Meal Planning for Homeschool Parents

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In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a type A person that needs to have a plan.  Like most parents, my to-do list is long and my time is short.  Having a plan helps me get as much done as possible.  I use plans to manage all facets of my life – planning a year’s worth of lesson plans, keeping my house reasonably clean, and feeding my family.

The secret to feeding my family healthy food day after day is meal planning.  Pinterest is full of ideas on how to save money, but MY main meal planning goal is to save time without resorting to fast food.

I eat a plant-based diet and am allergic to gluten, my husband follows more of a Paleo eating style, my daughter doesn’t eat red meat, and my son will eat just about anything. Getting meals on the table can be complicated and a little stressful if I try to wing it.

Meal planning makes a huge difference in the quality of meals we eat and my stress levels each

Meal Planning for Homeschool Parents

meal planning tips written above a notebook and prepared meals
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The first step in meal planning is to write a plan.

I know. That sounds super obvious. However, I have to actually write the plan down or I forget what I was planning to make, and then the ingredients just go bad.

I write meal plans one week at a time. Usually, this takes me 30-45 minutes, so I do it while watching a show on Hulu. Each night is assigned a dinner, taking into account other obligations that might limit my time in the kitchen (co-op classes, park days, etc.).

The meal plan is posted on the fridge so the entire family can see what we are having for dinner. It also reminds us to pull things out of the freezer to defrost.

I write breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks on my meal plan, but I do not assign meals to days.  I leave those meals flexible so I can adapt based on what is happening on a particular day.  

Writing down meal options, that tend to remain pretty much the same, reminds me to add those ingredients to my shopping list.

Meal planning is crucial to saving time.  When I do not take the time to put together a weekly meal plan, I end up making more trips to the grocery store – wasting time and money.

When you are meal planning, keep a few things in mind:

  • What does your family like to eat? You are less likely to ignore the meal plan if you actually like the foods included.
  • What does your schedule look like? Include quick meals for busy days.
  • You are not solely responsible for feeding your family. Teens can help plan and cook, they just like a little guidance and advance notice.

I highly recommend ordering your groceries online.

This always saves me money and time.  I never realized how much of an impulse shopper I was until I started ordering groceries online. I spend less money when I am not seeing all of the carefully planned advertising.

I utilized this service at Harris Teeter in Northern VA and really missed it when we lived in Washington.  I was so excited to find a Harris Teeter near my home in North Carolina!

I usually order my groceries as soon as I make my meal plan. All week long, my family keeps a running list of things we need, and then I can add them to our grocery order.

By ordering groceries online, I can move on to another task while someone else shops for my groceries.

I will admit that online grocery shopping isn’t perfect. Sometimes the produce isn’t exactly the way I would like it or the store is out of an item. It is still worth it to me because of the time savings, but I have learned which stores are best for my shopping needs.

Let your appliances work for you.

The right kitchen appliances can be huge time savers. I try to always include a few crockpot and instant pot meals when I am doing my weekly meal planning.

I like using my crockpot at least once a week.  This is perfect for days that we are on the go all day long.  Just throw in the ingredients in the morning and you will have a hot meal waiting for you when you get home.

Meal planning is crucial for homeschool parents.

Favorite Crockpot recipes

Roast beef – This is so simple, I don’t even have a recipe.  I just toss a roast in the crockpot with some sliced onion, quartered carrots, baby potatoes, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and some water.  I cook it on low for 8-10 hours and it is always fall-apart tender.

Slow cooker honey garlic chicken and veggies – This one-pot meal is delicious and healthy.

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Instant Pots have many features but I use mine primarily to cook healthy meals with little hands-on time. These recipes are faster than using my crockpot so I don’t have to prep the ingredients early in the morning.

Favorite Instant Pot recipes

Chicken and rice burritos – This burrito filling comes together really quickly with items I always have in my pantry.  My kids like to roll it up in tortillas, but my husband and I put it on top of lettuce, kind of like a burrito bowl.

Thai chicken soup – This chicken soup is so flavorful.  It takes just a few minutes to prep the ingredients and you end up with a soup that almost tastes like take out.

Batch cook and stock the freezer.

Meal planning is crucial for homeschool parents.

If I know that we are about to enter a busy season, I try to make future meal planning easier by preparing a few options for the freezer.

Cooking in bulk can be a huge time saver.  It doesn’t take much more time to brown 5 lbs of ground beef than it does 1 lb.  I like to freeze it plain because then I can add it to spaghetti sauce or add taco seasoning for a quick Taco Tuesday.

Once A Month Meals makes batch cooking easy.  One day in the kitchen produces an entire month’s worth of meals! I tried this meal planning service for one month. It is a LOT of time in the kitchen one day, but it was so nice not needing to cook the rest of the month.

Don’t have time to commit an entire day to cooking?  That is okay! 

Other freezer meal planning options include:

  • Double your favorite recipes for a week and pop the extra in the freezer.
  • Prep extra commonly used ingredients – ground beef, chicken breasts, beans, etc. Store them in meal/recipe size portions and put them in the freezer once cool.
  • Check out a few freezer meal cookbooks from the library. I suggest only making a single batch of new recipes. It is frustrating to prep a bunch of meals that no one likes.
  • The MyFreezEasy plan helps you get 10-12 meals in your freezer in just an hour.  An additional 10-12 freezer meals are fantastic!

When life gets busy, I can just pull a Ziploc bag out of the freezer and have dinner ready in a matter of minutes.

I also like to keep these things in my freezer at all times:

Cookie dough – I put scoops of gluten free cookie dough on a tray and freeze it.  When the dough is frozen, I put it in a Ziploc bag so I can remove and bake just the number of cookies I want.  This makes it easy to throw together tea with poetry.

Chicken nuggets – The Fools Gold recipe in the Eat Like A Dinosaur cookbook is my favorite chicken nugget recipe.

Pancakes – The pancake recipe from The Paleo Kids Cookbook is absolutely delicious.  I have to triple the recipe every time I make a batch.  Our favorite way to eat these is with a dollop of whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

How do you get dinner on the table? I would love to see your favorite fast recipes. Share them in the comments!

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2 Comments

  1. Meal planning and batch freezer cooking are great! Saves time and money. Definitely love my crock pot too. It makes meals so easy and smells great throughout the day.

  2. Wow! I didn’t even know Google had a delivery service. I definitely look into using it if it were in my area. Thanks for the meal planning tips 🙂

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