The Rooted Family Healthy Family Meal Plan

Healthy Family Meal Plan

If you’re looking for a healthy family meal plan, I’ve got you covered! My kiddos are age 12, 9 and 6, so they have no problem calling me out on lack of variety. Or at least they used to before we started this plan because, my game was stale. I was grabbing go-to dinners or slapping together whatever I happened to find. I hated having to think about it after uber-ing kids around and a day of work. I decided to streamline the whole process and make it so simple that even I couldn't mess it up! It also allowed me to put our health first and always have meals that were guiding us towards health. I will let you know how I set it up and how we all plan together to stay both on budget and invested in health.

The Game Plan:

We usually have a weekly family meeting on Sundays where we schedule our meals for the week. We plan all of the breakfasts, lunches, dinners and after-school snacks. This not only helps keep us on budget, but it also helps me not run back and forth to the grocery store every day because we ran out of something we needed for later in the week.

Because we are your typical family - two working parents and kiddos in school - we need simplicity, ease, and flexibility in scheduling our meals. Doing the same thing every Monday may not work for us. We may need a crockpot meal or that everyone can eat when they can. We plan out our meals at the beginning of each week, but that doesn't mean chaos. I organized it more like plugging the meals into the days that work for your family. The whole week is interchangeable.

Prep and Shopping

We also use Saturday/Sunday as our prep/grocery days. Kids are included in both aspects. If you are double batching (making two at once) for the next go-round, you will give yourself a lot less to do one weekend over the other. Personally, I like to shop on one day and prep on the other, so it isn't so much of my day, but there have been times when I am very eager to knock it out. Knowing I don't have to think about it for the next 12 days (or if you are batching, 24 days) makes it very worth a bit of time on a Saturday/Sunday one weekend a month.

If we’re making a casserole, I (or a kiddo helper and myself) typically make two and freeze one. You could get about a month's worth done the first week and sail through the rest of the month if you wanted to. You can grocery shop for all your main staples once during a month if you are batching once every 12 days.

Also, this menu flows so you can easily incorporate leftovers from the night before's meal into the next meal or a side for next night's meal, thereby cutting down on waste. For example, a B4D (breakfast for dinner) night could be doubled and then used as breakfast for 3/7 days for the upcoming week. The leftover ground beef meal can be a side for next night or mixed in with a Taco-night dish, and no one will be the wiser. Leftover stir-fry can find it's way into lettuce wraps...you get the picture.

Getting Kids Involved

I really encourage you to give prep jobs to kiddos, and if they are ready, start to hand over making some of the meals. Anyone age two and over can help in some form. It gives ownership in their health as well as social/emotional bonding time with you. The really nice thing about repeating the same two-week rotation is that kids can catch on to what you are throwing down. They can even try to make it themselves or to put their own creative spin on it. Do lettuce wraps one way a couple of times and then tell your kids there are about 99 other ways to do lettuce wraps on Pinterest. They know the basics; they can be a part of trying something new.

When they have more buy-in to eating the meal, they are more invested in understanding how and why things are a healthy choice for their bodies. Instead of saying, "Eat that broccoli because it's good for you." It becomes, "It's taco night, how could we put in some more veggies?" They may be willing to take a little risk with an ingredient they may not have tried before. And if you are just too tired to try something new, DON'T. Get your system going and stick with it. Just know that if you ever want to change it up, just tweak what you have.

Lastly, I am a health coach, not a chef. The recipes I am sharing are the ones my family eats, but I did not invent them. I am sharing them with you so that you can make them part of your family's easy, daily habit.

The Meal Plan

Each meal is a theme. This helps your family stay organized. Look at your calendar and plug in a meal into each day, depending on your family's schedule. Many of these recipes can be made meatless. If you are a family who seldom eats meat, just make them without.

