Do you have a meal planning strategy to keep family dinners both healthy and stress-free? - Win £200 Voucher

[rosiemumsnet]

Now that January is here, it's the perfect time to settle back into a routine and focus on healthier eating after the holiday indulgence!

We know that getting a healthy, stress-free family dinner on the table can be tricky with busy schedules and picky eaters. We’d love to hear from parents who have a meal planning strategy that works - one that keeps family dinners both nutritious and hassle-free!

So whether it's planning meals for the week, prepping ingredients in advance, or maybe you’re a fan of recipe box deliveries, we’d love to hear your tips and ideas for making mealtime easier!

Here’s what Mindful Chef have to say:

Mindful Chef is the UK's number one rated recipe box company, set up to make healthy eating easy. Our recipe boxes ensure our customers have the tools to conveniently eat high-quality, nutritious meals that help them feel far healthier and happier.

One lucky Mumsnetter will win a £200 VEX voucher for a store of their choice. All you have to do is post your tips or ideas in the thread below and vote in the poll to be entered into a prize draw. Good luck!

Because of DHs work patterns it is often just me and dc at dinnertime so I need to plan two lots of meals - dh could get his own food but sometimes I like to eat with him!

I've got a lot more relaxed about what an evening meal is. If I know dc have had a warm lunch at school they will happily eat sandwiches and veg sticks for dinner. I also stop frowning at their odd requests like sausages, rice and broccoli. It's a balanced meal and they eat it!

I then go for easy things with dh like quesadillas where I fry some frozen onions and peppers, some tinned black beans, Chipotle paste and cheese. Or I will use frozen onions again with some frozen spinach and tinned chickpeas and chopped tomatoes to make a quick curry. I usually make my own pastes but never feel bad about adding some from a jar.

Over time I have learnt one stress free way is to cook extra by popping in extra vegetables to help dinners go further and then freeze some or leave in fridge for the next day if plans allow. Otherwise I label how many portions are frozen together so that if plans change we have the option of defrosting one portion or more.

I swear by meal prepping. I batch cook at the weekend then I have a freezer full of meals for the whole week. They are so easy to reheat and then just add a variety of veggies and you have healthy and quick meals.

I meal plan weekly based on what we already have in plus who will be around and when etc.
Then I do the shopping list based on this and stick to it.
I plan all meals & snacks.
Saves loads of stress, time, money & waste.

I love cooking and regularly destress by making batches of lots of things we like then freezing them for busy days when we can still have a healthy home cooked meal on the table. We do fake aways this way too and as we are relatively fussy we can all have different meals some nights with no hassle.

For me it is simplicity - that's what my family like. Pasta meals, lots of mince to make meatballs, cottage pie and a bolognaise. I have looked at recipe boxes, but there is very little my family would eat tbh.

I batch cook and don't mind having the same meals twice in a row. This cuts down cooking and cleaning times, and means there's something to heat up dinner after work. it stops impulse ordering takeaways or snacking at work knowing there's a meal waiting at home. Also easier to add in more veg and make a stew for example when you know what you're planning to cook. I do love a stew in the winter and it's been great for getting more veg into the family.

I meal plan for the whole week once a week and keep a list of the meals that have worked well so I don't forget them. I loved the meal boxes when the kids were a bit smaller, especially if we were going on holiday but now they are bigger, we would need a 5 person box and they don't seem to exist so we do without. It's too much waste to buy one big enough for 6 and I couldnt bulk out the 4 person one any more.

Plan ahead for the week as much as possible and do an online order.

We have a four week rota and batch cook. A dual pot slow cooker means it’s easy to have two similar meals cooking such as carrot and coriander soup and vegetable soup.

Or we do this with a curry and a hotter version of that curry.

For me is has to be quick and easy - but nutritious - we go through a lot of chicken and mince, and I use my slow cooker - piled high with carrots, potatoes, squash, stock, seasoning and beef or chicken cubes - we don't eat too much lamb due to the expense and fat can spoil the stews. I plan meals - but seem to buy the same ingredients each week so my plans can alter but the shopping bill seems to remain stable.
cheesy beans on toast can be a timesaver when have 10 minutes.

For those of you on here how do you tackle a picky eater? It's easy to meal plan for DH and DC1 as they'll eat anything but DC2 is very difficult to please with food and if they had their way would scoff crisps all day long.

Variety. I make several sides. Sometimes I make a side with two sauces- cauliflower cheese, but one half has tomato sauce instead. As time goes on it’s more of a ripple, as the dc become more tolerant of the despised option.

A mousaka where one end contained potato and the other end aubergine.

