I used to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook. I’d somehow throw dinner together using whatever food we had on hand and, for the most part, it worked. Then I had a baby and everything changed. I tried to stick with my usual no plan plan and it failed miserably. Dinner began looking like a bowl of cereal, frozen pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, oatmeal or some kind of assortment of a billion different kinds of convenient snack foods. I knew something had to change and began to dabble in meal planning and food prep.
With the exception of snacks and lunches which I still usually eat standing up, at my desk while working or on the fly as I dash out of the house with Chase, I usually have two important meals of the day – breakfast and dinner – pretty well planned out before the week begins. Though it took some getting used to, I now find myself enjoying the meal planning process and getting excited to try new recipes or make tried and true favorites each week.
I typically do all of my meal planning first thing on Sunday morning when Chase is still asleep and Ryan is at the gym. It’s usually a quiet time in our house (unless Chase decides 6 a.m. is party time) and I make myself a hot cup of coffee to sip on as I make my grocery list and plan our dinners for the week ahead. (I don’t worry much about breakfast since I pretty much have my morning meal down to a science and usually eat some combination of frittatas, baked steel cut oatmeal, overnight oats, egg muffins, etc.)
I’ve had more than a few of you ask for more insight into my meal planning process and where I find the recipes I use for our dinners every week. I am not a one stop shop kind of meal planner and prefer to get my recipes from a myriad of sources. I will often vary it week to week and some weeks almost all of our recipes will come from cookbooks while another week recipes might be from a collection of magazine clippings, blogs or Pinterest finds.
Below you will find my main sources for recipes I use in my meal planning process as well as a few tips and tricks I use to streamline the process every week.
How I Find Recipes For Meal Planning
- Cookbooks
Even though there are a billion recipes online, my favorite place to turn to for recipe inspiration is still a good ol’ cookbook. There’s something I love about flipping through beautiful pictures and dog-earing recipes that stand out to me that cannot be beat. I have a rather large cookbook collection, but when it comes to planning out my meals on Sundays, I’ll often just grab one or two to flip through and use that as my main recipe guide for the week. I also typically leave my favorite recipe pages in each cookbook dog-eared so I can quickly find them again when I grab that cookbook for recipe inspiration again.
Some of my favorite cookbooks: Skinnytaste, Juli Bauer’s Paleo Cookbook, Against All Grain Meals Made Simple, Barefoot Contessa: How Easy Is That?
- Recipe Screenshots
I am a BIG fan of screenshots on my phone! If I see a recipe posted online, whether it be on Instagram, a favorite blog, Facebook, etc., I will often take a screenshot of the recipe to reference as I make my grocery list, or, if I’m not quite as organized, I can easily pull up the screenshot at the grocery store to see what I need without scrolling through the internet to try to find it again. A little while ago, I took the time to organize all my recipe screenshots into one folder on my camera roll which makes it even easier to find recipes I love or am dying to try.
- Magazines
I subscribe to a small handful of magazines and whenever I take the time to flip through them, if I see a recipe that stands out to me, I’ll fold over the page and come back to it as I’m making my grocery list for the week. If the recipe is a winner, I’ll then tear it out and add it to my oh-so-fancy recipe folder. (See below!)
Magazine favorites: Clean Eating (the best for simple, healthy recipes), Real Simple, Cooking Light, Martha Stewart Living, Eating Well
- Recipe Folder
My friend Minda inspired this one! Back when we lived in Orlando, I was hanging out at Minda’s place one evening and we made dinner together using a recipe from a homemade recipe folder she put together. I LOVED the idea and started my own recipe folder almost immediately. It’s now practically overflowing with magazine clippings, print outs from the internet, notecards, etc. It could definitely be more organized, but I love having a folder filled only with recipes that I love or ones that sound fantastic to me!
- Tried and True Favorites
I’ll be honest, some weeks the last thing I want to do on the weekend is meal plan for the week ahead. When I’m feeling this way, I typically turn to my tried and true favorites, also known as meals we love that I make so often I could practically make them in my sleep. I know the recipes by heart, so grocery shopping isn’t a guessing game. I think it’s a good thing to have a few fall-back recipes you know you can always turn to when meal planning just isn’t going to happen.
My tried and true recipe favorites: Easy Baked Chicken, Easy Lemon Dill Salmon, One Pot Chicken Cabbage Bowl, Spaghetti Pie, Chicken Sausage with Peppers and Onions, Breakfast for Dinner
- Blogs
You guys expected to see this one right!? I love reading blogs and am constantly impressed with the amazing and mouth-watering creations bloggers come up with every single day. (FYI, Bloglovin’ makes it very easy to save recipes that catch your eye.) I’ve actually been meaning to put together a blog post featuring a handful of my favorite blogger recipes I’ve made in the past, so stay on the lookout for that one in the coming weeks!
