Struggling to figure out what to cook each week? This simple guide makes choosing family meals easy—even when you’re busy and tired!

The Busy Mom’s Guide to Choosing Meal Plan Recipes Your Kids Will Actually Eat

So you’ve decided that this week is the week you’ll give this meal planning gig a go, you’ve got your notes app or planner ready, and now you’re staring at the blank page thinking, Cool… but what should we actually eat?

Choosing recipes can feel like the hardest part of meal planning—especially when your brain’s already fried from the rest of mom life. But the good news? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every week. You just need a few meals that work for your family and your real-life schedule.

Let’s break it down:

1. Start With Family Favorites

Let’s not overcomplicate things right out of the gate. When you’re trying to meal plan, especially for the first time, the easiest place to start is with what you already know works.

You know that dinner your kids actually eat without complaining? The one your partner asks for on repeat? That quick go-to meal you can make with your eyes half-closed while helping with homework and trying not to burn the garlic bread? That’s what we’re talking about.

These familiar meals are your anchors—the foundation of your meal plan. You’ve already cooked them a hundred times. You don’t need a recipe card. You know they fit your budget, your cooking ability, and your family’s preferences. Win, win, win.

Here’s what to do:

• Grab a sheet of paper or your phone.
• Jot down every meal your family enjoys and eats without drama.
• Include all categories—slow cooker dinners, one-pan wonders, 15-minute meals, whatever gets the job done.

You’re building what I like to call your “no-brainer meal list.”
It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be meals you actually make and your family actually eats.

Try to come up with 10–15 to start. If you’re drawing a blank, think in themes:

• Taco night (ground beef, chicken, or even black bean)
• Pasta dishes (spaghetti, baked ziti, pesto pasta)
• Stir-fry
• Breakfast-for-dinner
• Soup and grilled cheese
• Sheet pan meals
• Casseroles
• Burgers or wraps

Once you’ve got your list, save it. This is gold. Each week, you’ll just pick a few meals from this list and boom—you’ve already done most of the work.

And here’s the beauty of it: your family favorites can rotate. You can add to the list over time, retire meals when you get bored, and keep it flexible. But by starting here, you’re giving yourself an easy win—and that’s exactly what we need when we’re planning meals around real life.

2. Match Meals to Your Weekly Routine

Now that you’ve got your list of family favorites, let’s talk about how to actually fit those meals into your week without setting yourself up for failure.

Because here’s the thing: not all dinners are created equal. Some are perfect for lazy Sundays. Others are great for those hectic nights when everyone’s hangry and there’s a science project drying on the kitchen table.

The key is to plan meals based on your real life—not your ideal one.

Start by looking at your week. I mean really look:

• Do you have after-school activities on certain nights?
• Is there one evening where you get home later than usual?
• Are there days where you might have a bit more time (or at least brain space) to cook?

Once you’ve got a rough idea of your schedule, match meals to the mood:

• Busy weeknights = easy dinners. Think slow cooker meals, sheet pan dinners, leftovers, or “throw it all in a skillet and call it good” type meals.
• More relaxed nights = room to experiment. If there’s a new recipe you’re dying to try, save it for a night when no one’s rushing out the door.
• Always have a back-pocket dinner for “those” days. Something shelf-stable or freezer-friendly that you can throw together when your plan flies out the window (and it will sometimes).

Here’s what this might look like:

Day	Schedule	Dinner Plan
Monday	Normal day	Spaghetti and garlic bread
Tuesday	Soccer practice until 6:30 PM	Slow cooker chicken tacos
Wednesday	Home early, less chaotic	New recipe night – stir-fry
Thursday	Everyone tired, minimal effort	Breakfast-for-dinner
Friday	Chill evening	Make-your-own pizza night

This is how you meal plan smarter, not harder. When your meals line up with your energy levels and commitments, you’re way more likely to follow through—and way less likely to end up eating peanut butter crackers over the sink while googling “dinner ideas for people who forgot to defrost anything.”

3. Stick With Simple

Look, I love a pretty recipe as much as the next mom, but if your week is already full of appointments, math homework, and trying to remember where you put the library books, you probably don’t need a dinner that calls for seven spices you’ve never heard of and “a drizzle of truffle oil.”

When it comes to choosing recipes for your meal plan, simple is the goal.
Not boring. Not bland. Just simple. Think fewer ingredients, fewer steps, and meals that won’t make you cry into your cutting board.

Here’s what keeping it simple actually looks like:

Fewer ingredients = faster prep.
Look for recipes with five to eight ingredients max. That includes seasonings. You’ll save time chopping, measuring, and cleaning up—and you’ll probably save money, too.

Shorter cook times are your best friend.
Unless it’s a slow cooker meal doing the work while you live your life, aim for recipes that take 30 minutes or less. (Bonus points if you can make them with one pan and minimal stirring.)

Look for forgiving recipes.
Real life doesn’t always follow a recipe. Look for meals that don’t require perfect timing or precise ingredients. Pasta dishes, stir-fries, casseroles, and tacos are great for swapping in what you’ve got on hand.

