Week 4: Steal My Meal Plan! {4 Week Meal Plan Series}
What if your weeknight dinner was already cooked when you got home in the evening? I mean TOTALLY ready? Like ready to serve yourself, sit down and enjoy.
Okay, now what if I told you that YOU made it...while you were out of the house? Is it magic?? Not really, but it sure feels like it.
Have you heard of "Freezer Dump Meals"?
Week 4: Steal My Meal Plan (10 freezer dump meals made from doubling all the recipes)
Freezer Dump meals are something where you invest the meal prep time up front to reap the benefits later - during a busy week. This way you can still enjoy delicious, homecooked, healthy meals no matter how crazy your schedule is!
I'm super excited to bring you this meal plan as the last week of our 4-Week Meal Planning Series because once you learn how to manage "Freezer Dump Meals", the possibilities are endless. You can substitute different recipes in and out using slow cooker meals that can be prepped and frozen ahead of time and thawed and cooked as needed (with a small amount of foresight).
Okay Mamas, let's start with me the enticing part, the part where you...
Steal my meal plan!
Yes, that's exactly what I said. I'm giving you the very meal plans that I have made and used for my family. Tried and true. You can do whatever you want with them but what I hope you will do is either:
Copy it exactly and see how it goes. Then make modifications based on what went well and what did not. Trial and error.
OR copy part of the meal plan. Maybe preparing dinner (no matter how easy) isn't in your game plan for 5 nights of the week. Take 2 or 3 nights and leave the rest.
OR just study my meal plans and analyze how I save time and energy by batching tasks, cooking once to eat twice (or three times), using similar ingredients, etc. By learning these techniques you can try and make your own meal plans that will be more efficient, get yourself out of the kitchen more, and save time and money on groceries.
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Let's get started: Week 4 Meal Plan
With each meal, we are going to go from this freezer dump meal...
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup Freezer Dump Meal
To this delicious hot, steaming, healthy meal...
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup from CountryLiving.com
Week 4 Meal Plan
This week's meal plan is Gluten-Free (GF), Dairy-Free (DF), and Grain-Free* (if you choose cauliflower rice instead of regular rice). There are some dairy options listed as optional toppings but you can easily leave those out without compromising flavor!
Sunday: Slow Cooker Sweet & Spicy Chicken served over rice*.
Monday: Korean BBQ Beef served as a rice* bowl, as burritos or tacos with kimchi and Yum Yum Sauce. For extra veggies serve with slaw as well. This meal is literally my favorite winter meal of all times-no kidding! It's the combo with the sauce and kimchi so don't skip it.
Tuesday: Slow Cooker Curried Lentil Soup Note: I love to puree this soup after it's all cooked. I just blend it up in my Vitamix and it's ready in 30 seconds. You can also use an immersion blender.
Wednesday: Coconut Tandoori Chicken over rice* served with Simple Arugula Salad (leave out cheese for DF - still tastes refreshing and light and delicious!)
Thursday: Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup, top with cilantro, jalapeño and avocado
Friday: eat out or take-out
Saturday: FFY (Fend For Yourself) - empty the fridge
Crock Pot Slow Cooker Curried Lentil Soup from GimmeSomeOven.com
Don't have a slow cooker?
Okay, you and I need to have a heart to heart. So, you don't have a slow cooker (aka crock pot), WHY NOT??
I feel like there is no answer you can give me that will make me understand! I save so much time using a slow cooker to cook my meals. I Just. Cannot. Fathom. Life without a slow cooker would be...nope, can't imagine it.
If you are in the market for one (as you should be), I would highly recommend getting one like this one which can be programmed to cook for your chosen amount of hours and then switch to 'warm'. This makes it easy on your schedule and you don't have to race home to turn it 'off' at the end of your cooking time frame.
Also, I should warn you that if you are making a dish like Korean BBQ Beef in a slow cooker and also want to serve it with rice, then you need to be shopping for a rice cooker with a programmable function like this one. We have been using our slow cooker and rice cooker religiously for more than 10 years now! They were both SO worth the investment.
All your best efforts are squashed if you come home to a nice slow cooker meal that smells delicious and is ready to eat but you still have to cook the rice! With a programmable rice cooker, you can set everything to be finished at the same time! #mindblown 🤯
Remember - if you are already a LWL Tribe member you always get FREE access to everything in the Free Library!
General Tips & Advice for Meal Planning
KISS
Keep It Simple (Stupid). For many of these meals, by now I know how to make them by heart and without a recipe. They are simple and they are regularly featured on our family's weekly meal plan. But because I like to help make healthy easy, I have included all the links to each of the recipes so you don't have to search and wonder 'which is the better potato recipe??'
When planning your own weekly meal plans, don't use more than one new recipe per week! KiSS!
Using the same ingredients and recipes more than once
In this week's meal plan I didn't really double up on using the same ingredients in multiple recipes or incorporating ways of using one recipe for several nights. The reason being that I made 3 weeks of meals in one day!!!
