(The lazy or just busy home cook’s guide to meal planning that saves you time and dishes)

I used to love cooking elaborate meals.

Being in the kitchen for an hour or two (or more sometimes) prepping, chopping, and sauteeing used to energize me. Everything from scratch, building layers of flavor in every component of a meal would make me beam with pride.

Then kids and chaos hit

3 kids and a global pandemic later, we realized we were for sure surviving, not thriving in the meal department. We were burning it at both ends with just the bare minimum in every regular task. 

I can’t even imagine having the time or mental space to whip up elaborate meals that take hours of free time to cook (what even is free time anymore) and leave the kitchen looking like a tornado just ran through (spoiler alert: we are the adults, so we have to clean it up PLUS the mess those tiny people make). Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Elaborate turned to easy

No, we totally abandoned cooking long, drawn-out dinners in favor of meal planning “the easy way.” We found freedom and discovered we loved dinner time again with just a little planning ahead, the laziest version of batch cooking, and a flexible plan for when the plan falls through.

What comes to mind when you hear “meal prep” or “batch cook”? For me, it’s meal planning programs touting a full week of meals cooked for the small price of just YOUR ENTIRE DAY ON SUN. 

Sure, you have your mise en place ready for multiple meals for the week. But it also leaves you with a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, and 5 hours of your life you will never get back. 

Keep your five hours of prep

No thank you. Not for me. Especially in this season where I have enough dirty dishes to clean just from real life and where I would have a tiny person attached to my leg crying the entire 5 hours of meal prep. Hard pass.

The type of planning ahead and meal prepping I love is actually sustainable. And get this, you don’t have to use more dishes or take more time. Instead of being in the kitchen for hours and hours and creating all the extra dishes to wash and using every single Tupperware in your cabinet. 

My system is “one for now, one for later” 

Think about it: Does it take more time to brown 1lb of ground beef or 3? Exactly the same amount of time and dishes… the only thing you may need to change is to use a slightly bigger skillet. And now you have fewer dishes on another day.

How much time does it take you to make a batch of rice for burrito bowls on Taco Tuesday? 

How much extra time or dishes would it take to double the amount of rice you cook and store the extra in the fridge for stir fry on Thursday night? No extra time. Fewer dishes.

While I’m already doing X, Can I do double? It applies to almost anything you’re already doing. 

A few of my favorite time-saving hacks

• Browning meat (store in the fridge if you have another ground meat dish later in the week or let cool and put in a Ziploc and label with the date and freeze to use in a pinch even weeks from now)
• Sauteing onions and garlic to fast-track building a flavor base later in the week
• Chicken baked or in the crockpot (works well to be added to soups, stews, casseroles, salads, and quesadillas later in the week)
• Creating a spice blend so you avoid pulling out all the spices in your cabinet and individually measuring for at least 4-5 more dinners 
• Making a double batch of marinara sauce and freezing the other half
• Cooking a double batch of rice to use later for a stir fry (store in the fridge OR freezer)
• Making an extra meatloaf or doubling the batch of meatballs and freezing
• Making an extra pan of any casserole, pasta bake, lasagna, enchiladas, and freeze for use a few weeks from now

All of these things can be done WHILE you’re prepping dinner now to make your life easier and the process quicker when you make dinner later. 

Think of it like the little cousin of the full-day marathon meal prep/batch cooking systems.

5 Extra minutes beats 5 hours any day

Sure, a few of these take a small amount of extra time. 

For example, it may take an extra 5 minutes to prep an extra pan of enchiladas. But when you’re already prepping the components (filling, sauce, etc.) for one pan, this extra 5 minutes now to prep an extra pan sure beats the 30-45 min to prep that pan next time. 

I call those fully prepped and ready-to-bake pans of lasagna, enchiladas, and casseroles “FREE dinner”! (Just remember to set an alarm the day before to pull it from the freezer to the fridge to thaw overnight).

For more of our fav ways to save time in the kitchen and money at the grocery store, check out this freebie!