11 Mealtime Hacks for People Who Want Stress-Free Meals

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If you eat food, have your own kitchen, and want easier mealtimes, this article is for you! Use these mealtime hacks to make life less stressful and more scrumptious.

My family personally uses most of the hacks recommended below. I’m also sharing hacks from trusted friends and family.

You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.

I hope these hacks inspire you to be more intentional with how you’re spending your time and energy!

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Let’s dig in!

Mealtime Hack #1 Plan your meals in advance

Note: this hack is also on the post for 14 Easy Mealtime Hacks for Parents of Toddlers.

When I was a kid, my mom had me pick out my clothes the night before. Typically, doing this helped mornings go more smoothly.

The same concept applies to meals. By taking some time to plan your meals in advance, you can reduce:

• Deciding what to eat when you’re hungry NOW
• Scrambling together ingredients
• Navigating hangry eaters because

Not sure how to start meal planning? Check out my post, How to Make Meal Planning and a Food Inventory that Actually Works.

(Note: If you don’t want to print off a food plan every week and/or don’t have beautiful handwriting, this approach is for you!)

Still undecided? Here’s some interesting research about meal planning:

• Meal Planning: The Science –  A cross-sectional study indicates that meal planning may increase home meal prep, which is associated with improved diet quality, food variety, compliance with dietary guidelines, and weight status.
• Go Further with Food with Meal Planning – Meal planning can improve your health, maximize your budget and reduce food waste. (More helpful tips for getting started are listed, too!)

Mealtime Hack #2 Rotate in easy hit dishes into your meal planning

When we meal plan for the week(s), we like to keep these factors in mind:

• What do we currently have available (homemade freezer dishes are a big feature in our meals)
• What tend to be easy hits with our child
• What food needs to be used up sooner (like perishable vegetables, etc.)

If your family loves spaghetti, add it to the monthly rotation. If you’re a soup-y crew, do that. You get the gist.

This doesn’t have to be super complicated. (Woohoo!)

Mealtime Hack #3 Simplify your planning with themed meals

Note: this hack is also on the post for 14 Easy Mealtime Hacks for Parents of Toddlers.

Now doesn’t that sound fancy? Like a fairy princess party for a five-year-old?

But, no, we’re going far more simple than that. Basically, you give yourself a framework for what you’ll eat on certain days.

You could do it based on the type of dish, such as:

• Mexican food
• Italian food
• Asian food
• Pizza
• Breakfast
• Etc.

Or you could base it on how you’ll prepare your food, like:

• Crockpot
• Instant pot
• Oven baked
• Cold cuts (i.e. no cooking)
• Frozen entree nights (more on that later)

Really, it doesn’t matter how you decide to do themed nights.

What’s most important is that it serves you and your household.

And if it doesn’t? Pivot. Try a different approach.

I also apply this concept to breakfasts and lunches. Here’s what we do for breakfast:

• Mondays and Tuesdays: Egg + Muffin
• Wednesdays + Thursdays: Hot cereal
• Fridays: Peanut Butter something

While it could look really boring, it’s actually really liberating. Let’s take Mondays and Tuesdays: Egg + Muffin. I actually have a lot of variety within this. We could have:

• Eggs: Scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelet, a breakfast burrito, hardboiled eggs, etc.
• Muffins: Applesauce, pumpkin, spinach, peanut butter banana, etc.

Honestly, this is a great option for people without toddlers, too. Just pick a combination that you would be okay with eating frequently and plug it in!

Mealtime hack #4 Have some ridiculously easy, satisfying go-to options when you don’t want to eat what you planned

Sometimes you just don’t want to eat the food you’d planned for that day. Frozen soup just. doesn’t. sound. good.

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When this happens, you’ve got two options:

1. Just eat it anyway. Sometimes once you start eating food you felt a bit “meh” about, your tastebuds may change your mind.
2. Pivot. Go with a nourishing, satisfying go-to option instead

Ideally, this option involves shopping your own pantry and refrigerator. Keep your budget in mind!

So, perhaps brainstorm your easy wins using ingredients you tend to have on hand!

Some options you might like include:

• Grilled cheese sandwiches and frozen veggies
• Pizza
• Nachos (I’m not going to pretend that’s uber healthy….)
• Quesadillas
• Cereal
• Cold cut sandwiches
• … etc.

Mealtime Hack #5 Try a food delivery service!

I haven’t tried this yet, but have heard from friends and podcasters about how it’s worked for them. My friend, Megan, shared this tip:

Once a month we started we will do one of those mail food services( like Hello Fresh). This will give us three dinners that we don’t have to plan. I find that this gives a break in the normal dinner recipe rut without really breaking the bank. It’s added new and easy recipes for us to recreate later as well.

Megan

Mealtime Hack #6 Make food in bulk (especially if it’s freezer friendly)

My husband, our resident entree cook, makes a big dish or two most weekends.

via GIPHY

Basically, he’s a cooking superstar. Swoon.

