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Use this 7-day gluten free meal plan to provide ideas for when you want to eat healthy, nutritious, and nourishing real-food meals.
Meal planning has made cooking with young kids do-able, without sacrificing the quality of our food. It's easy to cook dinner from scratch every night when you have time and energy, but what happens when you don't?
That's where meal planning comes in. A meal plan provides a roadmap to follow to get healthy and homemade meals on the table for your family night after night.
Think of a meal plan like using the GPS to get somewhere. It's kinda nice to just follow the directions. Especially if you're trying out a diet that's unfamiliar (like clean eating, whole 30, Paleo, or gluten free).
Meal Planning Resources
Do a quick Google search for "meal planning" and you'll see I'm not the only fan of meal planning out there. And for good reason. Meal planning helps people stick to their healthy eating goals, lose weight, eat better, spend less money on food, and reduce food waste.
Gluten Free Meal Planning Service
When you're just getting started with meal planning, it's can be helpful (if not ESSENTIAL) to use a meal planning service. A meal planning service provides pre-made meal plans each week with a grocery list and instructions on how to make each meal.
While there are about a million meal planning services out there, I recommend these 5 meal planning services if you're looking for healthy, real-food meal plans.
My favorite on the list is Prep Dish. It's my favorite because Allison (the woman behind Prep Dish meal plans) knows that when you prep food ahead of time, the stress of cooking just melts away. So she provides meal plans with the "prep" instructions listed separately.
So when you sign up for Prep Dish, each week you get:
- 4 Healthy Main Meals
- 1 Tasty Salad
- 1 Quick Breakfast
- 1 Easy Snack
Each meal plan always includes:
- Organized Grocery List
- Prep Day Guide
- Dish Day Guide
They have options for Gluten-Free, Paleo, and Low Carb, but even if you don't follow these diets, I know you'll love them. Each recipe is made with real food and they're extremely delicious.
It really can't get easier than this. Learn more and sign up here.
Meal Planning Template
If you'd rather make your own meal plan each week, grab one of these templates to get you started.
A few years ago, I realized I was doing the same exact thing each time I sat down and made a meal plan. So I decided to make a template that I can just use each week, instead of starting from a blank piece of paper and labeling the same columns week after week. Sometimes just shaving a few minutes off of a routine makes it easier to stick with.
- Read this post to see how you can use the meal planning template (and method) I use to simplify your meals.
- For every kind of meal planning template you can imagine, like pen & paper, DIY projects, and digital meal planning templates, read this post.
- If you want my collection of meal planning templates for FREE, sign up here.
A Sample 7 Day Gluten Free Meal Plan
I want to show you a concrete example of a simple meal plan that's super simple to make with a simple recipes you can easily make in your own kitchen.
Listed for each day is:
- The prep work that you can do ahead of time (or right at dinner time)
- Estimated time the recipe will take.
- General guideline for the meals each day. If you'd like exact recipes for any of these meals, (not all recipes are provided...more of a general guideline and meal ideas) let me know!
Gluten Free Dinner Idea: Sunday
Dinner: Curry Bowls: cauliflower rice, chickpeas, curry sauce, and roasted broccoli combined in a bowl.
Prep: Make curry sauce, peanut sauce, BBQ sauce for your meals this week. Each sauce takes about 5 minutes. Estimated prep time: 15 minutes.
GLUTEN FREE DINNER Idea: Monday
Dinner: Thai Chicken Bowls: chicken w/ peanut sauce & veggie bowls with carrot noodles
Prep: Roast veggies in the oven, cook the chicken, "peel" the carrot noodles. The sauce was made Sunday (nothing to do there). Estimated prep: 30 minutes.
GLUTEN FREE DINNER Idea: Tuesday
Dinner: Pulled Pork: shredded slow cooker pork with homemade honey BBQ sauce poured over. Eat with cabbage slaw and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. Use a gluten free bun, or a cabbage leaf.
Prep: Put pork roast in slow cooker in AM (the sauce was made Sunday). Make cabbage slaw, roast veggies. Estimated prep: 5 minutes.
GLUTEN FREE DINNER IDea: Wednesday
Dinner: Grilled Curried Chicken: grilled chicken w/ curry sauce and grilled zucchini.
Prep: Slice the zucchini lengthwise. Estimated prep: 20 minutes.
GLUTEN FREE DINNER Idea: Thursday
Dinner: Leftovers: eat up any of the meals that are leftover from earlier in the week.
Prep: NONE (just sit back and relax :)).
GLUTEN FREE DINNEr Idea: Friday
Dinner: Thai chicken pizza with shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, and jalepenos.
Prep: make pizza crust (here's a great almond flour pizza crust), shred carrots and cabbage, slice and de-seed jalepenos. No need for cheese on a Thai chicken pizza! Estimated prep: 30 minutes.
GLUTEN FREE DINNER idea: Saturday
Dinner: Barbecue Bacon Burgers: cook some burgers with bacon and barbecue sauce. Roast some sweet potatoes and make a delicious and simple fry sauce. Use a gluten free bun, or go bun-less, or wrap your burger in a cabbage or lettuce leaf. Yumm!
Prep: Slice sweet potatoes, make homemade mayo, make homemade ketchup. Estimated prep: 20 minutes.
Do these gluten free meals seem doable?
My goal with this meal plan is to show you how to re-use sauces and ingredients throughout the week.
To make your meal prep even more efficient, try roasting a big batch of vegetables early in the week. Then reheat under the broiler for a few minutes to re-crisp them up.
Another time saving option is cooking all the meat for the week on Sunday or Monday.
Figure out how much you need for each meal and make it all at once. Since you're flavoring everything in the end with sauces, just season it with the basics: salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Related: Ultimate Beginner's Guide: How to Meal Prep
Meal planning doesn't need to be complicated. In fact, it can be as simple as writing a few things down on a piece of paper your kids scribbled on earlier in the week.
Gluten free meal planning is no different.
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