Simple Meals for a Simple Life

This post was updated on 13/05/21

Do you love cooking or get stressed by it? Deciding what to cook for dinner can feel like another thing to do on your already long to do list. I know when I have a lot on my mind, its not something I want to think about. However keeping your meals simple is another way to reduce complexity in your life. So simple meals for a simple life.

This is the forth post in a series on How to Live Simply to Shine in Life. You can read the second post in the series here-Ten Tips for a Simple Home. You can click in the links to read the other posts.

Imagine finishing work for the day knowing what you’ll eat for dinner that evening. Knowing that the fridge and cupboards contain what you need and no last minute dash to the supermarket is needed. As with a number of others areas of your life, the secret is keeping it simple. Like the sound of that? Keep reading.

Does your day run away with you? Download the Simply Shine Day Tracker to stay intentional. 

Advantages of Keeping Meals Simple

• It will encourage you to cook from scratch. You’ll know what’s going you’re your food so you can control the ingredients and portion sizes!
• Sharing food with others is a simple pleasure. By keeping meals simple you’ll be able to enjoy the time with friends and family more.
• You can optimise quality over quantity. You can use less ingredients but better-quality ones.
• Overall though, eating meals in this way will save you money, as you will only buy what you need.
• Less washing up-bonus!

5 Tips for Keeping Meals Simple

• Have themes for days, Monday might be meat-free or fish on Fridays. This makes deciding what to cook when so much easier.
• OK this might be a little too nerd-like for some, however another great tip that helps me and my friends is to have a spreadsheet of favourite meals. You therefore don’t need to start from scratch each time you decide what to cook.
• Once a week/month use the spreadsheet and add meal ideas to days.
• Shop online-this makes life so much easier. Also you can set up shopping lists on the supermarket sites. In addition, Ocado offer “Your Instant Shop.” It creates your orders based on items you like to buy.
• Display the menu plan in the kitchen so everyone in the house knows what’s for dinner. Less pressure on one person that way and maybe preparing the meal could be a joint effort.

A bonus tip to simple meals is to use a food delivery box like Gousto. How Gousto works:

1. Discover 40+ tasty recipes each week including new cuisines, family favourites and ten minute meals. (I love this option!)
2. Perfectly measured ingredients delivered to your door at a time that suits you
3. Cook up meals that are full on flavour with none of the fuss!

Using this link you can get 50% off your first box and 30% off your first month! 

Gousto has genuinely changed my meal times for the better. It’s so easy because they deliver exactly what you need, resulting in simple delicious meals. I hope you enjoy it too! Here’s the link again: try Gousto

I would love to hear any tips you have on keeping meals and meal planning simple. Comment below and let’s make our lives even easier.

Tina