How to Use the Monthly Meals Page for Meal Planning

Whether for budgeting, fitness or just sanity, meal prepping can save you time and money, and help with fitness goals. The Monthly Meals page is a relatively new page as of July, and it’s proven to be so helpful for looking ahead and planning on a macro level. Where Meal Planning 1, 2, and 3 allow you to break down meals each week, the Monthly Meals page gives a snapshot of your entire month on one page. Let’s explore some ways to utilize it to maximize meal planning benefits. 

Plan Around Ingredients

One of the benefits of having a monthly look at all your meals is that it can save you trips to the store, which also saves money. Looking ahead at what ingredients you’ll commonly use for meals throughout the month can help you stock up on them early, and make sure you’re actually using them. Monthly Meals also has spaces to plan each meal—breakfast, lunch and dinner—for the entire month! This is helpful with perishable food items because you can freeze them or find unique ways to incorporate them into other meals. Have purple cabbage leftover from tacos the night before? Throw some in a morning smoothie for breakfast. There are so many possibilities!

Use It to Reach Fitness Goals

If you like counting calories, you can use Monthly Meals to help keep you on track. By writing how many calories you intend to consume for each meal, and then planning meals that fall into those specific caloric intake goals, you can create an entire month’s worth of healthy meals that are right on target with what you’re trying to achieve.

Monthly Recipe Haul

Try designating time the week or evening before a new month and going through favorite online recipe accounts or your hardcopy cookbooks for meal ideas, then filling them in for the entire month. Write down key search words and where the recipe is from so you can find it easily when it comes time to cook. This practice will alleviate the last-minute scramble to find something for dinner. You can always adjust later depending on your schedule and preferences, but it’s nice to have at least a baseline idea and references of what you could make for the month. Need some inspiration? Here are some of our favorite recipe/meal prepping Instagram accounts:

• @shelfcooking

• @damndelicious

• @cleanmondaymeals

• @mealpreponfleek

• @gimmesomeoven

Here’s hoping for a month of delicious meals ahead! Happy cooking!