I too find the meat/starch/veggie lineup to be the easiest way to meal plan. Some of our favorites are:

Meats:
Salmon, cod, or halibut
Chicken breasts or thighs
A larger steak, like a flank steak, that I can cook in one piece and then slice

Starches:
Roasted potato wedges with garlic and thyme
Mashed potatoes
Pasta with butter and parmesan
Rice

Veggies:
Roasted broccoli
Air-fried brussel sprouts
Steamed asparagus
Pan-seared sliced zucchini

The beauty is that they all mix and match, so I can pick up whatever veggies look good at the store and work from there.

Yes I made

Meat (fish/chicken/pork/beef), starch (rice/pasta/potato), veggie (steamed/roasted/salad) (M,T,W)

Leftovers (th) this is often a burrito of leftovers

Pizza/chinese/sushi : F

Sat and Sun are often cookouts/parties… if not my H is responsible

I need a system

Yes, put a starch, a veggie, and a protein on the plate. Mix and match and rotate

Like you found, OP, cooking regularly is just about finding the right system for you and your family. For some people, this is using a meal service like Hello Fresh. For others, this is about cooking up base ingredients over the weekend and then assembling them in various ways during the week (like cook up a huge amount of quinoa on Sunday, use for grain bowls, veggie burgers, stir fries, porridge, etc during the week). Others plan every meal for the whole week so they know exactly what they'll be making. Do what works best for you, and good luck!

Now you can start planning some meat-free meals!

Anonymous wrote:Most of it is figuring out what your family likes and how much time it takes to make it. Lasagna is 1 hour prep plus baking time, spaghetti is on the table in 20 minutes. I make double batches of lasagna and freeze one, which is useful on nights I plan to cook but something comes up. I don’t want to rely on takeout.

Yes I have one super picky and it really demoralized me especially when he influenced his sibling to not eat. Luckily sibling outgrew this and doing separate meat, side, veggie also helps with that. The other obstacle was/is clean up. Cooking meat only every other day helps with that. I’ve also started insisting kids take their plates to the sink, need to get them to rinse and load.

Here are my easy meals: (hate cooking)

Salmon green beans and rice
Taco night
Spaghetti bolognese
Chicken, broccoli and plain pasta
Kielbasa and potato and salad night
Shrimp and pasta night
Pork tenderloin, pasta and some vegetable
Rice, black beans, cut up chicken bowl night
Frozen pizza night
Chick Fila does make the rotation if we are busy or sick or just can't deal

Kids love pasta as you can see. Nothing I've listed takes more than 15 minutes and it gets eaten. We are all open to adding variety so if anyone has suggestions, let me know!!

Chick a fill is disgusting. Congrats on cooking healthier meals.

Most of it is figuring out what your family likes and how much time it takes to make it. Lasagna is 1 hour prep plus baking time, spaghetti is on the table in 20 minutes. I make double batches of lasagna and freeze one, which is useful on nights I plan to cook but something comes up. I don’t want to rely on takeout.

Thanks for posting this OP. Also find it hard to cook every night. You have a good system!

Ok I hate and suck at cooking for my family of 3 adults 3 young kids. I’ve tried everything from meal kits to CSA boxes and never found a good shortcut for me. We always ended up at chick FIL a too many nights or with frozen chicken nuggets too many nights. This week though I hit in a new system:

Buy two meat packages: ie pork ribs, chicken strips, pot roast beef.
Also buy: bacon, frozen salmon, box of fresh spinach.

Make spaghetti or rice as a side
Make easy veg like cooked spinach, frozen peas, or as second side

Cook the meat packages 3 nights ie mon, wed , fri

Use Leftover meat 4 nights only make sides.

This seems so easy and obvious but I really could not get handle on it until now. Anyone else found this to be the case?