6 Tips to Make Meals Just a Bit Easier This Homeschool Year

Getting dinner on the table — in the midst of all the other homeschool life stuff – is hard. These tips make it a bit (or a lot) easier.

Every fall, I struggle to transition from lazy summer days to balancing getting dinner on the table with the demands of homeschool life. I enjoy planning meals & I enjoy cooking. What I don’t enjoy is when those things don’t match up with the reality of homeschool life.

Make ahead.

Batch cooking, OAMC cooking, freezer cooking. Whatever you want to call it, I’ve been doing it for 20+ years, and I love it. But it can be impractical for some; storage is an issue, etc.

So, there’s an even simpler idea that has big payoffs. What are the sauces, seasonings or marinades that are on a regular rotation? (Or would be if you didn’t have to put it together every time?)

My family loves pasta salad, but I despise all the ingredients I need to measure each time. After grumbling about it one too many times, I made a larger batch. Genius! Now I make a 2-cup batch, pop it in the fridge, and it’s ready anytime I want to make it for dinner or even an individual portion.

Dry ingredients can go into your pantry. Sauces & marinades can go in the fridge or freezer, depending on your ingredients. (Dairy doesn’t freeze well, so avoid cream sauces.)

• Jerk dry rub (Great on chicken, pork, fish, etc. Change ‘cups’ to ‘teaspoons’ for a MUCH smaller batch!)
• Fajita dry seasoning (try poblano pepper in fajita veggies mixture)
• Basic Spice Rub (We like this on wings, chicken breasts, steak, hamburgers, etc.)

• Roadside chicken marinade (for bone-in pieces or whole chicken)
• Pork chop marinade (perfect for grilling)
• Spaghetti sauce (I freeze w/o the meatballs, and only sometimes add them for serving. We love the green & white bag from Costco.)

Over the next several weeks, try one of these recipes or a family favorite & make a larger batch.

{These 10 ideas are perfect for winter nights.}

Especially on busy days, I love being able to grab some meat from the freezer & cover it with a ready-made marinade or rub. Add a grain & some veggies. Dinner is done (and the drive-thru temptation is calmed.)

Choose your own meal planning method.

Weekly meal planning, monthly meal planning, planning a week’s worth of meals but not assigning days, monthly rotations. Proponents of all of them declare that their system will change your life.

But I’m going against the grain. The system that I think is the best? The one that works for your family in that season of life. It’s as simple (and as complex) as that.

I’m certain that I’m not the only one who has ever been sucked into a system (planning, organizing, homeschooling, whatever) because I bought into the hype, failed at it, and then kept trying because this was supposed to be the perfect system.

I’ve adored Plan to Eat for a decade. (Never heard of it? It stores my recipes & my meal plan, then generates a shopping list for me. It’s amazing.) Before finding Plan to Eat, I had tried a variety of methods — both paper & digital — that worked for a bit.

Sometimes I plan by the week; some months, I plan out the entire thing. In 2020, I planned 10-14 days of meals at a time and shopped for 7-10 of them, but I didn’t assign a day to them. It worked great during a slower season of life. We’re in a (much!) busier season right now, and I would cry buckets of tears if I was still using that set-up.

And that’s my biggest tip. Seasons change, schedules change, and the way our minds work changes. Choose what works for you, and don’t be afraid to change it if it stops. (By the same token, don’t be tempted to change it if it is working for you!)

Meal Plan with Categories

Weekly categories are a way I’ve planned, on and off, since I first heard the idea shortly after we got married. In those years, I used categories like ‘Mexican night,’ ‘soup & sandwich,’ or ‘pork.’ Now, they revolve around our weekly schedules.

Our current meal plan categories:

• Jim cooks (He’s a good cook who likes a clear recipe and a simpler plan.)
• Paper Plate Night (Before church, so I need a dinner that has very little to clean up.)
• Sandwiches (I have about a dozen sandwiches on rotation.)
• Into the freezer (A meal I can double/triple, so half of the pre-cooked meal can be put up for another week.)
• Out of the freezer (Mondays! Start of the week, Mama needs minimal thinking power on dinner.)

In some seasons, I embrace the categories, but I don’t live or die by them. And I switch them up regularly.

What are your go-to ideas?

As a mom, you probably already know your easiest meals, your family’s favorites, and the ones that somehow show up on rotation often.

But what about those meals you enjoy but forget to plan? Do you have a quick list of ideas for meals on the go? Or the ones you can make with your pantry’s staples for a night when you can’t make your planned dinner? Or just a list of favorites when you’re too tired to think?

(The sheet in the photo? Grab your free copy.)

Keep this list handy. Your planner might seem like “the right place” to keep it, but is that handy for you? The fridge may be a good spot…but is that near where you plan meals? If you don’t have a set place or you tend to plan when you’re out of the house, a digital version in Google Docs or Apple Notes might be a good option.

Don’t wait until dinnertime to start.

You’ve got a great meal plan for the week. The first few days went well. And then the next day is one of those days. Suddenly, it’s 4:43, dinner needs prepping & cooking, and you’re still knee-deep in multiplication.

Don’t wait.

After you meal plan for the week, jot down the prep work each dinner needs. Keep them in order by day, so that the most urgent things are always next on the list. Even better, hand your plan over to your teen to create the list. Cooking is so much more than the actual act. Learning to anticipate all the prep work involved (and balancing that with a daily schedule) is a life skill.

When you (or your spouse or a kiddo…) have pockets of time throughout the week, even 5-10 minutes, tackle the next one or two items on your list. This is a great way for kiddos to practice small kitchen tasks, like knife skills and proper measurement.

If I can have all the prep work done before we start back to school in the afternoon, I will be in good shape for dinner.

In homeschooling, I often talk about planning to be behind. (The idea is that life happens. So building in catch-up days is an easy way to plan our homeschool days.) This is the same idea. If I expect that life is going to happen (and not in the way I planned), then having the prep work done means it’s easier to “catch up” at dinner time.

Take the shortcuts.

Take the shortcuts, take the shortcuts, take the shortcuts.

Whether it’s buying pre-cut veggies at the store, pre-cooked/prepped meals from Costco, getting meal delivery kits occasionally (or even every week)…or whatever shortcut benefits your family. Take it.

Far too often, we fall into this idea that we need to make our entire meals from scratch every day. We’re home all day anyway, right?? And if that is what works for you and your family, awesome. But if it doesn’t? You are no less of a homeschool mom or caretaker of the home or whatever label you wear.

I love to cook, and I love to cook part or all of our meals from scratch. But when I work before school, school the kiddso 5-6 hours each day, and then play shuttle driver to afternoon & evening activities, it takes some McGuyvering to even throw a frozen pizza & salad on the table. (I don’t need to preach that to you, you know what I mean.)

A few years back, I had to explicitly plan a ‘shortcut night’ as one of our categories. Yes, I had to force myself to do this. But a sort of freedom came from that.

If you need to hear it from another mom, I’m giving you permission to take the shortcuts.

(Grab a go-to meals sheet.)

What’s your favorite kitchen shortcut?

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