Pinterest is such a great resource, especially if you’re a very visual person. I am trying to clean up my Pinterest boards and make them a little more specific (like quick and easy meals, healthy desserts, make-ahead recipes, etc.) so I can visit one of my Pinterest boards and quickly find new recipes to try.
Additional Meal Planning Posts
Question of the Day
- What is your favorite way to find new recipes to try?
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I love that you set aside Sunday morning to do your meal planning. What a good idea! I am going to start doing this. I love planning things anyway. 🙂
I’ve also always loved planning, so it definitely fits my personality! Some weeks slip by, but I do love going into the week feeling organized.
You are my meal planning soul mate! I screenshot and thought I was the only one with recipe binder. It’s such a convenient and inspiring tool for cooking.
I owe that idea to my friend Minda! It’s such a great resource! I love having recipes I already know I love or really want to make it one place.
Blogs I follow, Pinterest, and cookbooks are my favorites too! 🙂 I can imagine it must be different when you have other mouths to feed but I like to get creative in the kitchen every now and then besides my usual “routine” dinners haha!
I’m starting to think about doing this, as well as getting a good, programmable crockpot. I was out on maternity leave all last year, but the new school year is quickly approaching, so it’s back to work for me, and I have to get my act together. I would definitely prefer spending my time with my baby when I get home, rather than a whole bunch of time in the kitchen!! I usually peruse Pinterest, but I definitely need to start taking screenshots!!
I usually meal plan on Sunday’s too! Then go shopping immediately after to a few different grocery stores nearby. I get most of my recipes from Pinterest, cookbooks, and blogs as well! I have a board where I’ve saved recipes my husband and I both liked and would make again! And my cookbook addiction is another story.. 😉
I’m all about meal planning! The internet is definitely awesome (especially Pinterest), but cookbooks are still my favorite place to find recipes. I love Danielle Walker & Juli Bauer’s books!
Hi all! I have been meal planning for a long time; it fits my personality and allows for both me and my husband to prep meals (he also prefers to have a guide).
I do have a question for all the PB readers, though–I am a vegetarian and also a fairly serious recreational cyclist. I find it really difficult to find quality, substantial, simple vegetarian meals on blogs. I would also love to hear about favorite cookbooks or magazines. Magazines have gotten a lot better with their “meatless Monday” features but I don’t want to get a magazine when I won’t use 90% of the recipes. Two of the blogs that I have used so far are 101 cookbooks and No Meat Athlete. Thanks!
I love following Angela at “Oh She Glows” and Lindsay at “Pinch of Yum”. Oh She Glows is completely vegan. While Lindsay does not have a vegetarian blog, some of her recipes are.
A personal favourite recipe of mine is “Glory Bowls” from Canadian Living Magazine (http://www.canadianliving.com/food/recipe/glory-bowl)
Thank you so much, Michelle! Also, The Forest Feast is an excellent cookbook that is vegetarian, if you are so inclined! I love hard copy cookbooks, too. And paper planners!
You should check out the Eating Bird Food blog. She posts a lot of great recipes and a lot of them are vegetarian/vegan.
I love her blog! Brittany is great!
Hi Alison!! I second Michelle — Oh She Glows is amazing! I also love Eating Bird Food (she’s posts a lot of vegetarian means) and Daily Garnish also has a lot of delicious plant-based recipes.
Thanks, Julie and Caitlyn! I really appreciate it! Heading to those sites now!
Minimalist Baker has mostly plant-based recipes too! Lots of good stuff. (And a shameless plug — I write a blog, and I’ve just recently narrowed its focus to seasonal, vegetarian food. Lots of recipes to come!) 🙂
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who turns to actual hard copy cookbooks!
I normally try to meal plan with my husband on Saturdays before we go grocery shopping, so we can cook as many meals as possible in advance on Sunday! I let him go through all my new cookbooks, Pinterest boards, and favourite blogs, and mark the recipes he wants to try. Slowly but surely, we work our way through all the recipes we want to try and most make it to my “favourites” folder (which we can cook almost weekly!)
CrockPot meals that make lots of leftovers are definitely his go-to!
I have a homemade recipe folder too! I started it when I got married at it’s got family recipes, internet recipes, magazine recipes, etc. I also have a few really great cookbooks. I love the new Minimalist Baker cookbook! The photos are gorgeous and all the recipes look so yum.
Yummly
Julie, thanks for the tips! I struggle with visiting the same websites for recipe’s and am excited to spice it up a bit!
On an unrelated note–what is the color of your office wall paint? I’ve been looking for a similar color for our living room!
