Meal planning is something I believe makes our lives easier. It's always great to know what you are making for dinner ahead of time to remove the stress of last minute decisions. But making the meal plan itself can be a source of stress and decision fatigue.

Being a work at home mom of two kids ages 4 and 7, I find that balancing the family needs often feels like a puzzle. I need to find a meal that is healthy, quick, fits our schedule - some days we get home after 6pm because of appointments and activities. Also my older son is an extreme picky eater who is diagnosed with ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). This means that he is very limited on the foods he is willing to eat and it is very difficult if not impossible to get him to try new foods. If I want to make one meal for the family and avoid becoming a short order cook, I have only a handful of meals that will work for us.

At the same time, as someone who loves to cook I have become so BORED with making the same meals over and over again. Enter - the two week meal plan.

I know that making the same meal every single week will get old very quickly. Also, one thing I learned from feeding therapy with my older son is that it is important not to serve him the same meals every day as he could eventually tire of it, limiting his food choices even more.

I decided that the easiest solution for this is a two week rotating meal plan. Instead of serving the same meal once a week, I will have a two week meal plan. That way we are only eating the same meal about 2 times per month.

My current two week meal plan looks like this:

Week 1

• Sunday: Instant Pot Lentil Soup, salad and bread.
• Monday: Instant Pot Salsa Chicken Tacos
• Tuesday: Leftovers (my kids get Mcdonalds this day as it is a late appointment day)
• Wednesday: Roasted Salmon, Broccoli and Rice (My older son doesn’t eat fish. He will have a peanut butter sandwich)
• Thursday: Sausage Peppers and Onion Sheet Pan Dinner​
• Friday: Make pizza at home or Takeout
• Saturday: I leave this blank for us to decide later (often we eat leftovers, go out or grill steaks)

Week 2

• Sunday: Creamy Sausage Tortellini and Kale Soup, bread and salad​
• Monday: Roasted Shrimp and Broccoli, Rice​
• Tuesday: Leftovers/McDonald’s
• Wednesday: Yaki Soba (working on this recipe for the blog, will share soon!)
• Thursday: Spaghetti and Meatballs​
• Friday: Make pizza at home or takeout

There you have it! Is it exciting? Not really, but it does remove the stress and mental load of meal planning week to week. It is also flexible. Sometimes I find an interesting recipe that I want to try. If that happens and I have the time and energy, I can swap out whatever is planned and make the new recipe instead. But the meal plan is always there if I need it.

Side note: I have also done this with our weekday breakfast and lunch meals. This makes mornings so much smoother as there is no scrambling to figure out what to make for breakfast and pack for lunches.

What do you think? Would this kind of a rotating meal plan work for your family? What other challenges are you facing with meal planning?