Shelherds pie with one end covered in potato mash, and the other end having sweet potato/swede or thinly sliced potato.

I tended to serve everyone a tiny position of every veg, but not touching the others. They could have extras of anything they wanted more of. Over time they become more and more tolerant.

Sorry, ASD family here. So foods didn’t touch, sauces were often served on the side so they could dip into them etc.

Oh another success was build your own dinners. Wraps with loads of fresh veg, ground beef, cheese, spicy sauce, grated cheese.

They each added the veg they liked and as much spicy sauce as they liked. Pepper sticks, celery, carrot peels, lettuce, sweetcorn, tomato etc.

And riff off what they like. If they like burgers, give them a burger but made with a chicken breast, or a burger but the meat is broken up and juicer like a bolognese.

If they like pizza, give them pasta with pizza sauce and cheese.
If they like crisps, use crushed crisps as breadcrumbs on a chicken breast, or as a crispy topping on a pasta bake or cottage pie.

Start with what they like, and extend it.

Thank you @myplace this is all very helpful. Particularly like the idea of crisps for breadcrumbs for myself, never mind DC 😂 with the deconstructed meals, do you feel like it creates waste? Although I suppose whatever DC2 doesn't eat their older sibling and my DH can 😅

We meal plan and it is on a white board in the kitchen. If someone decides to go out or has an extra person over, they can swap meals, if necessary, so long as they've checked dates on any fresh meat etc. Anyone can add a meal and add the ingredients to the shopping list on the same whiteboard. It keeps everyone involved and responsible and whoever is home first can start cooking/preparing.

Yes we meal plan and do a weekly grocery shop based on the plan. It definitely reduces stress and food waste

No, not at all. We have leftovers for lunch or turned into something else.

If I make a lot of salad items, for example, either someone sits and absentmindedly eats all the celery sticks while we chat, or it goes into a tub for next day snacks.

Left over veg sides like cauliflower cheese make a really good lunch- a pack up in a flask, or whoever is wfh. Worst case scenario someone has it instead of the green beans served with the next night’s dinner.

After a while, everyone gets very used to having a variety of food available and eating a bit of everything and extra of something.

Then they go to uni and ring to ask how you do ‘that thing with the green beans’, or make the mash crispy, or whatever.

We talk about food quite a lot. I needed them to be interested in what they like and why, rather than afraid of what I may have hidden in the sauce!
Because I did hide things in the sauce 🤣 “I made the pizza sauce a bit differently today. What do you think? Is it better or do you prefer the usual one? That didn’t have grated courgette in!”.

One tip I have is about freezing leftover ingredients like tomato puree - I use an ice cube tray to freeze it and then store them in a tub in the freezer.

Like many people, I batch-cook by making a larger portion of meals that suit being frozen: bolognese, soup, stir-fries etc. I like listening to podcasts, audiobook or music while cooking and find it makes the job more interesting.

Kids are now primary age but I still use those freezer trays designed for weaning. When cooking sauces, I make some extra and freeze them in those cubes. They we use them as pasta sauce, pizza topping, on toasties, as sandwich spread, add to rice for joloff... etc. Find it really handy.

I plan - my DC's like similar meals and don;t really like to deviate so we tend to buy lots of vegetables for the air fryer, 12% fat mince for pasta dishes, and bread for toasties, good quality cheese, and bread flour for our pizza's and again peppers, corn and tomato paste. My shopping menus are similar week on week, but it works for us.

I plan what I buy, and also keep a shopping list on the fridge door so I can add the 'non weekly' items such as foil, butter and coffee. I ask my DC's and DH if they want anything special that week - usually if it is a birthday tea when they pick what they want.
We go through a lot of rice, pasta, eggs and yoghurt so they are weekly regulars and are on my shopping list, I tend to keep to a modest shopping budget and I feel we always eat well.

I plan left overs.

So baked potatoes one day, I will cook more than I need and then use them to make gnocchi the next day.

Shepherd's pies I put a lot of veg in to make a complete meal.

I'd love to have tailored foodboxes - just totally out of my price range.
I plan our meals, which includes a Sunday dinner - with a meat - usually chicken or brisket - which I use the left overs for a soup or pie the next day.
I plan with variety and full meat dishes up with vegetables (sometimes grated into a Bolognese).
Potatoes baked mashed or airfried are a staple of most meals,

Knowing how to cook and using fresh, seasonal ingredients.
Not rocket science and no bloody "hacks" involved!
I thought a hack was a precursor to learning to hunt foxes, but perhaps I am of a different generation and social demography?