Meal 1: Breakfast For Dinner

You can make two of these at once and freeze one AND use leftovers for breakfast during the week. One of our favorite oatmeal bakes can stay fresh by changing out the fruit you use. We have done banana, peaches, pineapple with coconut, pears, blackberries, strawberries, you name it. This is a great recipe to have kids help you with as well. I make this for my dad every time he comes to visit, and he likes to warm it in the am with some milk over it. The same is true of the French Toast Bake. Keep it fresh by changing out the fruit you use.

Meal 2: Ground Beef

This is the ground beef meal, but use any kind of ground meat. Any extras can be used as sides for future meals or wrapped into tortillas and made into enchiladas or tacos on Taco-ish night. Brown enough beef for all the meals and save it in the fridge or freeze it in baggies labeled with the Meal # and pull it out as needed.

Side note: I don't ever have oyster sauce for the Asian Skillet Recipe. It's not something I would use again. It probably adds a bunch of flavors, but my kids are okay with adding a bit of teriyaki sauce, which we usually have on hand.

Meal 3: Stir Fry

Easy stir fry? Yes, please! If you are doing Cashew Chicken Stir Fry for Meal 3 and Rotisserie chicken for you Meal 4, buy two and use it for each meal. You can also do this one without chicken at all. The Slow Cooker Lo Mein Noodles recipe can be made all on your prep day so all you need to do is throw it all together and heat it up.

Rooted Family Hack: Costco sells a giant bag of frozen stir fry veggies. You don't even have to chop. I throw the stir fry veggies and a bag of frozen broccoli in, and I call it a day. Done and done. Easy and cheesy.

Meal 4: Shredded Chicken

Rotisserie Chicken is a favorite hack of mine. I think of it as my once-a-week easy button. Close to as easy is shredded chicken in the crockpot. Throw some frozen chicken breasts in the crockpot with some broth on your prep morning, and four hours later, shred that chicken for all your meals that week. You could easily make all your shredded chicken for the entire month and portion it out and freeze it for the meals you need. We call lettuce wraps "garden tacos," and the kids love them. I always try to include some avocado for some healthy fat for brain building. I added mashed sweet potato as a side because you can serve sweet potato earlier in the week and then mash the leftovers. No one complains because the new form makes it new to them. You can always mash the sweet potato and use it tacos on Taco-ish night or use it instead of a mashed banana to make muffins.

Meal 5: Taco-ish

I call it taco-ish because taco can be used loosely. This refers to enchiladas, taco bowls, nachos...whatever you want to make it easy and yum. I am sharing a Mexican Quinoa Enchilada bake that we love. If you have leftover meat from earlier in the week, all you need are some shells or tortillas and whatever toppings you want, and you are good to go. Sometimes I throw some taco seasoning on previous nights leftovers, roll them up, pour on some enchilada sauce, cheese and avocado, and I am done! So simple. Corn is an excellent side for this one or some beans. This is a great way for kids to create their own meals and help get things in bowls and ready.

Meal 6: Pizza-y

Pizza style! Well, you just can't go wrong with some pizza. I try to make them as healthy as possible. I have included both a gluten-free option recipe and a veggie zucchini option. Truth be told, the first time I did zucchini, my kids were like: say what? BUT, they tried them, and everyone was pleasantly surprised by how good they were and have never balked at them since.

Side note: You can also do zucchini tacos for taco-ish night as well (I included a recipe on the Pinterest board for taco-boats).

Meal 7: YETI Meals

What, you ask, is YUMMY YETI DINNER? Well, a long time ago, I learned that using the term leftover did not go over well with my family, so I simply changed the name to YUMMY YETI DINNER. 'Yeti' because we haven't eaten it all YET. We may eat with chopsticks or toothpicks (cause Yetis might need to stab their food with picks). We also may put tortillas out and make sleeping bag burritos of the leftovers. Yetis also know not to waste food, so they don't mind eating the leftover camper's food they find. Yeti's love frozen banana whips, so they always eat a good dinner so they can have a dessert that night. TADA! You can always have YUMMY YETI DINNER more than once every six days. Fill it in whenever the fridge starts getting full of leftovers. 

If you have any questions or comments, be sure to leave them below. Also, please be sure how to share how this plan works for your family!