If spending half your Sunday chopping vegetables and portioning chicken into a dozen matching containers works for you, carry on. 😂
But if you've ever looked at one of those perfectly meal-prepped refrigerators and thought...
There is absolutely no way I'm doing all of that every Sunday.
Hi. Same.
Meal prep sounds great in theory.
Cook everything on Sunday. Portion it into cute little containers. Have breakfast, lunch and dinner ready for the entire week. Never wonder what's for dinner again.
Except there's one tiny problem:
Life happens.
Someone eats what you planned for Tuesday. Wednesday suddenly has practice, a meeting and an appointment you forgot about. Thursday nobody wants the casserole you lovingly prepared four days ago.
That's why I don't think most of us need to get better at meal prepping.
I think we need to get better at making food easier.
You Don’t Need Seven Perfectly Planned Dinners
One of the biggest mistakes we make with meal planning is assuming we have to figure out the entire week.
Seven dinners. Seven lunches. Breakfasts. Snacks. A perfectly organized grocery list.
And apparently we’re also supposed to wash and cut all the produce while we’re at it.
No wonder we don’t want to start.
Instead, ask yourself a much smaller question:
What do I need to make the next few days easier?
Maybe you only need dinners figured out through Wednesday.
Maybe you know Tuesday is going to be crazy, so that’s the meal that needs a plan.
Maybe you don’t need five cooked meals sitting in the refrigerator. You just need food in the house that can become a meal quickly.
That’s a very different kind of planning.
And it’s a whole lot easier to actually keep doing.
Prep Ingredients, Not Your Entire Life
Instead of spending hours making complete meals, prep the things that make meals easier to throw together.
Cook some chicken. Wash the fruit. Chop a few vegetables. Brown ground beef. Make a batch of rice. Hard-boil some eggs. Mix up a sauce or dressing.
Now you’ve got building blocks.
That chicken might become tacos one night, a salad for lunch and a quick rice bowl another night.
Same prep. Three completely different meals.
You’re not locking yourself into Thursday night’s dinner on Sunday afternoon.
You’re just making Thursday-night-you’s job easier.
That’s the goal.
THE FLOWSTATE WAY TO THINK ABOUT MEAL PREP
Don't prep meals. Prep possibilities.
Instead of asking “What can I cook for the whole week?” try asking:
What can I prep once and use more than once?
Chicken → tacos + salads + bowls
Rice → dinner side + bowls + quick lunches
Vegetables → sheet-pan dinner + salads + snacks
Less prep. More flexibility. Fewer 5 p.m. decisions.
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Give Yourself a Few “No-Thinking” Meals
Every household needs these.
Not recipes. Not Pinterest-worthy dinners.
Just meals you can make without consulting the internet, finding twelve ingredients or dirtying every pan you own.
Tacos or taco bowls. Rotisserie chicken and easy sides. Eggs and breakfast potatoes. Pasta with sauce and a protein. Sheet-pan chicken and vegetables. Burgers and salad. Quesadillas. Soup and sandwiches.
Your list will look different from mine.
The important part is having 5–10 meals your household will eat that you can make almost on autopilot.
Because the hardest part of dinner usually isn’t cooking it.
It’s deciding what the heck to make.
Plan Around Your Actual Week
Look at your calendar before you plan your food.
If Wednesday has three activities and everyone is going in different directions, Wednesday probably isn’t the night to try that new recipe you’ve been saving.
That’s a leftovers, slow-cooker, freezer-meal or everybody-grab-something kind of night.
But if Thursday is wide open?
Maybe that’s when you cook something that takes a little longer.
Instead of trying to force your life to fit your meal plan, make your meal plan fit your life.
That sounds ridiculously obvious.
And yet we forget to do it all the time. 😂
Have a Backup Plan for the Backup Plan
There should always be a few foods in your house that can become dinner when the plan completely falls apart.
Because eventually it will.
Frozen meatballs. A frozen pizza. Eggs. Soup. Pasta and sauce. Taco meat in the freezer. Anything you can pull together in 10–15 minutes.
I call these emergency meals, although “I don’t feel like cooking what I planned” absolutely qualifies as an emergency in my book.
Having a backup doesn’t mean your meal plan failed. The backup is part of the plan.
Stop Trying to Win at Meal Prep
There is no prize for having the most beautifully organized refrigerator on Sunday night.
The point isn’t to meal prep.
The point isn’t even really to meal plan.
The point is to make feeding yourself and your family easier.
Sometimes that means cooking ahead.
Sometimes it means chopping a few ingredients.
Sometimes it means knowing what’s for dinner tomorrow.
And sometimes it means putting frozen pizza on the grocery list because Thursday is going to be bananas.
All of those count.
Try This Instead This Week
1. Look at the next 3–4 days.
2. Find the day that’s going to make dinner difficult.
3. Plan that meal first.
4. Pick 2–3 easy dinners using ingredients you already have or can use more than once.
5. Make sure there’s one backup meal in the house.
Done.
You don’t need a refrigerator full of matching containers.
You need fewer 5 p.m. decisions.
WANT ME TO MAKE SOME OF THE PLANNING EASIER?
If figuring out what to eat is the part that trips you up, my Simple, Quick & Nutritious Meal Plan Bundle gives you four weeks of realistic meal plans, recipes, shopping lists and prep help.
Designed for actual busy households... not imaginary ones where nobody changes their mind about dinner. 😂
GET THE MEAL PLAN BUNDLE
FEEL LIKE THE WHOLE WEEK NEEDS A RESET?
If it's not just dinner that feels a little out of control, start small with my FREE 15-Minute Sunday Reset Checklist.
Fifteen minutes. A few important things. An easier start to the week.
GET THE FREE CHECKLIST
Simple beats perfect.
A plan that works with your life will always be more useful than a perfect plan you can't keep up with.
Here's to making life a little easier,
