Meal Planning For Beginners

I like to find ways to save time and energy. As a person with chronic pain, having meals prepared in advance ensures I eat nutritious meals when I don’t have the energy to prepare anything. Eating well is one key to managing chronic pain or illness.

There are five basic steps to meal planning.

1. Decide how many meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and days you will plan and prepare. I always have an easy breakfast that is easy to make available, so I concentrate on meal planning lunch and dinner, five days a week. If you prepare meals for more than five days, put some meals in the freezer. After five days, some meals can lose freshness, even in the refrigerator.

2. Get some containers. You may have some containers at home already. If you don’t, go to Amazon. There are many choices to choose from. Or, you can go to your local grocery store. In the aisle with sandwich and trash bags are disposable, microwave-safe containers with lids. Buy a few packages of those that are the right size for your meals. I like the larger bowl for salads. and bowls (i.e. burrito bowls, rice bowls, quinoa bowls).

3. Collect recipes you’d like to try for meal planning. I think about a starch, a protein, and a vegetable for each meal. You can search the internet for meal planning recipes. I like to make bowls. I put a nice mix of greens in the bowl, add a serving of grains, put veggies on top, and a protein on top of that. I use a sauce or dressing over it, and, depending on the dressing or sauce, I put that on the side and add it before eating so I don’t degrade the texture of the greens. One of my other favorites is a type of pasta with a marinara-style sauce and steamed veggies as a side. I use a two-part container for that. I may make a big salad to last the whole week of salads.

4. Make your grocery list and go shopping.

5. Get cooking and fill your containers!

Let’s go through a five-day meal planning and preparation. We’ll make quinoa bowls for lunch and Chicken Parmesan for dinner. Some of this we can make at the same time. I’m a vegan, just so you understand my choices.

Lunch Quinoa Bowls: Kale and Romaine lettuce topped with quinoa, roasted veggies, and tofu with sesame dressing.

Dinner Chicken Parmesan: angel hair pasta, faux chicken breasts, pasta sauce, vegan mozzarella and parmesan, green beans as a side dish.

Start by cleaning and preparing green beans. Put quinoa into the rice cooker with veggie broth. I put the steamer insert into the rice cooker and add green beans. (Use a steamer insert in a saucepan if you don’t have a rice cooker. You may also cook quinoa in a saucepan.) The quinoa and green beans will take about 20 minutes. Bowl water for angel hair pasta. I turn the oven on for roasting veggies and faux chicken.

Set up tofu to drain. Chop all the veggies: kale and romaine for bowls (portion into each salad container), and onion, beets, carrots, and cauliflower for bowls. Alternatively, instead of cutting up and roasting veggies for bowls, you can use frozen veggies. Either prepare the frozen veggies per the package directions, or (what I do) put them in a colander and run hot water over them to melt the ice. I use the veggies just like that.

Roast veggies and faux chicken. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray/coat with olive oil. Put the veggies into a bowl, drizzle olive oil on top of the veggies, add some spices you like, along with salt and pepper. Stir the veggies to coat them with the olive oil mixture. Put the veggies on one side of the cookie sheet. Rub olive oil and spices on the faux chicken. Put the cookie sheet in a 425F oven for 20–25 minutes, until everything is to your likeness. You could also prepare the faux chicken in a skillet.

Cube the drained tofu.

Prepare the quinoa bowls. Portion quinoa on top of the greens, then roasted veggies and tofu.

Prepare the Chicken Parmesan. Portion green beans in the small section of the container. In the larger section of the container place a portion of the angel hair pasta, put a faux chicken breast on top, pour pasta sauce on top of the chicken and pasta, and sprinkle some grated vegan mozzarella and parmesan on top.

When you are ready to eat your lunch, pour dressing on top, and eat.

When you are ready to eat your dinner, put your Chicken Parmesan container in the microwave, and eat.

To go further with this idea, create a calendar of your meals for the month. You can also create shopping lists for each week on your calendar and rotate the meals every week.

That’s it! Let me know in the comments if you meal plan or if you plan to try it. If you do meal plan, what are your favorite meals? If you would like to read about a specific topic or have any questions, please let me know. Email me at [email protected].

If you like my content, please tip me or buy me a cup of coffee at https://ko-fi.com/thepainguru. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.