Thanks,
Natalie
I’m so sorry but I don’t know! :/ My office was painted this gray color when we moved in. I will try to dig around to see if I can find more info!
Blogger cookbooks are some of my favorites!
Juli Bauer’s cook book / her blog = my absolute go to!
I also like Pinterest and my everyday reading blogs (yours, Carrots N Cake & I used to love Caitlin’s recipes when she writing using HTP)
I saw that one of your fall-back recipes is chicken sausage with peppers and onions…us too! I buy the pre-cooked ones from Trader Joe’s, usually spicy jalapeño and sun dried tomato, and all I have to do is slice everything up and heat it. I often add a little balsamic vinegar to the pan as well, gives it a really good flavor.
Love this post! I try to meal plan every week and enjoy it a little too much sometimes. I’m a sucker for Pinterest and finding inspiration there and love your idea of looking at magazines!
I think it’s time to start a recipe folder! My mom has one like yours- definitely overstuffed- and I’ve never taken the time to make my own. While I love using pinterest and saved blog posts, having the folder and hard copy recipes would help keep me from falling into the ‘pinterest black hole’ while meal planning!
That said, a lot of my favorite go-to recipes have come from blogs, so I have them bookmarked on my phone/computer until I have the time to write them out. Your blog, as well has Oh She Glows and (formerly) Eat Live Run, have supplied many of them! 🙂
Julie, how do you like the Pioneer Woman cookbook? Are the recipes pretty easy to health-ify? Her stuff looks SO delicious (and I’m sure it is) but a little more rich than what we tend to eat.
Her recipes are typically pretty indulgent so I really only use her cookbook on special occasions (her recipes are my go-to for Thanksgiving or large parties!) but I have revamped a few to make them a little healthier with success!
I try to meal plan every Sunday. I love reading blogs (obviously!) to find new recipes/inspiration. I also always like to have a good mix of protein, healthy carbs, veggies, and fats on hand- that way, if I need to,
I can whip something healthy up!
When I first started to use Pinterest in earnest I began a recipes to try board – the trouble is, actually going back and trying them all! I tend to find them on blogs or other online sources and Pin if I like them. I did grow up with parents who both turn to Mark Bittmans “How to Cook Everything” cookbook for when something out of the ordinary was necessary in the kitchen and it is kind of like the old fashioned cookbook oracle 🙂
YES! I love doing the screenshots too! I also find most new recipes through blogs and pinterest as well. I feel like i dont take much time for flipping through cookbooks these days…i should!
I’m not that good about planning exact recipes to make, but I do love making big batches of things for us to eat, like brown rice, beans and lentils, hard boiled eggs, and roasted or steamed veggies and sweet potatoes.
I love meal planning! Though I don’t have a baby, I find that meal planning helps me to grocery shop more efficiently and stick to a better budget. I also love cookbooks and my cooking light subscription. I will search Pinterest for inspiration and sometimes can alter a Pintetest idea to fit the ingredients I have!
I always use blogger recipes! I love saving them to my blog lovin app or Pinterest then sorting through them based on what’s on sale!
You should check out the app “Paprika.” I discovered it last summer, and it’s a true game changer! I think its $5, but SO worth it. You can download recipes directly from links online, or enter in your own manually. It allows you to add in your own notes or edit recipes, and it creates a shopping list for you. They even have a meal planning feature! I was skeptical at first, but now I try to convince everybody I know to download it. It’s amazing! (They also have an app for computers but it’s $20– I eventually went for that too, but I’d start with the phone app first to see if you like it!)
My husband and I have been trying to incorporate more grain-free meals, and I’m going to give your chicken cabbage bowl and the spaghetti pie a try next week! I don’t eat red meat, do you know if there is such a thing as chicken or turkey Italian sausage?
Yes! There definitely is…. You might have to take it out of the links if you want ground sausage but it does exist!
Is it bad that I got excited seeing the title of this post? I love meal planning! Since my fiance and I don’t get home til later in the evening it’s necessary to avoid eating scrambled eggs every night 🙂 There is something so fun about ripping recipes out of magazines and curating your own little binder.
I also keep things like canned beans, cooked grains, and chopped greens on hand so a salad is easy enough to throw together on the fly.
As a new wife I was so intimidated to menu plan every week! Thanks for all the great ideas and ways you can be successful at menu planning – my husband thanks you!
Hahaha if I didn’t meal plan, I’d eat even more Chipotle and/or eggs for dinner. I subscribe to a few magazines, and always rip out the interesting/good recipes and keep them in a binder so we don’t just amass a giant magazine collection 🙂 And even though I pin tons of recipes from bloggers throughout the week, I still love my cookbooks, too! Basically, we’re meal-planning twins. And if I get “lazy”, it’s a lot of breakfast for dinner and chicken sausage + peppers!
