How To Meal Plan During Isolation

What a crazy month March was?! I don’t know about you but I was pretty shocked with how quickly things escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Things were changing faster than I ever anticipated and the first place to go nuts was the grocery store! I figured I could share with you guys how to plan during isolation because it was certainly a struggle for me!

With people hoarding food and stocking up on pantry and freezer staples, it was almost impossible for me to meal plan like I normally do. In fact, I couldn’t even use Instacart at first because the stores were out of so much, I knew it would be a shit show for someone else to shop for me. Therefore, I switched up my meal planning game and implemtned these tips instead.

Make a Flexible Meal Plan.

Typically, as my long time readers know, I make a pretty straight forward meal plan every week and stick to it for the most part. I make a list with only the ingredients I need and plug that baby into Instacart. It’s a well oiled machine and I don’t often deviate from it. I even have this super simple system to help you get started with meal planning. However, during this pandemic the grocery stores have been extremely unpredictable. Gone were the days where I could put meatloaf on the meal plan and know with certainty that ground beef would be in store when I got there. Therefore, I had to adjust my plans and make them much looser.

First, I went through my list of family classics and jotted down the ones that were the biggest crowd-pleasers and could be easily adapted. That way if I got to the store and they didn’t have any ground beef, I could easily swap it out for ground turkey. (Which DID happen!) Personally, I don’t like meatloaf made with ground turkey but chili made with it is just fine. So I just had to go through my meals and note which ones were the most adaptable.

Next, I wrote down some even more basic meal ideas such as “protein, veggie & starch”. That way no matter what, I could find ingredients to make this dinner with. From apple-chicken sausage to steaks, this was a meal that could be created by things I found in the store. For this reason, I highly recommend you keep your meal plans flexible during the quarantine.

Be Ready to Substitute Ingredients

There isn’t just a possibility you’ll have to substitute ingredients during the quarantine, it’s a probability. This list of ingredient substitutes is a great resource. From milk to rice to cheese, it has great ideas for substitutes. Be ready to improvise.

Most ground meat can be swapped for another type of ground meat. Rice can be swapped for brown rice or barley. These days there are lots of milk alternatives so those can be swapped around as well. Look over this list and decide which ingredients your family would most likely enjoy.

Now you’ll have to keep in mind that the recipe might not taste exactly the same and you’ll probably have some hits (like discovering sweet potatoes are delightful in chicken soup) and some misses (like me not liking ground turkey meatloaf). But overall, you’ll be able to salvage dinner when you keep these substitutes in mind.

Streamline Your Meal Plan

Now is the time to uncomplicate your meal plan and get your family on board with leftovers. First, you need to take your expectations down a few notches right now. That might mean eliminating experimental recipes or ones with lots of unique ingredients. Or that might mean adding in more Freezer Section Freezer Meals or simple meals (i.e. Breakfast for Dinner) right now. This is about lowering the bar at dinner so you can take some stress off of your plate, quite literally.

I always get messages and questions about leftovers and how I get my family to eat them. Well, first of all, they often don’t have a choice. If it’s a meal my family likes and makes leftovers that are easy to heat up, we’re eating them. However, I do have a few tips on how to make them more palatable.

First off, soups, stews and chilis make the best leftovers. They reheat beautifully (my personal preference is to put them in a medium saucepot and heat over low until warmed through) and they usually taste better the next day after the flavor develops overnight. So if you have a house full of leftover haters, start with making a double batch of your famous chicken noodle soup or 3-Bean Chili first.

Secondly, reimagine leftovers. Make a batch of barbecue pulled chicken in the crockpot for sandwiches one night and use the leftover meat for easy BBQ Naan Pizzas a few nights later. Both of those are super easy meals once the meat is cooked. Or grill steaks & veggies for dinner one night, better yet, have your husband do it, and then turn the leftovers into steak nachos. Dang, that actually sounds really good right now. Point is, think about how you can cook one main component once and reuse it for two meals.

Meal Planning During Isolation is a Run-Out-The-Clock Situation

Above all else, rememeber this is temporary. We won’t need to live like this forever. Get through dinnertime as best you can for the next month or two and don’t let it stress you out. The uncertainty is wearing us down, dinner is something we can control. You’re family isn’t going to die of malnutrition from a couple extra nights of cereal dinner.

Overall I hope everyone is doing as good as can be expected right now. These are unprecadented times and all of our anxiety it sky high. To the grocery store employees and Instacart shoppers, thank you for your hard work during these trying times. We could not survive without you.