Yes, I prepped 3 times the amounts listed (or thereabouts) to give me 3 freezer meals for each of the freezer dump meals I listed. I am so excited about the amount of time I saved!!!
Consult your calendar
As you may have noticed, I usually do more of my cooking or save the recipes that require longer cooking times for Sundays. I also choose easier meals on nights when we have baseball or swim practice or a busy evening for whatever reason. Make sure you consult your calendar and choose either very simple, easy meals on your busy nights or make it a "leftovers" night.
For this week's meal plan, I prepped EVERYTHING on one day. It took me about 2-2.5 hours from start to finish (and I DOUBLED each meal!)...but now I have NO cooking for the rest of the week!! (Except for dumping the meal in the slow cooker and the rice in the rice cooker and turning them on!)
For those of you cooking cauliflower rice, you will have to stir fry the riced cauliflower for 5-8 minutes but that's not bad! You can prep it ahead of time and freeze it or buy it premade to limit your cooking time in the evening.
Seasonal
I was desperate for some warming comfort meals as the weather started to cool off. Just because they are "comfort foods" (at least for me) doesn't mean they aren't healthy too!
Give yourself a night off
I also firmly believe in giving yourself at least one night a week off of cooking or preparing dinner. Unless you absolutely LOVE being in the kitchen all the time (not I!) then give yourself the grace to not be. I usually choose Fridays as our "eat out" or "take-out" night because it works well for our family's schedule.
FFY (Fend For Yourself)
No matter how much I try to calculate how much food to cook, there is always more food than we need. Much of the time I actually make an effort to cook more than enough so we can have leftovers for lunches or whatever. By Saturday, whatever didn't get eaten throughout the week is on the menu for dinner! Fend For Yourself is a great way to clean out the fridge and make room for all the groceries and food for the upcoming week.
Notes on this Meal Plan
On the second page of my weekly meal plan I have it divided into 3 sections so that I can get food prepped and cooked ahead of time. I either build this time into my day or if I have some free time I will take a glance at my notes and I know exactly what needs to be done without spending precious time thinking about it!
For this reason, I love doing my meal plans on paper. I find taking notes to be so much easier on paper and then I can hang the meal plan up in the kitchen.
Now everyone knows the plan and I can also more easily assign kitchen help tasks. Sometimes just referring to the Weekly Meal Plan is enough for my husband to know what he can help with. On paper, I can also cross off the prep tasks that have been completed.
Here is what my "notes page" looks like for this meal plan:
I've added some more detailed notes for your benefit. If you want to see the exact page that I use with my notes and everything, you can download the free printable document in the Free Resource Library.
Marinades/Sauces/Dips/Dressings I can Make Ahead:
Yum Yum Sauce
Salad dressing for the arugula salad
Food/Dishes I can Prepare/Cook Ahead:
EVERYTHING!!
Veggies/Produce I can Prep Ahead:
Prep cauliflower rice or buy pre-made
Additional Notes for this week's meal plan:
Sunday - Meal Prep Day! Prep all 5 Freezer Dump Meals
sub avocado oil for butter in Yum Yum Sauce (make it DF)
Print Labels for Freezer Meals
Optional: double or triple all recipes and make 2-3 weeks of freezer meals!!
Don't forget to stock up on gallon Ziploc freezer bags!!
Remember - if you are already a LWL Tribe member you always get FREE access to everything in the Free Library!
Do you prefer to meal plan digitally?
My friend, there is a digital answer to EVERYTHING! Meet my new digital friend, Plan to Eat. This amazing app can do so much I'm going to have to write a whole different blog post on how incredible it is.
See how I did this week's meal plan on Plan to Eat? You can watch my Plan to Eat video tutorial here.
You do need a subscription to use the service but it's like $3.25 per month. You could save more than that per meal just by meal planning and saving money! If you are a digital person, this app is SO worth it! If you are interested, click on my link here. (That's an affiliate link and I may earn a very small commission at no extra cost to you!)
And if you sign up through my affiliate link I will share my 4 Weeks of Meal Plans digitally with you...for free! Just add me as your friend (LunchwithLeah)! Yay!
A whole month of meals...planned!
You know have 4 weeks of free meal plans to use, that's a whole month! Be sure to go back to Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3 to reuse over and over and over again!
And, could you do me a favor? Can you share this with a friend who is struggling to get healthy meals on the table because life is crazy busy? Sharing is caring ❤️.
Happy meal plan stealing,
P.S. When it comes time to make your own meal plan, be sure to read The 9 Worst Mistakes People Make When Meal Planning. Yeah...avoid those! Also, check out No Time? 9 Easy, Quick Weeknight Meals for some great (easy) recipes to add to your meal plans.
P.P.S. Get your own blank Weekly Meal Planner template in the Free Resource Library.
