After sharing my pantry organization post, I got some good questions about grocery shopping, meal planning and general weekly prep, so that’s what I’m going to talk about today!
If you are on Instagram, I have several saved stories in our highlights that cover a lot of this in more detail. You can find that here.
Okay, let’s get to it!
I really didn’t have set systems in place regarding groceries, meal planning, lunch prepping, etc. until Emily, our third baby, was born. Once we went from 2-3 kids, I felt like plans and established systems for these weekly tasks helped make the week run so much more smoothly.
Walmart Pickup has been a total game changer for weekly groceries. I love that I can add what we need on the app throughout the week and schedule my order for pickup on Fridays either before or after a play date. Nobody has to get out of the car and a big chunck of our weekly grocery shopping is done! You can sign up for Walmart Grocery Pickup HERE and we’ll each get $10 off when you place your first order. 😉
When it comes to meal planning for the week, I like to follow this formula in my head: 2+2+2+1. Here’s what I mean by that:
For the 5-minute meals, I do a simple protein, starch, and veggie. I usually pick a protein, marinate it in one of my favorite marinades in a ziplock bag for the day, and then dump the bag with the protein and marinade in a baking dish when it’s time to cook.
For the starch, I’ll do rice or couscous (I like the Near East brand) or riced cauliflower. And for the veggie, I do a steam-in-bag veggie, roast carrots with the baking protein, or cut up some fresh broccoli quickly, cover it with sea salt or Trader Joe’s “Everything But the Bagel” seasoning, and cook it in the microwave for 4 minutes. Then I toss a little butter on top. 😉 (Land-O-Lakes Olive Oil and Sea Salt is our favorite.) For more 5-minute prep ideas, check out my saved highlights on Instagram.
For the 30-minute meals, I’ll usually do a Hello Fresh meal, a new recipe, or an old favorite that involves more chopping, sautéing, or overall prepping. We have done Hello Fresh for about a year now and have loved every meal we’ve made. I order it 1-2 times/month and often still choose recipes for my 30-minute prep nights on the weeks when I’m not ordering. If you’re interested in giving Hello Fresh a try, you can use this link to get $40 off of your first order! And when you order using the link, I’ll get $20 off of our next order as well. 🙂
It seemed to take me just as long to pack 1 lunch as it does to now pack 7 lunches at a time. This has been such a time saver during the week and helps make the mornings before school run smoothly.
So every Sunday, I count out 7 of everything that’s individually packaged and dump those items plus all other ingredients on the counter with the lunch tupperware containers. Then I divide everything out into the appropriate containers and stack them all in the fridge. This whole process takes me 20 minutes max.
These are the containers I use from Amazon. They are super cheap and hold up really well, dishwasher and all.
I also have these, which have held up just as well and cost even less!
So that is all for today! If you’d like to see a more detailed explanation of the meal prepping ideas or how I clean out the fridge before bringing home the new groceries each week, be sure to check out my saved stories on Instagram!
