Do you have a hard time getting a balanced meal on the table for your family every night? As a working mom, it can be tough to find the time to figure out what everyone’s going to eat every single day. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that I cook dinner 5-6 days out of the week. Even while working 4 days a week, plus being responsible for 5 little humans. “Where do you find the time?”, I get asked all the time! It’s definitely not easy, and takes some planning to make this happen. I’ll share with you how you, too, can easily answer the daily question of “Mommy, what’s for dinner?”.

“I hate when I’m waiting for mom to cook dinner, then I realize I’m the mom and I have to cook dinner.”

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My usual routine

Most of the time, I cook dinner in the mornings before work, before everyone else gets up. That’s usually at 5:30am (grrrrr…..early, I know!). It’s what works for me, though, because we get home so late in the evenings with work and the kids’ activities. If I wait to cook later, the kids are usually STARVING. Their first question when I pick them up from school isn’t “Mommy, how was your day?”, it’s “Mommy, what’s for dinner?”. So, cooking early definitely helps. But I have to admit, the number one reason I’m able to get a decently balanced dinner on the table regularly is good ‘ole Meal Planning.

I’ll add here that with 5 children and a husband, there are many different “favorite” meals in our house. It’s not always easy to please everyone, but I’m a firm believer in everyone eating whatever is cooked that day. I don’t make 2-3+ dinners in one day to please everyone. The good thing, though, is that we don’t have any picky eaters. Even though they may not “love” something, they’ll eat it because it’s what’s for dinner – and there’s no other choice!

Dinner Categories

What has really helped to “automate” my meal planning is having certain “Dinner Categories” for certain days of the week. This is an example of the categories in our house:

• Sundays: Pasta
• Mondays: Seafood
• Tuesdays: Chicken
• Wednesdays: Beef
• Thursdays: Pork
• Fridays: Eat out/take out night. Each Friday, one of the kids gets to choose what we’ll buy for dinner. We rotate through each of the kids (except the baby, for now). They each get their “dinner day” every Friday. They love it, and sometimes plan their choices weeks in advance! As an aside: My favorite time-saving tip for take out: ORDER AHEAD! I use the apps on my phone, order online, or call restaurants directly to order when I’m 20-30 minutes away so that I don’t have to wait with 5 hungry children. I use the “re-order” feature for a lot of restaurants, which allows me to order the same thing we’ve ordered before, which also saves time, and saves me from forgetting something for someone!
• Saturdays: Leftovers or take out. Saturdays are usually more flexible because I have more free time to decide what we’ll eat. Sometimes I’ll cook, but a lot of the time we just don’t have a set “dinner time” on Saturdays, and we’ll just eat leftovers.

I use these categories as a guide to create a meal rotation. I’ve pre-planned meals in each category (for each day) for 5 weeks, and we rotate through them each month. This is kept on my “Dinner Rotation” master list, which lists the main dish, sides and veggies, as well as the ingredients I need for each dish. This list isn’t always followed to the tee, because it depends what I have in the fridge/freezer. If there’s extra uncooked meat, I’d prefer to use that over spending money on something else!

Here’s an example of my Dinner Rotation Master List:

Week 1:

• Sunday: (Category: Pasta) – Spaghetti and meat sauce with corn and garlic bread.
  • Needs: Ground beef, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, corn, garlic toast, shredded cheese, parmesan cheese
• Monday: (Category: Seafood) – Teriyaki shrimp and fish with rice and broccoli
  • Needs: Tilapia, Jumbo shrimp, teriyaki sauce, rice, onions, green peppers, broccoli
• Tuesday: (Category: Chicken) – Curry Chicken with rice and carrots.
  • Needs: Chicken drumsticks and thighs, curry powder, onions, thyme, rice, carrots
• Wednesday: (Category: Beef) – Meatloaf with rice and brussel sprouts.
  • Needs: Ground Beef, eggs, bread crumbs, onions, green peppers, worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, brussel sprouts, rice
• Thursday: (Category: Pork) – BBQ Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and green beans.
  • Needs: Pork chops, barbecue sauce, potatoes, butter, onions, green beans

This is what I use for Week 1 every month. I have a weekly plan laid out for a total of 5 weeks, all using the “dinner categories” as a guide for each day. I just came up with meals for each day based on the category, and re-use the rotation every month. The list of ingredients is helpful, because as I’m getting my grocery list ready (to order through Shipt!), I can look at my meals for the week and see what I need.

Since the same meals are usually repeated each month, I don’t really have to meal plan monthly. I just look at my Meal Rotation cheat sheet, look at the week of the month we’re in (week 1, week 2, etc), and make sure I have the ingredients I need. It really just automates the process, without me having to really think about it. There’s enough variety within each week that no one complains that we’re eating the same thing every month.

It’s not a perfect science

I have to admit, we have weeks that are hectic and I forget to plan out my grocery list properly. Or weekdays that we’re out late for a school event, meeting, or sports activity, and we don’t eat our usual dinner at home. The downside to that is we don’t always get a balanced meal when it has to be quick. But, I give myself grace knowing that we all do eat pretty well-balanced most nights.

You can do it!

I encourage you to give meal planning a try! It may seem like a lot at first, but it’s such a time-saver and money-saver once you start to just automate it. I want you to give yourself grace, though, if your kids aren’t eating a balanced meal every single day. All I want you to do is try! It’ll feel good to have a confident answer to the dreaded question, “mommy, what’s for dinner?” most nights!

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