Next Week’s Meal Plan: 5 Recipes to Get Your Meal Plan Mojo Back

This week I’m getting back on the meal-planning wagon after two weeks of traveling and settling into our new home. Honestly, I’d happily continue eating makeshift meals of sandwiches, takeout, and frozen pizza in an effort to avoid cooking amongst the half-packed boxes, but alas, with school starting back this week we need our routine up and running again.

So here’s the deal with this week’s meal plan: It’s a collection of five super-simple recipes I love and am relying on to get my meal planning mojo back in a flash.

Planning my weekly meals is a habit I enjoy. Since I’m frequently asked by friends and family what I’m cooking for dinner each week, I thought it’d be useful to share my weekly meal plan here. Whether you’re just learning to meal plan and looking for a real-life example of how this works or you’re an old pro on the hunt for inspiration, here’s a peek at how I’m feeding my family this week.

• The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning: What to Know, How to Succeed, and What to Skip
• The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
• Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before You Start Meal Planning
• 5 Strategies for Picking Recipes for a Week of Meal Planning

A meatless Monday main that’s creamy and comforting? Check. A recipe that uses more of summer’s sweet corn and rich tomatoes? Yes, please. This baked ziti is held together with a blender-made white sauce full of ricotta, garlic, and Parmesan that beats the pants off canned Alfredo.

I’m sure I’ve included this recipe in other meal plans, as it perfectly fills the Taco Tuesday void without dirtying a ton of dishes. Everything from the chicken breast to the tortillas cooks in the oven. All you need is a little tub of sour cream and some salsa for a no-brainer weeknight dinner.

I’m taking a bit of a gamble on this frittata. My kids love frittatas and pretty much eat them with abandon, but my daughter is in a silly “NO ONIONS” phase. My husband, on the other hand, would eat caramelized onions at every meal. Here’s hoping this one-pan wonder acts as a peace treaty.

I fell in love with this recipe while testing it earlier in the summer and have been waiting for the right time to make it again. The idea is simple and easy — grill salmon and make a relish of fresh plums — but the results are stunning. This is just the kind of recipe to help me fall back in love with meal planning and cooking at home.

Last week’s pizza Friday consisted of frozen pizza, and my kids were not happy about it. But I’m not quite ready to get back into my weekly pizza dough making either. Enter: this puff pastry tomato and cheese tart. It hits the sweet spot of ease and flavor and is nearly guaranteed to please everyone.