March Plant-Based Family Meal Plan + Costco, etc. Shopping List

Frequently healthy eating is labeled as taking too much time. And don’t we all wish we had more time? But you know what, often it’s not the time it takes to prepare the meals, but rather the time and mental energy it takes to plan the meals.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret. Meal-planning has never come easy for me. For some reason I am drawn to last-minute decisions that use up whatever I happen to have in the house. It’s great for keeping your grocery bill low, but as our family has grown, winging it just doesn’t cut it anymore.

So I’ve developed a simple system that keeps us well-fed with a decent plan. Spending a little additional time at the beginning of the month saves me mountains of time throughout the month, both in shopping, planning and preparing.

I thought I might save you some thinking and give you my plan for making meals easy this month. I like to choose ten meals for the month, and plan to eat each one at least 2 times. This way I can take advantage of good prices on large quantities of items at Costco, and each week I can just review my list of meals and choose several for the week. The other days are usually easily filled by meals with family/friends, leftovers, or using up odds and ends.

This plan still gives me lots of wiggle room for adapting to a particular week, but I always have things on hand for a quick and easy meal. It also gives me two chances to buy any ingredients I may need–we all know the frustration of not getting that one thing you needed at the store.

The benefit of having a meal plan like this is that when you have a pretty good idea of meals you’ll be making during the month, you can take advantage of opportunities to make extra and save it in the fridge or freezer, saving you both time AND money. I’ve included notes on a variety of ideas–if you have several hours you make the bulk of it at once, or you can just do a little here and a little there to save you time on the nights you need it.

I am doing a lot of cabbage this month because it’s always crazy inexpensive around St. Patrick’s Day and it stays good in the fridge for weeks! Plus it’s on the EWG clean 15 list (foods that generally don’t need to be purchased organic). But if cabbage stir fry isn’t your thing, just grab a bag of frozen stir fry veggies and you’ll be set.

Here are the meals, along with a suggested grouping:

Week A

Dutch Oven Dinner with Mushroom “Bacon”

Creamy Potato Soup

Life-Changing Lentils over Potatoes or Brown Rice

Miracle Lasagna

Asian Cabbage Slaw

Week B

Super Easy Cabbage Stir Fry with Peanut Sauce

Instant Pot Spaghetti

Taco Salad

Kale Salad