Here’s one easy way to meal plan. Well, besides just letting us meal plan for you!
When figuring out what to make each evening, I’ve found that this is what works best for me right now…
One Easy Way to Meal Plan
- Begin by figuring out the starch I want to cook.
- Create my meal around that starch.
Weird maybe? I know. Many meal plans start with the meat/main dish and go from there. But if I want to be sure we’re eating a variety (instead of say, three meals in a row that include pasta), I’ve found that it often works better for me to plan our meals around these starch possibilities:
- Rice
- Potatoes
- Pasta
- Corn
- Bread
- Tortillas
- Chips
- Beans
This list includes are eight starch categories (and there are probably others I forgot to include!). So we can have a great variety of meals each week if I simply plan around these eight categories!
Here’s a sample of the meal variety I could come up with for eight consecutive days:
- Rice – Cheesy Beef and Rice with steamed veggies and salad
- Potatoes – Ham and Hashbrown Casserole with peas and salad
- Pasta – Instant Pot Bacon Chicken Pasta with salad and fresh fruit
- Corn – Beef Roast with Cream Cheese Corn with green beans and salad
- Bread – Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup with fresh fruit and carrot sticks
- Tortillas – Pizza Tortillas with salad and fresh fruit
- Chips – Last-Minute Nacho Plate with fresh fruit and avocado
- Beans – Hearty Bean Casserole with salad and fresh fruit
No more overloading our families with pasta. No more burning us out on rice. No back-to-back heavy meals that include bread. No overdoing the beans, ahem.
Do we even need starch anyway?
Some of us don’t need to eat much starch to begin with.
All of the athletes in my family do great eating all eight meals eight nights in a row as I detailed above. But me? I don’t need starch every night. My system does better on a meat and vegetable-based diet. I tend to go easy on pasta and bread. My body thanks me for this.
Still, I’ve found that I tend to plan my meals this way. I like the results! No burnouts. No overload. And it helps me be more creative with meal planning!
What have you found that works best as you plan your meals?
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