Easy Meal Planning: The Struggle Is Real
I have been in such a meal planning rut lately. Fortunately, I love my system for organizing recipes, selecting which meals we are going to eat, and generating a grocery list organized by category. However, finding recipes that meet all of my criteria feels like too much work. I struggle to find recipes that support easy meal planning!
First of all, Matt and I are vegetarians. Second, I don’t want to do a lot of prep/work to get dinner ready. I want the whole process to take 30 minutes or less (including cook time!). And I want as few ingredients as possible so we 1) save money and 2) don’t make a big mess that takes forever to clean up. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, the answer is a resounding YES!
Last week I spent a lot of time scouring the internet looking for recipes that meet my criteria. I was so excited heading into the week! And then I tried my first recipe. It was a huge FLOP. Did you see my kitchen above? The “easy” recipe I found was so.much.work.
And then it was disgusting. Here’s Tate covering his in ketchup and holding his nose. We don’t make the boys eat their food, but they don’t get anything else unless they eat what we serve.
He literally asked, “Can you never make this pizza again?” I wanted to take a picture of Henry’s puffy eyes from crying so much at the dinner table, but I decided that wasn’t very motherly.
How do other working parents do it? It’s so tricky. I am not one of those people who can make big batches of ingredients and put them together in creative and different ways every day. I need a recipe, a plan, step-by-step directions.
But the people who put together plans and step-by-step directions and post them on the internet tend to be people who enjoy elaborate food preparation. And that’s not me!
So how do you do it? What are your easy, go-to vegetarian meals for busy weeknights? Please enlighten me! Thank you in advance for any help you are able to give!
26 Comments
Alycia
Tempeh! I have the best cookbook called The Book of Tempeh and I don’t think any recipe takes longer than 20 minutes. And most of them are vegan.
Here’s a quick stir fry. I would add peppers or other crisp vegetables and serve over rice. Enjoy!
https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-indonesian-tempeh-3377082
Sara Cotner
That recipe looks so simple, Alycia! I love how few ingredients it is, as well as how healthy it is. Thank you for sharing! And a cookbook of 20-minute or less recipes sounds amazing!
Carolina Peredo
I can’t offer any help but just so you know my family hates my food too. I hate cooking myself and would eat whatever I can find in the fridge but the rest needs and elaborate meal. I guess you already try slow cooker but it gets boring right ? prepping saldas being a vegetarian or cutting and prepping veggies is time consuming. I have a friend that has a meal share group with neighbors / other partners at school so each family cooks once a week for the rest of the 4 families and delivers at drop off in containers. It’s for every day of the week except friday sat and sunday. They eat super healthy they save in groceries and cleaning time and they get to explore 3 different “chefs” styles . They agree on recipes every once in a while and determine restrictions. The kitchen cleaning time is minimal too! si wish si could participate in something like that but I don’t know how to cook 🙁
Sara Cotner
I’m sorry that this makes me so happy to hear, Carolina! I’m laughing that our families hate our meals and we hate cooking! I’m always like, “I know you don’t like it. I didn’t like cooking it. So we’re even.” On the broccoli rabe pizza night, I was like, “Yeah, this is disgusting. I’m going to eat it anyway so we don’t waste food.” But I am DETERMINED to find 40 recipes that my family likes enough. I found a 4-ingredient veggie burger that was a big hit! Slowly but surely….
And I love the idea of the food club. I don’t think I would be invited to join something like that!
When we finally get together, let’s just eat take-out!
Nora Hauk
What works for us is cooking bigger batches but taking 1-1.5 hrs to cook 4x per week. That covers our lunches too.
Sara Cotner
What kinds of food do you cook in bigger batches, Nora?
Tina
Leftovers! Make double batches 2 days in a row and eat the reheated leftovers the other 2 days. Soups and stews sometimes taste even better the second time around after sitting in a fridge for a day or two. First 2 days you will spend extra prep time due to the bigger amounts of ingredients, but the cooking time is the same for a single/double batch so overall you will save twice the amount of cooking time and twice the amount of cleaning time due to prepping all of the ingredients at once.
