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Meal plan expert secret: weeknight theme meals
How to structure your weekly meal plan
Kristina Todini, RDN
August 13, 2023
Your weeknight dinners need some structure.
One of the most common things I hear from people who are in the beginning of their meal planning journey, is that they don’t know where to start with deciding what to eat each night of the week.
Until you build the skill of knowing how to plan your meals around your schedule, it can be overwhelming to plan out an entire week when you’re used to eating whatever is around at the moment (or worse, resorting to takeout).
That’s why I always suggest to newbies to start with a framework: weeknight theme meals.
Having theme nights for each day of the week helps reduce the overwhelm of all the possible things you could eat, and gives you guardrails for what you actually should eat.
Knowing that Monday night is always a Big Bowl of Pasta night means you can play around and get creative each week with different pasta recipes. Or deciding that Wednesday nights are always busy in your home means you can make Simple Sandwich and Vegetables night in the limited time you do have.
Setting up a framework of theme nights – ones that work for you and your family – helps you to narrow down exactly what to plan, shop for, and cook each day of the week.
And not every week has to the same: we shuffle through a rotation of about 10 theme nights each and every week. And we’re always looking for more meal theme ideas that allow us to both have a plan, and get creative with our meals.
Theme night frameworks are just one of the things I teach inside my flagship course, Meal Planning Master. Today is the last day to get 30% with the code PLAN30!
👉 Try this 5-day theme night meal plan
DID YOU KNOW? 🧐
Wyoming-based fast food restaurant Taco John's was granted a trademark for "Taco Tuesday" in 1989, and defended against other restaurants using that phrase. In May 2023, Taco Bell petitioned, asking that the trademark be cancelled and arguing that the phrase "should be freely available to all who make, sell, eat and celebrate tacos". On July 18, 2023, Taco John's CEO announced that they would abandon the "Taco Tuesday" trademark, leaving New Jersey as the only state where the phrase remains trademarked. (source)
LOVELY LINKS 🔗
TRY IT: 15 meal theme ideas from a fellow dietitian (Dietetic Directions)
AIR FRY NIGHT: Are you an Air Fry fanatic? Try a theme night using a recipe from Thyme and Joy, a great chef and blogger friend
NOTTE ITALIANA: Another fellow recipe site friend, Pina Bresciani’s classic Italian recipes are drool-worthy. And she’s a Tiktok star!
Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.
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