8 Tips For Easy, Stress-Free Meal Planning

It's easy to feel so overwhelmed with meal planning that you say "eff it" and give up entirely. To avoid that, use the entire week to plan. Monday through Friday, take a little time each day to research dinner ideas and recipes and figure out what you want to prep. Use Saturday to shop, then prep a little on Saturday night and finish the rest on Sunday.

No one said you need to prep every single meal and snack for all seven days of the week! If you're just starting out, choose one meal. Say you choose breakfast. Make a week of freezer smoothie packs or five jars of overnight oats.

If planning out specific dinner ideas each night makes you feel too stressed, have themes instead. For example, Sundays can be soup, Mondays can be stir fry, Tuesdays Mexican food, etc. Having themes allows you to use the ingredients you have on hand, and accounts for what you're in the mood for, but it still makes you feel like you're planning ahead.

No need to reinvent the meal planning wheel. If you know you like salads every day of the week for lunch, it's OK to make them every Sunday. The same goes for other meals. Do what works — it's OK to do the same recipes week after week.

Choose one meal to make on Sunday or Monday that you won't mind eating another night that week. This vegan lasagna is easy to make, and tastes great a few days later. Other ideas are soup, stews, burrito fillings, and casseroles.

The freezer is a great tool when it comes to meal prep. Double the recipe for soups and freeze individual portions for quick lunches. Make a big batch of dry beans, whole grains, or high-protein muffins and freeze those. Buy in bulk and cut up butternut squash, leeks, bell peppers, or ripe bananas to inspire meals later.

Plan ahead for the times of day when you know you need it the most. If you know you'll reach for an office doughnut if you don't have a snack ready every day at 3 p.m., then make prepping snacks for the week a priority. Make 100-calorie bags of nuts, containers of cut-up fruit, or these adorable mason jar veggies with hummus.

It's OK not to have a plan for what you prep. Sometimes just having cut-up veggies will inspire quick dinners like salads, stir fries, casseroles, pasta dishes, curries, or Buddha bowls. If the veggies are already cut up, you're more likely to eat them!