Post vacay meal plan

It happens to all of us.

We have a much-need vacation away from work. stress. household obligations. you know- the daily grind.

And then you return home to an empty fridge, the need to unpack and get organized for the week, and nothing planned for food for the week. If you don’t think quickly, you’ll likely be resorting to spending more money on quick, convenient items or eating out too much!

So what do you do?

Here’s my recently-successful plan to keep a fairly well stocked fridge upon return along with quick items that can be made for any meal that week!

Once you get home and settled, make a quick trip to the store for a delicious and nutritious dinner that’ll be ready in 20 minutes or less!

Our fast go-to is to grab some veggies and salmon. We simply dress and bake the salmon and roast the veggies so while that all bakes, we can finish unpacking or even get prepped for the rest of the week.

For breakfast, have one simple option you can use throughout the week, until you can get to the store the next weekend. Good options that can stay fresh in the pantry would be overnight oats (with frozen fruit) and something simple like PB toast is an easy go-to especially if you can keep a loaf of whole grain bread in the freezer until you need it.

For snacks, while at the store earlier you can grab some fresh fruit and pair it with a spoon of peanut butter, a small handful of nuts (maybe these are even leftover from the road tip snack options), or even some light cheese – of course all depending on what type of fruit you pick and | or is in season!

For lunch, I tend to almost always rely on leftovers. I’ll bring leftovers from dinner the night before just to make clean up a multi tasking effort while keeping waste minimized and the food budget in check.

For other dinners during the week, here are some things that have worked for us:

Monday: a defrosted, previously cooked, frozen dinner for moments just like these. Our favorites include pot roast or chili.

Tuesday: quick tacos {using an extra pound of extra lean ground meat we got on sale and froze until needed}.

Wednesday: lemon chicken {a family go-to recipe that doesn’t require following a recipe and we can make it as versatile as we need}.

Thursday: a frozen soup {that we can pair quickly with a salad and|or panini} or a quick naan bread pizza. I don’t know about you, but I tend to make soups in such a large batch that there’s enough to freeze and simply reheat later. My pick is butternut squash soup, but having some chicken noodle on hand is always nice on rainy nights, when you need comfort food, or when someone isn’t feeling well {colds can strike at any time of year}.  The pizza is also super simple to assemble and pop in the oven. Cheese can stay well in the fridge for a while, especially making this convenient for a return from a quick weekend getaway and your fridge is already pretty well stocked.

Friday: grilled chicken Caesar salads. The hubby will quickly marinade chicken breasts in either a homemade refrigerated or store bought dressing. He throws it on the grill and I toss together the salad greens. Easy peasy.

So as you can see using family favorites as well as freezer friendly recipes are a great go-to meals post vacay. All that means is that it takes a well stocked fridge and freezer along with a thought-out plan pre-and post vacay so you aren’t eating the same foods in back-to-back weeks.

What are your favorite family-friendly go-to recipes to make after a family getaway? After all, summer is fast approaching, so we need to start getting ready now!

~Becca

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