This guest post, written by Catherine over at Georgimae.com, shows several tips to take family meal planning to increased quality time (even as a busy mom!).

Planning and preparing family meals can be such a common dilemma for many families. A concept which seems so easy in theory, can actually turn into a daily nightmare consisting of ‘what shall we have for tea?’, ‘Do we have the ingredients in for that?’, ‘The kids won’t eat that’ and of course the all too familiar ‘I’m too tired to cook, beans on toast it is!’

As a busy mom of two under three, organizing a day out, fun activities, cleaning, working from home AND preparing family meals can be overwhelming.

 

RELATED:  The Amazing 5 BIG Ways to Organize Your Mom Life

 

I can honestly tell you that there IS a way to make planning and preparing family meals

Easier

Less time consuming

and

Involve your children.

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No more cooking for an hour, every night.  No more preparing the 50 different snacks your children constantly ask for.  No more wasting heaps of food and money.

Follow these 7 easy tips for planning and preparing family meals to turn mealtimes from a chore into enjoyable, quality time together.

7 Easy Family Meal Planning Tips

1) Plan Ahead

Before you do anything else, planning ahead for either the week or a month in advance is absolutely vital to saving you time, money and minimizing food waste. It helps prevent those last minute panics of what to have for tea and actually helps you as a whole family to eat healthier.

Planning ahead means that you are able to work out exactly what ingredients you need to buy to prevent you from buying anything and everything.

I recommend setting aside 20 minutes each week specifically to look at meals for the week ahead. If you have older children, involve the whole family to discuss family favorites and special requests (e.g. having a treat night once a week).

For those weaning their babies, it helps to think about exactly what you are going to prepare. For example, if you choose to puree feed, one night you may plan to have a baked potato topped with leftover chilli. By cooking slightly more potato than needed, your baby can have this mashed up and leftovers frozen into small portions for another day. If you choose baby-led feeding, you can serve some potato, cheese and salad.

2) Online Shopping

I am a HUGE advocate for online shopping.

My eldest really enjoys going around the supermarket with me and can actually be very educational talking about all the different foods and colors we see. But, shopping can be quite a stressful experience, especially when you are in a rush. Your children aren’t always as patience when it is busy and crowded, they add things into the trolley, not to mention when you have a diaper crisis.

It is a lot more relaxing and less time-consuming shopping online within a few clicks and is delivered fresh to your door. For busy moms, this is a gem for making life a little bit easier.

 

You can save time AND earn some cash easily by signing up at Ebates. Completely FREE and completely easy (I made money just yesterday using it) 

 

We still go shopping for fresh produce, but through online shopping every week, I am able to use the time I gain back spending quality time with both of my children.

3) Grabbing Odds and Ends

As I mentioned above, though I do my main weekly shop online, I will do a small ‘top up’ shop each week as well. Though online shopping is brilliant for time-saving, budget, as you aren’t picking up enticing offers, and convenient, fresh still does not last forever and you aren’t guaranteed to have brilliant dates.

Midweek, I generally do a small shopping trip when I pick up my children’s diapers and generally consists of salad items and any fresh herbs I need for the rest of the week.

4) Prep and Portion

Once you have finished shopping, set aside some time to prepare fresh and portion items in advance.  Apart of family meal planning is scheduling time for prepping your meals.

Some fresh vegetables are more susceptible to going bad rather quickly such as mushrooms and courgettes, so it is a good idea to prepare them ahead of time and freeze.

Any fresh items I know I need chopped up for meals such as soup, chilli, spaghetti bolognese, I chop and portion into freezer bags for each meal and freeze. I do exactly the same for meats as well, separating sausages and portioning up chicken breasts, mince and chops.

Setting aside this time just once a week after shopping really helps save time during the week when you are busier. Instead of spending every evening chopping ingredients, you can just take out the prepared freezer bag in the morning to allow it to defrost.

Another great tip is if you have any fruit that is starting to turn, chop and freeze them. They can be used in smoothies, shakes, crumble puddings or even as a cool snack during summer months.

5) Batch Cooking

A huge time saver for busy moms is to batch cook.  This simply means cooking more portions than is needed for your meal and freezing extras or eating leftovers the next day.

Many meals are really easy to work out double quantities for and most are able to be frozen. A few of our family favorites to batch cook and freeze are:

curries

pasta sauces

chillis

soups

stews

If weaning, as I mentioned, do not spend time cooking different meals for your babies. You can easily puree different vegetables from your own meal or even puree whole meals for them if they are at a further stage or alternatively plate up a small portion if BLW. I also highly recommend if you do not already own one to purchase a slow cooker. This is a huge time saver and there are many meals that you can place all the ingredients into the slow cooker and leave it to cook on a selected heat setting.

Wanna save time?  Purchase my favorite slow cooker

(I’ve used it for more than 5 years for my family of 5)

 

6) Snack Preparation

Snacks are essential part of family meal planning.  If your children are anything like mine, they could eat all day long.

If I don’t plan ahead, I can spend most of my day popping in and out of the kitchen preparing different snacks for them.

I spend a part of my morning, preparing their daily snacks in order to save these countless trips to the kitchen, including snacks they can access themselves. I personally do this in the morning as my children are entertained with eating their breakfasts but you may feel you have more flexible time on an evening once your children are in bed.

Either way, I prepare snacks that they can pick and choose from throughout the day ranging from satsuma pieces, blueberries, cheese and crackers, cocktail sausages, cheese straws, yogurt through to hummus and vegetable crudités.

 

7) Fun for the Whole Family

One of my favorite things to do with my daughter is baking and cooking.

She completely lights up when she is allowed to be involved with cooking family meals and is actually more willing to try the different food when she has helped. It can make cooking fun and educational, plus helps to still spend time together whilst having to cook.

By following these 7 easy tips for planning and preparing family meals, you will definitely find yourself saving a lot of time, lowering food waste and inevitably, lowering costs. Plus, you may find that through planning and preparation, as a family you eat healthier.

I would love to hear from you what your favorite family meals are that you prepare at home.  Comment below!

If you need more tips on how to manage the main areas of life read The Amazing 5 BIG Ways to Organize Your Mom Life

Want to start some good habits?  Try 10 Habits of Successful Moms

This post was written by Catherine Wilkinson, who blogs at Georgimae.com about honest real Mum life.

You’ll find great information about Family activities and Healthy Recipes. Follow her online on Instagram and Facebook