Me and my fiancé both work more than full time, but I still like us to have home cooked meals most of the time and recently we’ve been both trying to bring home cooked lunches to work as well. I’m from a family with a stay at home mom, so I never really had any good tips for how to manage meal planning, shopping, and meal prep with extremely limited time. My fiancé and I are in the process of saving for our wedding, retirement, and future home so we are also working with a limited budget. Here are some of my tips for managing it all, without getting stressed or letting it take too much time away from quality time. It took a lot of trial and error for me to get here!

For me personally, my meal planning comes almost exclusively from a couple blogs, Julia child, and sometimes pinterest. In general I’ve found googling recipes often leads me to websites with reviews I don’t believe and recipes that aren’t that great. It is much better for me to look at recipe blogs I know I trust (smitten kitchen and pioneer woman are two examples) and cook books I’ve had good success with in the past (Julia Child; joy of cooking; Jacques Pepin). I use pinterest to organize recipes into two categories: “tried and true” (recipes I’ve made before, that I know worked well and tasted great, and which were fiancé approved!) and new ideas (recipes I haven’t tried yet). Each week I usually make 2-3 new recipes and the rest come from “tried and true”.

Pinterest has revolutionized my food organization. When it comes time for meal planning, I scan through these two pinterest boards and pick what I’d like that week, keeping in mind our macro and micronutrient requirements, the weather, and our lifestyle for that week. For example, on days where my fiancé goes to the gym, I typically try to include more protein. I always include at least one vegetable with each meal, typically two or three, and I make sure there is a lot of fruit and vegetable variety across the week. If it is going to be hot that week, I skip slow cooker or long baking dishes in favor of fish or stir fry. Cold weeks are perfect for chili, pot pie, slow cooked meats and soups. To save money, I also take into account what fruits and vegetables are likely to be in season. If there are perishable ingredients left over from previous recipes, I try to include recipes that will use them up before they go bad. Lastly, I try to pick recipes that have some flexibility in type or cut of meat. That way I can pick whichever meats are on sale.

I have a THIRD pinterest board for “this week’s food”. I add all the recipes I plan to make that week to that board, and once I make them I delete them. This way I have a quick way to find the recipe I want, and a mobile reference on the go. I try to add the pins in the order I am planning to make them so I immediately know “what’s for dinner” in the morning. This means I can often plan ahead and do some chopping in the AM, set up the slow cooker, or if I have down time during prepping tonight’s dinner I will sometimes begin meal prep for next night. After a new dish is made and we’ve eaten it, I decide if I want to add the recipe to “tried and true” or if it’s a dud. If there are modifications I would like to add to the recipe for next time, I add it in the text box when I save the pin. That way I keep track if I could have added more salt, or cooked at a higher temp, etc.

Once I am sure what I am making for the week, it is time to prep for the shopping! I go to the “this week’s food” board, and open each of the recipes. I copy down the ingredients on a piece of paper. If two recipes require the same ingredient (say, chicken breasts) I update the volume. Once I have all the ingredients written down, I take out another piece of paper for my actual shopping list. On this piece of paper, I list the ingredients by grocery section, and in the order I would likely get them in. My sections are “Non-perishable”, “bakery”, “Fruit and veg”, “Dairy and egg”, “meat”, and “Frozen”. Within each category I write down all the items from my previous list, crossing them off the list as I go. This way I cannot forget anything, and it is naturally organized so that I can quickly get all the items in a single section at the store. Also this means the meat, dairy, and frozen foods will be grabbed last, so that they will stay coldest. After my list is complete, I usually will briefly check the cabinets to make sure I don’t already have any of the ingredients!

Additional tips to save time:

Some foods don’t need to be chopped fresh. For instance, I will often chop onion for 2-3 recipes at a time and just store in the fridge. Meats like baked chicken breasts can be used for multiple meals, so why not bake twice as much as you need and utilize the pre-cooked chicken for a tasty lunch, on salad, or in pasta! I try to arrange ingredients for the same recipe close to each other in the pantry and fridge, so I can grab everything at once without hunting. There are many recipes which require occasional stirring, waiting for things to boil, or roasting in the oven. I always use this time to clean up what I can, or to begin prep for the next day. For slow cooker recipes, they can often be assembled the night before and the entire crockpot insert can go in the fridge. In the AM, all you will have to do is turn it on and head out the door!

Making “boring” meals special:

A special desert or fancy cocktail pairing can really make a pretty unimaginative dinner feel more inspired. Some of my go-to, nearly no effort desserts include chopped and macerated fruit on ice cream or with fresh whipped cream, fresh baked cookies (make a big batch of dough and freeze scoops of it, throw scooped dough on a pan and bake!), or baked apples (if I’m already using the oven). For cocktails, my fiancé prefers gin or vodka. These naturally pair well with herbal, fruit, or citrus notes already included in your meal, so it’s super simple to make a nice spritzer or Collins. Adding herbal notes to a cocktail (tarragon and grape fruit; basil and citrus; mint and berry) makes it taste less basic.

Using this system has really helped me put food on the table each night. I typically browse pinterest for recipes throughout the week, and it usually only takes me 10 minutes to pick what I’d like to make. It takes another 15 minutes to organize the ingredient list, and maybe 1 hr + driving to get everything from the store. Time dedicated to the meal prep depends, sometimes even less than 15 minutes of active work are required! Me and my fiancé get to eat together each night. I’ve really put in the effort to make that time as special as possible for both of us. As a result, he can’t wait to come home and our limited time together in the evening really feels like quality time.