Use my weekly meal plans to take the stress out of dinnertime! These premade meal plans and grocery shopping lists are the best way to save time and money while feeding your family healthy and nutritious meals. With a daily main course and mix and match sides, dinner just got a whole lot easier!
This week’s meal plan includes: black bean burgers, chicken fajitas, grilled tri-tip, buttermilk fried chicken, marry me shrimp pasta, classic lemon bars, and mix and match summer sides.
To simplify your grocery shopping list:
- You can use chicken breasts, tenders, or even chicken thighs for the fajitas. Grab whatever you prefer or what’s on sale.
- Look for a 2ish pound tri tip roast that’s 1 ½ inches thick with a decent amount of marbling. Put tri tip leftovers to good use the next day by making tri tip sandwiches for lunch.
- For frying the chicken, I prefer peanut oil, which has a very high smoke point and a neutral flavor.
- I broke down a whole chicken into 8 pieces, an your grocery store butcher might be able to do this for you. Or buy pre-cut pieces.
- If you can’t find Meyer lemons in your grocery store, go ahead and use regular lemons for extra tartness.
- For the beet salad, full fat ricotta is creamier, but if you’re being watchful, part-skim saves on the fat and calories and still tastes delicious.
- If you don’t want to roast your own, you can buy pre-roasted beets in the produce section at most grocery stores.
- For the baked beans, skip the cheap stuff and use a good quality barbecue sauce. It’s mixed in and cooked down, but it’s the main flavor builder.
- You can swap out romain in the grilled Caesar for radicchio, little gem lettuce, or endive.
How to Print Shopping List
- Click on the shopping cart icon below.
- Select which meals you would like to include. You may also adjust serving sizes at this time.
- Click on the shopping cart logo again to generate your shopping list.
- Once your shopping list is generated, you can print it out by clicking on the printer icon.
Meal Prep & Leftover Tips
Black Bean Burgers: Brushing the patties with oil prevents sticking. Black bean burgers are more prone to sticking than beef burgers, so you need to oil the grill grates and the patties to ensure a clean flip.
Chicken Fajitas: Keep the chicken extra tender by adding 1 tablespoon of cornstarch to the spice mix. Cornstarch helps create a slurry with the chicken juices, keeping the moisture in the meat extra juicy.
Grilled Tri-Tip Steak: Set the steak on your counter for 30 minutes before grilling. You never want to transfer a steak directly from the fridge to the hot grill. That often results in a chewy, overcooked exterior.
Buttermilk Fried Chicken: Fried chicken loses its crispness in the fridge. To revive its crunch when reheating, place it on an oven-safe wire rack set over a baking tray and bake at 400ºF for 10 to 12 minutes.
Marry Me Shrimp Pasta: If you wind up with tough, rubbery shrimp whenever you try to cook them, the issue might be the size of your shrimp. Choose 21/25 large shrimp and remove the shells and tails for easier eating.
Roasted Beet and Ricotta Salad: Pick beets that are about the same size so they cook evenly. Also, no matter the color, beets have the same flavor, so feel free to choose the rainbow.
Grilled Caesar Salad: You can prepare the dressing several days in advance to save time.
BBQ Baked Beans: Be generous with the bacon. Because those smokey bits are the best part, use a whole package of bacon in this recipe.
THE BEST Potato Salad: Giving the flavors time to meld is important. If I’m planning on eating the salad the day I make it, I’ll prepare it at lunch so the flavors can build, or I’ll make it a day ahead of time.
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