Repeat your wins.
If a meal works—meaning it’s easy, your family eats it, and you didn’t end the night exhausted—put it back on the list for next week. Repetition is a sanity saver, not a failure. There’s no award for cooking something new every night.

And please ignore Pinterest perfection.
You don’t need a seven-course meal with edible flowers. You need something hot, satisfying, and ready before bedtime routines kick in. Keep your plan doable. You can always get fancy another time—like in five years when everyone’s older and no one’s throwing Goldfish crackers at the dog.

Next up? We’ll talk about how to stretch your ingredients across multiple meals to save even more time and effort during the week.

4. Build Around Similar Ingredients

This is one of the sneakiest, smartest ways to make meal planning work with you instead of against you. It’s not just about what you’re cooking—it’s about how to make your ingredients pull double (or triple) duty during the week.

Because here’s the deal: if you’re buying a pack of chicken breasts or a big bunch of cilantro, you might as well use them more than once. That way, you:

• Cut down on waste
• Save money
• Spend less time prepping
• And honestly? Just make your life easier

Here’s how to make this work:

Pick a base ingredient and plan two or more meals around it.
For example:

• Chicken: Grill it one night for chicken fajitas, then slice up the leftovers for BBQ chicken wraps or toss into a pasta salad.
• Ground beef: Make tacos on Monday, then use the rest for sloppy joes, shepherd’s pie, or even a quick pasta bake later in the week.
• Veggies: Roast a big tray of whatever’s in the crisper—carrots, broccoli, peppers, sweet potatoes—and use them as sides, lunch bowls, or toss into a soup.

Make sauces or dressings once, use twice.
A quick homemade vinaigrette can double as salad dressing one night and marinade the next. A jar of tomato sauce can stretch across pasta one night and homemade pizza another.

Choose meals that share pantry staples.
If two or three meals use rice, tortillas, or canned beans, you’re simplifying your grocery list and your week. Bonus: you’re not left with random ingredients taking up space (or quietly expiring behind the flour).

Prep once, cook smarter.
If you’re chopping onions for one meal, go ahead and chop a few extras while you’re at it. Need shredded cheese twice? Do it all at once. You’ll save yourself the mental energy later, and those little wins really add up.

This doesn’t mean every meal needs to taste the same. It just means you’re thinking a step ahead—what else can I do with this ingredient? That’s how you build a week of meals that feels manageable instead of marathon-worthy.

Ready to talk about the easiest wins of all? Let’s move on to the section that gives every tired parent a little breathing room—planning a few super simple backup meals.

5. Don’t Forget to Plan “Easy Wins”

Let’s be honest—there’s always that night. The one where someone has a tantrum (adult or child), the laundry’s taken over the living room, and the idea of cooking a “real” meal sounds about as appealing as scrubbing baseboards.

That’s where easy wins come in. These are the meals that require almost no thinking, minimal ingredients, and zero stress. You need a few of these in your back pocket every week, no matter how ambitious you’re feeling when you first sit down to plan.

Here’s what counts as an easy win:

Breakfast-for-dinner.
Scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit. Pancakes from a mix. Even cereal if you’re really done for the day. Breakfast at dinnertime somehow feels fun instead of lazy (even if it’s both).

Grilled cheese and soup.
Whether you go with homemade or crack open a can, this one is fast, filling, and universally loved. Add baby carrots or apple slices and call it good.

Frozen favorites.
Pizza, chicken nuggets, burritos, or dumplings—if your freezer has a few go-to staples, you’ve always got a backup plan. Pro tip: throw a frozen veggie steam bag in the microwave and pat yourself on the back.

DIY nights.
Let everyone make their own wraps, sandwiches, or snack plates. It’s fun for the kids, and no one complains when they made it themselves.

Leftover night.
This is basically a built-in night off. Warm up what’s already cooked, mix and match whatever’s left, and boom—zero cooking, zero waste.

The trick here is to plan these nights on purpose. You’re not failing by choosing easy meals—you’re being smart. Because some nights, just getting dinner on the table without tears (yours or theirs) is the real win.

Up next? Let’s wrap this all up with a reminder that you’re in charge—and your meal plan should fit your life, not the other way around.

6. You’re the Boss of the Meal Plan

If you take nothing else from this post, let it be this: your meal plan is here to work for you—not the other way around.

There’s no perfect number of recipes. No gold star for originality. No rule that says you have to cook every night or try a new dish every week. This is real life, not a cooking show.

You get to decide:

• How many meals you plan
• Which nights are for cooking and which are for reheating
• What’s considered a “win” (Spoiler: grilled cheese totally counts)

The goal of meal planning isn’t to become some ultra-organized domestic goddess—it’s to make your week run smoother. It’s to answer the “what’s for dinner?” question without wanting to cry into a box of dry pasta.

So give yourself permission to:

• Repeat meals your family loves
• Choose convenience when you need it
• Keep things as simple as you need them to be

Start with a few family favorites, match meals to your week, and sprinkle in a couple of easy wins. That’s it. That’s the plan. The more you do it, the easier it gets—and before long, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it.

Want help making the rest of your plan come together? Keep reading through the series—we’re about to dive into how to take stock of what you already have in your kitchen, so you don’t keep buying things you forgot were already in the cupboard.