We’ve done a loose vegetarian capsule meal plan for a couple of years now. I’ve always been vegetarian, so that’s no different, and I’ve appreciated having a relatively consistent set of meals to work around.
Still, I hadn’t really solidified our meals such that we rotated intentionally through the same set. Rather, I unintentionally defaulted to the same standbys and always felt like I was scrambling for new ideas. I decided this year was the perfect time to actually choose a set meal plan – on purpose. We have so many other things going on right now that I think it’ll be really nice to streamline our cooking.
Why Family Dinner Plans Are Hard
As I mentioned, things are a bit nuts right now with homeschooling all the kids and both grown ups working from home. Plus, these years with young children just seem to feel extra busy. With all that, I HATE the feeling of scrambling to think of what to make for dinner each night.
While I used to be really good at meal planning tips, I’ve fallen off the bandwagon in the last few months. I know it’ll make dinner prep so much less stressful if I just decide in advance what to make.
Still, it often felt overwhelming even to decide what to make each night. What ingredients do we need to use up? What do we need to order? And what am I in the mood to make? I would waste so much time looking into new recipes to fill in gaps with our old standbys.
Why We’re Doing A Vegetarian Capsule Meal Plan
I’m so excited about a two week meal rotation mostly because I won’t have to plan things out every week or two. Instead, I could plan once and we’d do the same dinner rotation for about 3 months, during that season. Then once the weather started to change a bit and different items were in season, we could switch up our meal plan, too.
This also meant that my 2nd child could get in on the dinner rotation. With 4 meals kids can make, she and her older brother could each make dinner one day per week to cover the 2 weeks. I’m hoping this is a great chance to continue to practice their kids cooking skills and also get more efficient at making those meals.
Finally, with a solid rotation, I’m hoping we’ll be able to use up most of our ingredients. I have a couple of recipes that use similar ingredients. So I’m hopeful we’ll be more efficient with our ingredients, too!
How We’re Implementing A Two Week Meal Plan
I knew we wanted a bit more variety than a vegetarian one week meal plan, so a two week meal plan felt perfect. We already make certain types of meals on certain days of the week. So it was easy to plan around those (like pizza on Fridays or breakfast for dinner on Sundays). And then I could just research the additional meals ONE time and have them ready to go, instead of hunting for new meals each week.
I’m not really bothered by repetition in meals, and having something once every two weeks seems like plenty of variety to me. The ones in this set are more winter comfort foods.
We figured we would do this two-week meal plan for about 3 months to try it out, and then we’d be ready to switch to a more summer-focused family meal plan.
All the meals in this family meal plan are ones that we’ve loved in the past to keep it easy for this first round. Then next time, perhaps we’ll change to incorporate some more new reacipes.
Here are all the recipes we chose for our two-week vegetarian capsule meal plan – I hope it gives you some ideas for your own rotational and seasonal family meal plan!
Our Vegetarian Capsule Meal Plan Ideas
Here are the meals we’ve chosen for our first 2-week meal plan rotation! We only have 11 meals in the rotation. That’s because we’ll do takeout 1-2 times over the two weeks, and leftovers 1-2 times over the two weeks.
- Chana Masala with roasted broccoli and mango lassi
- Vegetarian pot pie
- Sweet potato grain bowls
- Burrito stuffed peppers (the burrito filling in this post stuffed into bell peppers, covered with cheese, and baked)
- Kale taco salad with tortilla chips
- Tomato Tortellini Soup with biscuits and green salad
- Cheesy cauliflower soup with cornbread
- Friday Pizza: Potato pizza with kale
- Friday Pizza: Pesto burrata pizza (based on this recipe)
- Sunday Brinner: Waffles, soft-boiled egg, salad, smoothie
- Sunday Brinner: Toast bar (ricotta, jam, honey, peanut butter, soft boiled egg, avocado, etc.)
Any questions? I’ll share recipes for some of these staple meals over the next few weeks!
IF YOU LIKED THIS POST ABOUT OUR VEGETARIAN CAPSULE MEAL PLAN, YOU MIGHT LIKE THESE POSTS TOO:
- Instant Pot Vegetarian Chili Recipe with Dry Beans
- Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix without Powdered Milk
- 4 Family Dinners Kids Can Make
Thanks for posting! We try to eat plant-based for 4 out of 7 dinners or so, but I find myself making excuses because those dinners require more planning and prep and are often (but not always!) less likely to appeal to my picky kids. It’s always frustrating to have the inverse relationship between effort I put in and amount they eat.
Having a game plan and throwing in some of their favorites definitely helps though!
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