We aren’t big on meal prep in our house (Henri doesn’t love leftovers or eating food that was made a few days before) but I do really try to plan out our menu for the week. This helps me stick to my grocery list, stay on budget AND takes the thinking out of “what’s for dinner” when I get home from work. I would say there are very few weeks that end up looking exactly like our plan. Things come up like family inviting us over or out to dinner, time constraints and pregnancy cravings that make you not in the mood for the originally planned meal. 

I thought it might be fun to share my meal plan for last week… and what we actually ended up eating to give you a real-life insight into what a week of dinners looks like in our house. 

Meal Plan for the Week

Sunday: Grilled BBQ Chicken w/ Sweet Potatoes and Mini Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad

Monday: Corn Ravioli w/ Corn + Tomato Sauce and a side of broccoli 

Tuesday: Chicken + Veggie Fried Rice 

Wednesday: Planned Leftovers Day

Thursday: Naan Pizzas and Veggies

Friday: Grilled Chicken w/ mashed potatoes and a veggie

Saturday: eat out or order in 

What We Actually Ate

Sunday: Grilled BBQ Chicken w/ Sweet Potatoes and Mini Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad

Monday: Corn Ravioli w/ Corn + Tomato Sauce and a side of broccoli 

Tuesday: Chicken + Veggie Fried Rice [on track so far, yay!]

Wednesday: Ordered Thai Food In [a pregnancy craving hit so we shifted our “order in” day earlier in the week]

Thursday: Naan Pizzas and Carrots

Friday: Breakfast for Dinner aka. Veggie + Cheese Frittata, breakfast potatoes, bacon and toast [Henri and I both ate leftover Chicken Fried Rice for lunch this day so we weren’t in the mood for chicken again for dinner, I threw this together with stuff we already had and turned the potatoes I had originally planned to make into mashed potatoes into breakfast potatoes instead]

Saturday: BBQ! Cheeseburgers (Bubba Burgers), homemade sweet potato french fries, cucumber + tomato + feta salad (with a homemade balsamic dressing)

[Since we ordered in on Wednesday we stayed home and grilled instead, we had some of these ingredients already (frozen burgers and a few extra sweet potatoes from a meal I made the week before so I just popped into the grocery store while I was doing some errands during nap time to get the rest of the burger fixings and buns… because we never have buns on hand!] 

Overall, I’m really happy with how we did with sticking to the plan this week – even if they ended up being on different days than originally planned 5 of the 7 dinners we ate this week were exactly what I had set out to make at the beginning of the week. As you can see, even if I stray from the plan I try my best to get by with things that we have on hand – or just repurpose the ingredients that I bought into something else. Since I started being intentional about this it’s greatly reduced the amount of food waste we throw away – and cut down on the number of trips I make to the grocery store each week.

And now that last week is behind us it’s time to do it all over again…

Are you a meal plan/meal prepper?

What are your tips and tricks for meal planning?