Slow cooker or InstaPot. First one lets you do the prep in the morning and by the time you come back from work the dinner is already done. Second one reduces cooking time and it’s also hands off so after you put stuff in, you can do other things while food cooks.
As for the easy meals examples – i like stir-frys. Put rice to cook in a rice cooker and you can stir fry pretty much any combination of vegetables your family likes. If you never made it before, find few examples online to get started and then when you feel like you know what you are doing, start changing the vegetables you put in to get different flavors and some variety.
Sara Cotner
Thank you for all of these ideas, Tina! Sadly, my family usually hates my food and struggles to eat it the first night. The thought of eating it again the next night would seriously make them cry! I will definitely look up stir-fry recipes though. That’s a great idea!
Amy
I’m a big fan of Cook Smarts – def reduces the amount of time/energy I spend meal planning. https://www.cooksmarts.com/
Sara Cotner
Wow! I have never heard of that before, Amy. Thank you for sharing! It looks right up my alley. Question for you: How easy are the recipes? Like how much time do they take from start to finish? Thanks!
Ann
We aren’t vegetarian (we only do meatless Monday’s) but lately we’ve been loving doing sheetpan dinners—chickpeas, veg (carrots/broccoli/peppers and onions) and then putting curry sauce all over that, or eating it with cous cous etc. just googling “sheetpan dinners” saved my sanity with a baby and toddler in the house!
Sara Cotner
I love this idea, Amy! We have one sheetpan meal in our rotation. I didn’t realize it was part of a bigger movement. I’ll have to google more ideas. Thank you!
Mamaschlick
I have so many ideas I’ll have to return, but for now check out “simple vegetarian pleasures” the cookbook and there are related ones too (but I forget the other names). Almost everything I’ve made from there is delicious. Also the Maplewood cookbooks are amazing. Don’t be deterred by some of the longer lists of ingredients — a lot are herbs and spices which you can leave out. I can also email you my spinach pie recipe which is basically a dump in a bowl and mix recipe but everyone always loves it.
Sara Cotner
That’s interesting that older cookbooks might be simpler! I would love your recipe for spinach pie please. It sounds easy and delicious. Thank you!
Mamaschlick
P.S. also try the website smitten kitchen if you don’t know about. I am a huge cook (and use to do so as a living in my past lifetime) and while I do use internet recipes, I honestly find the best recipes from actual (and usually older, simple) cookbooks. Just my two cents. Also check out Mark Batman’s blog, cookbooks, and articles. Good luck!
Mamaschlick
Bittman not Batman. Sorry!
Marissa Rose
We’re also an all-vegetarian, 2-career household with 2 kids under 5. Here’s what’s in my rotation Many of these have the option to use frozen veggies if you’re in a pinch or too exhausted to cut up everything by hand. Here’s what I make on the regular:
– Colcannon
– Soup (I rarely have a recipe, just throw beans and whatever veggies we have on hand into a pot)
– Vegetable stir fry (with frozen veggies and sometimes with pressed tofu, sometimes not)
– Mexican rice a la https://damndelicious.net/2014/08/27/one-pot-mexican-rice-casserole/
– Burrito bowls
– Pasta with marinara
– Pasta with pesto
– Middle eastern eggs (scrambled with tomato and zataar, or sub italian seasoning)
– Roasted sweet potato wedges + salad (also reheats well if you wanted to cook them in advance)
– Chickpeas with olive oil, lemon juice and smoked paprika + crusty bread
– Sauteed mushrooms and onions with barley (or your chosen grain)
– Soba noodles with peanut sauce
– Udon noodles + greens in broth (sometimes with tofu, sometimes not)
– Fruit plate with Greek yogurt
– Smoothie (with silken tofu for protein) and popcorn (my kids love this meal)
– Pinto roll ups (pintos and cheese rolled up into a tortilla…you can dress this up as much or as little as you want)
– Quick chili (Kidney, black and pinto beans, mix in a can of diced tomatoes with chilies + chili spices)
– “Fried” zucchini (breaded zucchini rounds baked in the oven)
– Chickpea salad sandwich (crush up chickpeas with mayo or cashew cream + spices and lemon juice)
– Sliced up bell peppers (or whatever veggie) and hummus + barley or brown rice
Hope this helps!
