Meal Plan With Prep Tips – Healthy & Delicious
Meal Plan + Grocery List (Delivery!) + Prep Tips
This week, I’m not only going to share our meals, but also our exact grocery list, AND specific meal prepping tips for the week. Not cooking everything in advance, but prepping your ingredients so you can get freshly cooked meals on the table fast! This week is a busy one. We’ve decided that every Monday night is going to be a form of sandwiches and/or salads etc because of a sports practice our daughter has. Last night it was peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (thanks to a kind friend who gave us homemade strawberry jam!), baby carrots, cherries, and almonds. It wasn’t fancy, and it was easy to bring along in a cooler. But beyond that….we’re pretty food bored. Last week was extremely hot so we either used our grill or Instant Pot (ours is now only $60!) every day. It was wonderful, but we need to switch things up a bit now that temps are down a bit. Today I’ve got a lot going on so I’ll place an Instacart order. Totally worth the time savings now that they deliver Aldi!
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Breakfasts
This has totally changed! I’m the only one who eats breakfast now! The kids eat at daycare, and Travis doesn’t eat breakfast. Okay actually, the kids eat bananas on the way to daycare so they’re full until breakfast time.
For me it’s a green smoothie! (~2cups) Greens from the garden, plain unsweetened almond milk, collagen peptides (two scoops), flax seeds (2tbsp), a banana, 1-2 tbsp nut butter, and frozen strawberries. While this might vary based on what fruit we have this is the “base” recipe I go by. Why? Frozen strawberries tend to be the cheapest frozen fruit, and the protein/fat combo keeps me full. This is loosely based off of a Fab4 smoothie from BodyLove by Kelly Leveque, but I’m not positive it totally follows the rules. Also, I use a Ninja blender. I had a fancy Blendtec once upon a time, but it broke and this $60 Ninja has done just as good of a job on smoothies.
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Lunches
Lunches are the leftovers of the previous nights’ dinner. Saves time and money by a LOT. 100% recommend. We use glasslock containers from Sam’s Club that are super affordable. We loved them so much we bought a second set!
Dinners
Beef & Broccoli over rice
Buffalo Chicken Casserole
Loaded Burger Bowls
Sheet Pan Hawaiian Chicken
One Pot Cabbage Bacon Steak
Pasties and Salad (not homemade, we have these frozen)
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Grocery List
I started to type everything out, then I realized this is ALL an Instacart order, so instead here’s a screenshot of our groceries! I already had a few ingredients
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Total Spent: $94 for family of 4
Meal Prepping To Do for This Week
Beef & Broccoli over rice – defrost florets
Buffalo Chicken Casserole – Precook chicken in Instant Pot, Defrost riced cauliflower. note: I ordered a whole chicken to save money and also make bone broth afterwards.
Loaded Burger Bowls – Cook bacon in advance, slice tomatoes and other toppings
Sheet Pan Hawaiian Chicken – chop peppers and onions
One Pot Cabbage Bacon Steak – pre chop cabbage, cut steak into chunks
Pasties and Salad (not homemade, we have these frozen) – n/a
Tools I Use
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Hi, my name is Rachel Smith. I’m a personal finance nerd, Aldi connoissuer, book lover, yoga enthusiast, and budgeting wiz. I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska but currently call Michigan home. I want to help people with their finances and eating healthy on a tight budget (no matter what your cost-of-living area is!)