I used to meal plan all the time before I had my son. Now it’s such a struggle! I also refer to blogs and Pinterest for recipes. There are so many great recipes created by bloggers!
Since meal planning is a weekly thing, it starts to feel like a CHORE after a while. Sometimes I get in a rut and dread the “list-making” and other weeks I feel like I should just recycle the same meal plan and grocery list every week to avoid the whole process. But how monotonous! I love the recipe binder idea, and I think it would be fun to add your own pictures after you make each recipe. Screenshots are the best! Thanks for the tips Julie 🙂
Love seeing one of my other favorite bloggers cookbook on your site! Against All Grain author and I live in the same town and sometimes you will find signed books by her at our local Costco. Danielle’s recipes are awesome!
I have a homemade recipe folder too! 🙂 I also have a couple recipe books my mom gave me that were put together as a fundraiser by her service league in our hometown when I was little. I am also constantly trying new recipes I find on blogs: I make a ton of things from Iowa Girl Eats (she is the queen of quick & easy & YUMMY!), Skinnytaste, Cookies & Cups, PBFingers… 😉
I’ve taken meal planning a step further & created an Excel spreadsheet (‘cuz I’m an accountant & we love our spreadsheets) w/ a summary tab listing everything by name & the date I last made it (to avoid constantly repeating the same thing) & a tab for every recipe (alphabetized) listing the ingredients (other than pantry staples) so I can meal plan from work & make a quick grocery list for a stop over my lunch hour. (We have a full size fridge at work.) I also imbed links to recipes when possible so I can quickly refresh my memory on how involved the steps are & what temp the oven needs to be on (for ease in coordinating sides) & determining how much time I’ll need for dinner that night.
Love this! I’ve been trying to get back into meal planning for the week. I’ve been wanting the Skinnytaste cookbook for awhile! I feel like searching for recipes on Pinterest can be so overwhelming at times unless I have a really specific meal in mind, so I love the cookbook idea.
This is totally random, but do you know the name and brand of the paint color in the room where your desk is??? I have been looking to paint my kitchen and that is exactly what I am looking for !!!
I’m not sure! I’m sorry! It was painted this color when we moved in. :/ I will see if I can do some digging though!
I luuuurve this post! I make recipes from your blog constantly (and I would say the most, out of all the blogs I visit). Because your meals are easy and tasty! And I’m so excited to see this meal planning post, because man-oh-man have I been guilty of throw-it-together meals, which turn into weird combinations of things like a couple cheese sticks, a pickle, a bowl of cherries, and some other super random item. <—this is what happens when you don't plan. I'm very sick of these rando-meals, so I'm grateful to see the tips on planning. Thanks!
The majority of the recipes I make come from blogs and I love it. I use my Pinterest boards to keep them organized. I have a breakfast board, weeknight meal board and weekend meal board. It works awesome for me!
I really love the idea of the recipe folder! I may be starting this.. Pinterest is my personal favorite spot for recipes. I can save multiple boards for Dinner, Lunch, Snacks, Breakfast, Chicken, ect. Makes meal planning super easy!
Great Ideas! I’m always in search of new recipes or a way to store my current ones!
A super random question, but where did you find the “mom” mug in the first pic? It is really cute!
Thank you!
Meal planning is a must in my house, every Friday or Saturday morning. Meal planning then grocery list making, without it we waste too much food and money.
I pin recipes I want to try, and if we like it, and it’s worth repeating, it gets moved to a Favorites board. So every week I try to take a few from the favorites and one or two new ones to try to the list.
I am inspired and just planned next weeks meals. I am a working mom with a 4 month old so I get it!
I love your tips–I use very similar sources as well. I love using blogs, YouTube videos and cookbooks for inspiration!
I made your Easy Baked Chicken last night and WOW, it was delicious and so flavorful!! And SO easy to make!! This is definitely going into my “Go To Dinner” file. Hubby raved about it too! I even took your advice and made extra so I have some to put in wraps 🙂 THANK YOU!!
Yay!!! So glad to hear it!!
Great post! I set aside time to meal plan too. I also keep a spreadsheet of all the mains, sides, apps etc I like so that I have a go-to if I’m lacking inspiration.
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Hi Julie,
Do you do all the mean planning/cooking/shopping for your family? I’m engaged and my finace doesn’t like to cook.
I’m trying to get better at meal planning too. Lately I’ve been using an online meal planning service, which is helpful, but I so often come back to my good ole recipe binder. Thanks for sharing your tips. I need to branch out more. 🙂