresh raspberries and blueberries on the side.
- Tuesday: Italian Meatloaf with Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Whole Wheat Garlic Bread
Prep ahead: Prepare meatloaf and cover but wait to bake it. Prep sauce. Chop the ends off Brussels sprouts and slice in half.
Day of: Bake meatloaf. Toss Brussels sprouts in olive oil and garlic salt and roast while meatloaf is baking. Heat sauce and bring to a simmer. Spread a smear of butter on top of a couple of slices of whole wheat bread and sprinkle lightly with garlic salt before toasting.
- Wednesday: Chicken Sausage Hoagies with Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Prep ahead: Slice 1 large onion and 1 large sweet bell pepper. Slice 4 chicken sausage links and combine everything in a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cover and store in the fridge. Roughly chop 4 sweet potatoes. (You will save two of the chopped sweet potatoes to serve for dinner on Friday night.)
Day of: Place chicken sausage, peppers and onions in the oven and bake at 350 for 45 minutes, or until onion becomes soft. Toss chopped sweet potatoes in olive oil and Montreal Steak Seasoning (or salt and pepper) and roast along with the chicken sausages. Scoop cooked chicken sausage, peppers and onions into whole wheat sub rolls and serve with sweet potatoes. Store leftover sweet potatoes in the fridge.
- Thursday: Black Bean Quesadillas with Leftover Veggie Soup
Prep ahead: Chop vegetables for quesadilla. (I used onions, peppers and kale.)
Day of: Cook quesadillas on stove top. Reheat leftover vegetable noodle soup from Monday night.
- Friday: Breakfast for Dinner: Chicken Sausage and Spinach Frittata with Fruit Salad and Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Prep ahead: Chop pepper, onion and chicken sausage. (Note: You can also make the entire frittata ahead of time and simply reheat it for dinner if you prefer! I intentionally planned a frittata for dinner on Friday night in case we end up going out to dinner instead since it would also work well for breakfast on Saturday morning.)
Day of: Make frittata and top with a sliced avocado. Reheat leftover roasted sweet potatoes from Wednesday night’s dinner. Chop favorite fruit to make fruit salad.
And that’s this week’s meal plan! Woop!
When it comes to leftovers, I will often eat them for lunch the next day or they’ll sometimes make an appearance for dinner later in the week (like the veggie noodle soup on Monday reappearing on Thursday). For me, the key to food prep is chopping up everything that needs slicing and dicing ahead of time. For some reason, chopping vegetables is always quite time consuming for me and if I have to take the time to chop Brussels sprouts on a weeknight, I’m much more likely to forgo a serving of veggies at dinnertime. Simply setting aside some time on Sunday to prep some of our meals for the week makes it much easier to eat healthy during the week.
And added benefit of meal prep? Our kitchen is (usually) cleaner! Since most of the food prep is done over the weekend, there are significantly less dishes to do while preparing dinner during the week. Heck yes!
Finding Recipes + Easy Access Screenshot
As for how I go about finding recipes, I’ll often just go by whatever I’m craving, past favorites, new cookbook or magazine finds and tasty-looking recipes I find on the internet or food blogs. I will often screenshot whatever recipes I find online so I have them on the phone, making them both easy to find again and consult during my weekend trip to the grocery store. Then, when it’s time to make the recipe, it’s easy for me to find it in a flash because it’s saved as a screenshot on my phone. Screenshots for the win!
Question of the Day
I’d love to turn it over to you guys and hear about any tips and tricks you may have up your sleeves when it comes to meal planning and food prep. Please feel free to share your tips in the comments section of this post!
Have a great Wednesday!
Leave a Reply