Afterward, we portion it out into meal-friendly portions and freeze it. I do the same when Little Man and I make muffins, waffles, etc.

Those delicious freezer dishes then serve us for the following weeks (or months!) to make meals easy and satisfying.

Note: We wouldn’t be able to freeze as much as we do without our deep freezer. My in-laws graciously gave us our deep freezer when our son came home from the NICU. #gamechanger

I’ve been surprised by how little space this freezer takes up. We use this freezer, but in white:

Mealtime Hack #7 Make batch-prepping food a part of your weekly rhythm

For instance, if you eat sandwiches throughout the week (the hubs does), I have two standing days each week when I prep his sandwiches for part of the week: Sundays and Wednesdays.

Preparing multiple sandwiches at a time is far more efficient and effective than prepping one sandwich every night.

Rather than scrambling for lunch every day, his meals are prepped and ready to rock. And I’m not making sandwiches as often!

Mealtime Hack #8 Take a few minutes every day to prep your food for the next day

With the previous hack in mind, build in a time each day to review what you’re going to eat the next day and make it easy to grab.

For instance, every night we take 30 seconds (give or take) to check our meal planning calendar for the next day. Then we set out the food for the next day.

If we’re eating homemade frozen chicken soup, that goes in the refrigerator. If Little Man and I are eating muffins and eggs, I pop a bag of muffins in the fridge.

It takes soo little time, but it’s so helpful for the next day.

And heck – the food’s starting to defrost when we’re snoozing (or while our son is loudly shouting his latest phrases) #win

Mealtime Hack #9 Get adventurous with a food challenge

Worried that your meals will get boring? Give yourself any of the challenges below to keep it fresh:

• Clean out the pantry/refrigerator/freezer challenge. Literally try to use up all the items in your pantry, refrigerator, or freezer by a certain date without buying more food. (We’ve tried a variation of this, but since we need fresh milk each week for our toddler, it’s been a bit more challenging to stick with it.)
• Try X number of new recipes a month! I’ve challenged myself to try three new recipes each month. These recipes have included main dishes, sides, baked goods, popsicles, smoothie combinations, etc. It’s been so much fun! What’s made it even more satisfying is that we’re really just using different combinations or proportions of ingredients we already have.
• The March Healthy Eating Challenge Try a bunch of these mini-challenges!

Mealtime Hack #10 Keep a food inventory

You can find SOO many tools to use a food inventory. So far, what I’ve seen seems. to fall into two approaches:

• Pen and paper
• Digital

My go-to approach is using a whiteboard for quick updates and a Google doc for more detailed tracking.

Before you freak out (ack! more work!), it can seriously be helpful – especially if you meal plan.

For our meal planning, especially our freezer meal nights, we just filter for the entrees and it makes it much easier to keep it up to date.

If you actually keep it up-to-date, it can also help you with ordering groceries because you know what you actually have. With that in mind, it can help you be more effective with your budget and not overspend. Yay!

Mealtime Hack #11 Freaking label your food

… especially if you plan on freezing it. Think about Future You or whoever else is digging in your freezer. Will they be able to identify what it is?

Or will it become mystery meat that then gets tossed?

Ahem… someone in my household is guilty of this…

(Dating your dishes can help, too, so you know if you need to eat it soon or let it go…)

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Articles related to mealtime hacks for people who want stress-free meals

• 14 Easy Mealtime Hacks for Parents of Toddlers
• 5 Best Mealtime Products for Babies through Toddlers
• How to Make Meal Planning and a Food Inventory that Actually Works
• Use Monthly Planning to Prioritize What Matters Most
• How to DIY Your Own Sexy, Fun Marriage Retreat at Home

Wrapping up mealtime hacks for people who want stress-free meals

I hope these mealtime hacks have given you some easy, doable ideas to make mealtimes less stressful! As a quick recap, here are the hacks we’ve discussed:

1. Mealtime Hack #1 Plan your meals in advance
2. Mealtime Hack #2 Rotate in easy hit dishes into your meal planning
3. Mealtime Hack #3 Simplify your planning with themed meals
4. Mealtime hack #4 Have some ridiculously easy, satisfying go-to options when you don’t want to eat what you planned
5. Mealtime Hack #5 Try a food delivery service!
6. Mealtime Hack #6 Make food in bulk (especially if it’s freezer friendly)
7. Mealtime Hack #7 Make batch-prepping food a part of your weekly rhythm
8. Mealtime Hack #8 Take a few minutes every day to prep your food for the next day
9. Mealtime Hack #9 Get adventurous with a food challenge
10. Mealtime Hack #10 Keep a food inventory
11. Mealtime Hack #11 Freaking label your food

You are God’s beloved. Your life matters. Live intentionally.

I hope these hacks inspire you to be more intentional with how you’re spending your time and energy!

Which hacks are you going to try? Do you have another hack to share? Let’s talk in the comments!

P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.