The First Meal Plan!

Written By Jenna Christianson
Preview

This first weekly meal plan is your glimpse into what you can expect each week for meal and recipe inspo inside Holding Space! How you use the meal plan is completely up to you! Have no time or capacity to plan out your meals for the week? Feel free to use the meal plan as is! Wanting just a few recipe ideas? Pick and choose what meals sound good to you!

I highly recommend either taking a screenshot of the meal plan or using my go-to meal planning template shared at the bottom of the post so you can easily bring to life your week’s meals!

This Week’s Dinner Rotation

The main meal that I plan out for each week is dinner. This makes our lives a heck of a lot easier not scrambling to decide what to cook each and every night. However, it’s important to note that we’re not rigid with this plan. If on Monday, I’m not craving tacos and instead am in the mood for the shepherd’s pie that we would have on Wednesday, I make the swap. For any really specific recipes we use, I have them linked below. If a recipe isn’t linked but you’d like to find one, feel free to just Google away!

  • Saturday - Chicken Pasta Salad - for this recipe I love to make my own homemade balsamic vinaigrette, roast up some zucchini and onions and top with some diced cherry tomatoes & feta - the official recipe is shared inside of my Nourishing Cookbook!

  • Sunday - Grilled BBQ Pork Chops + Roast Sweet Potatoes & Brussel Sprouts - such a simple meal grilling up some pork chops and roasting a sheet pan of veggies - season how you’d like!

  • Monday - Tacos - how we like our tacos is ground beef + sauteed corn and zucchini + salsa + avocado served over Siete corn tortilla chips - plus, I will share that we add a “secret ingredient” to our ground beef - this is also shared inside of my Nourishing Cookbook!

  • Tuesday - Lamb Meatballs + Roasted Carrots - instead of bread crumbs, I love to use freshly shredded parmesan cheese.

  • Wednesday - Shepherd’s Pie - probably the meal that will take the most time to make out of all the meals this week, but it’s totally worth it!

  • Thursday - Spaghetti - when making spaghetti, I love to add a veggie into the marinara sauce. This week we’re adding in some spinach.

  • Friday - Salmon Bowl - the last meal of the week is a fun one & feel free to use the recipe linked for inspo! Know though you can never go wrong topping salmon with a homemade spicy mayo. Lately, for avocado mayo, we’ve been loving Sir Kingsinton’s squeeze bottle versus the jar. 

This Week’s Dessert

  • Banana Bread - a go-to recipe I’ve been making for years - the official recipe is shared inside of my Nourishing Cookbook! Top with some butter, Greek yogurt, or ice cream.

This Week’s Breakfast Prep

Typically Jaques and I are eating some sort of version of eggs, cottage cheese, fruit, maybe some breakfast sausage or bacon for breakfast, so I don’t plan out too much when it comes to breakfast. However, recently, Jaques hasn’t been in the mood for eggs so I’ve been prepping some more options.

This Week’s Snacks

We like to keep snacks super simple. Below is this week’s rotation.

  • Chomp’s Jerky Sticks

  • Oranges

  • Roasted Almonds

  • Chocolate Chips

This Week’s Grocery List

All grocery lists are divided up into four sections 1) Protein 2) Dairy 3) Produce 4) Other. This allows you to easily pop into one section of the grocery store and grab all the items you need. THE BIGGEST THING TO NOTE with the weekly grocery lists shared is that the list is based on what we do/don’t have on hand at the moment. Please cross-check recipes and your kitchen/pantry to ensure the list is most accurate for you. Generally speaking though, this list contains a majority of the “fresh” ingredients you’ll need for each week. Also, any quantities I share are based on our family of two. Please adjust quantities as needed for your family’s size.

Protein:

  • Eggs

  • Ground Lamb

  • Pork Chops

  • Chicken Thighs

  • Salmon

Dairy:

  • Whole Milk

  • Fage 2% Greek Yogurt

  • Half-n-Half

  • Parmesan Cheese Wedge

Produce:

  • Oranges x10

  • Frozen Blueberries

  • Garlic

  • Zucchini x2

  • Sweet Potato

  • Brussel Sprouts

  • Yellow Pepper

  • Red Pepper

  • Cucumber

  • Carrots

  • Avocado X4

  • Frozen Spinach

  • Banana x2

  • Cherry Tomatoes

Other:

  • Salsa

  • Siete Corn Tortilla Chips

  • Chomp’s Jerky Sticks

  • Sriracha

  • Roasted Almonds

My Go-To Meal Planning Template

Ready to write out your list? Click the graphic below to download, save, print, & use my go-to meal planning template.

Jenna Christianson
Next

My Kind Of New Year’s Reset