Sara Cotner
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to add all of these ideas, Marissa! I totally think this is the way to go for busy families: solidify a list of your go-to meals. It makes cooking so much more efficient when you are familiar with what you are preparing. I’m grateful for your taking time to type this all up for my family!
Denise
I cannot recommend http://www.relishrelish.com enough. Definitely worth a three month subscription to try it out. I saved my menus/lists over the years so can even just print one whenever without logging in. For me the grocery list generator was key for me getting over my hurdles of meal prep.
Sara Cotner
Ooh! That service looks awesome, Denise! Thank you so much for sharing!
L
One quick vegetarian dish that’s a staple for us is Greek Lentil Salad. I made it up, so I don’t have a recipe–but basically, it’s whatever you’d like to eat in a Greek salad, with lentils subbed for the lettuce. If you use the packages of precooked lentils (I find them in the Trader Joe’s refrigerator section), it is done in well under half an hour, and I imagine you have most of the ingredients in your garden. I usually cook my own French lentils, so it takes a bit longer than half an hour, but I don’t need to be in the kitchen most of the time.
Here’s how we did it on Monday:
2 cups dry French lentils, cooked
2 good sized cucumbers
2 red bell peppers
a few oil packed sun dried tomatoes, finely chopped, with some of the oil drizzled into the salad
half a bunch of parsley (because I think parsley is a vegetable, not a garnish)
Kalamata olives and feta cheese to taste
Generous amount of red wine vinegar
Leftovers are really tasty for lunch the next day.
Sara Cotner
Oooh, sounds good, L! I can see why it would taste so good for lunch after marinating over night!
L
This recipe for brown rice with lemongrass, cashews and tofu is so good. It definitely takes longer than half an hour by the time you press the tofu, roast the tofu, and cook the brown rice, but the hands on time is much shorter than half an hour. I use the ginger and lemongrass pastes that come in tubes to minimize prep time/effort. https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-brown-rice-bowl-with-tofu-and-lemongrass-166713
Sara Cotner
Thank you for the tips about how to make it faster, L! I feel like such a mess when it comes to prepping dinner. Recipes that seem really easy to others feel annoying long to me. But I recently heard a statistic that only 10% of Americans actually cook dinner each night, so that made me feel ahead of the curve! Actually, scratch that. I just did my own research and that doesn’t seem true at all. It seems like only 10% of Americans love cooking, but that’s different. :-/
mamaschlick
In reading your posts about cooking, I really feel the solution for you is to prep one (or two) days and then assemble when needed. Especially if you feel overwhelmed by the recipes. I just took a cookbook (pre-covid) out from the library and it is called “uncomplicated” and I like it. Not every recipe is something I like but my approach to cookbooks is take some from here and there. The recipes are simple but have great flavors. Another website I love is fitmencook – simple wholesome recipes, fast. Also, try https://mindovermunch.com – your boys can watch them and make some of the stuff–very entertaining. Also, can you double recipes and freeze them? It sounds like cooking stresses you out so maybe find ways to do it once for multiple meals. Meal prep-chopping/cutting/measuring and putting in bags etc–can be super relaxing without the anxiety of the final result. If you need more meal prep resources, let me know. Good luck!!
Sara Cotner
Thanks, Mamaschlick! I’ve definitely been thinking about how to get back into more weekend meal prep. Cooking does stress me out! Coincidentally, I just watched one of the Mind Over Munch videos about meal prepping with ingredients from Trader Joe’s. I loved it!