It can be hard to come up with a healthy family eating plan on your own. Sometimes, finding breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that everyone in your household agrees on feels next to impossible. We’ve put together a few meal planning ideas (1) for families to get your brain working - these ideas will feed your family well and keep them healthy all at once. The recipes are straightforward, the ingredients aren’t hard to find, and there’s sure to be something that appeals to everyone in your family. There’s nothing fancy about these meals either, so if you’re looking for healthy family meal plans on a budget, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. 

Eating healthy is all about eating a balanced diet and getting the nutrition that your body needs to get through the day. And it’s a success if you can make that balanced diet taste good, too. 

If you’re looking to eat at home more, take a look at this sample family meal plan that we’ve cooked up. 

For breakfast, it can get boring eating the same thing every single day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all, so it’s one that should never be skipped. Here are some ideas for foods that will make your family want to sit down and enjoy breakfast: scrambled eggs and muffins, whole wheat waffles, breakfast burritos, oatmeal with berries, granola and berries and milk, or overnight oats. 

Lunch is a meal that can be eaten at home or taken on the go. Here are some well-rounded ideas for a meal that breaks the day in half: Quesadillas, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, hummus sandwiches, avocado egg salad sandwiches. 

And then there’s dinner, which can be the trickiest meal. It happens at the end of the day when everyone’s tired, and it’s easy to butt heads when it comes to menu choices. Here are some easy weeknight dinners for family mealtimes: Ground beef enchiladas, vegetable soup, chicken and rice, chicken tetrazzini, potato corn chowder, pumpkin and cauliflower curry, and chili and cornbread. 

Healthy Family Meals For A Week

It can be hard to get started with a 7 day family meal plan, which is why we put together this group of healthy family meals for a week to get your ideas going. Whether you use some of these ideas, all of them, or none at all - the concept of a 7-day meal plan will at least get your mind going on what your family will enjoy most. 

Creating a meal plan for a week is a great habit to instill to make your days less stressful. You’ll be surprised at how much free mind space you have when you don’t have to think about what your family is going to eat for every meal. When you have a 7-day healthy eating plan in place, it’s all prepared for you - no thinking required, because you’ve already covered that base during the creation of the plan. You can also save money by implementing a 7 day healthy family meal plan, because with a plan in place, you won’t be tempted to order a pizza or eat out at the last minute. And when you’re shopping, you can consider a 7 day family meal plan on a budget - you have a list of food items that you need to buy with consideration of what you can afford. Creating an easy 7 day family meal plan is not only easy on your mind, it’s easy on your wallet and your energy levels as well. 

When you create your plan, use a calendar so your family knows what to expect. And when you’re writing the plan, make sure to keep your family’s tastes in mind. By putting everyone’s favorite foods on special days, you can create things for them to look forward to. And don’t forget to aim for balance and variety - many of us tend to get stuck eating the same foods week in and week out, but this is your chance to spice things up and try new things. Including your family in the process of planning, allowing everyone to have a say, will make for much smoother and more agreeable mealtimes as well. 

Here’s a sample of a well-rounded 7 day family meal plan (2):

Day 1: Banana almond pancakes with bacon, turkey caprese roll-ups and fruit, mini garden meatzas and baked sweet potatoes. 

Day 2: Veggie omelet and berries, Cobb salad, chicken tacos

Day 3: Banana overnight oats, turkey sandwich, steak fajitas

Day 4: Breakfast tacos, skewers and fresh fruit, chicken teriyaki bowls

Day 5: Sausage and scrambled eggs, italian sub pinwheels, ginger shrimp curry

Day 6: Lemon blueberry muffins and sausage, sweet potato toasts, chili

Day 7: Egg muffins, chocolate avocado smoothie, mexican lasagna

Healthy Meal Plan For Family Of 4 On A Budget

You might think that the only way to eat real healthy food is to shop at high-end grocery stores or health food places, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Real food is all around us, and even if you’re eating on a budget, it is still possible to feed your family a balanced diet that you can feel good about putting on the table. All you need to do is follow a healthy meal plan for a family of 4 on a budget - this way, neither your wallet nor your stomachs will be empty. 

But it can be hard to know where to begin with a 7 day healthy meal plan for a family of 4 when you’re working with a small budget. It might feel like you can’t come close to affording what you’d like to put on the table. But whether you’re saving your money for something else, cutting down on costs because you overspent, or you run a tight ship in general, this 7 day meal plan for a family of 4 can help. 

The best way to feed a family of 4 for $100 a week menu-wise is to pick as much variety as you can while staying within budget. Take a look at this sample (3):

Day 1: Oatmeal with fruit, hummus with fruit and veggie sticks, baked chicken with corn on the cob and baked potatoes. 

Day 2: Potato and egg ash, tuna salad, bacon and onion and greens pasta skillet. 

Day 3: Oatmeal with apples, peanut butter sandwiches with grapes, garden salad with chicken and bacon with buttered bread. 

Day 4: Oatmeal with fruit, hummus with fruit and veggie sticks, minestrone soup with rolls.

Day 5: Potato and egg hash, tuna salad, chicken sandwiches with potato wedges and carrots.

Day 6: Oatmeal with apples, peanut butter sandwiches with grapes, spaghetti and garden salad. 

Day 7: Oatmeal with fruit, egg salad with rolls, veggie fried rice. 

The food that you choose doesn’t have to be high in price in order for it to be high in quality. As long as you know how to make it work in recipes that fortify your family and keep them healthy and fed, it works. 

Health Family Meal Plans With Grocery List

Making sure that you know what you’re buying when you head to the grocery store is half the battle. That’s why creating a weekly meal planner with a grocery list works much better than planning meals without one. Thinking up healthy family meal plans with a grocery list makes it easy to check ingredients off as you move through the store. Even better, many websites that offer ideas for meal plans also come with the shopping lists - so you don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting yourself. Other than going to the store, that is. 

You can choose to put together a 7 day family meal plan with a shopping list or a 30 day meal plan with a grocery list, it just depends on what feels better for you and what works for your family. If you enjoy planning far into the future, then taking care of the whole month might be perfect for you. But if planning that far ahead doesn’t seem practical to you, then you might want to stick to creating a healthy weekly meal plan with a grocery list and taking it 7 days at a time. 

This is something you can do even if your money is tight. It’s entirely possible to create a weekly meal planner with a grocery list on a budget - in fact, doing so can even save you money from week to week. If you head to the store with a list in front of you, there’s less of a chance that you will stray from the list and start pulling whatever calls to you off the shelf. Having a list is like having a mission, and to stay within budget, you can stick to your list and save money by not buying anything that you don’t need for your weekly (or monthly) meal planning endeavors. 

7 Day Healthy Eating Plan To Lose Weight

While some people have the goal of simply eating well and being healthy, others are interested in creating a weekly meal plan in order to lose weight. And it’s true, creating a 7-day healthy eating plan to lose weight can work for some people. Like any other meal plan, it’s especially helpful if you have a shopping list on your side, so we recommend creating a 7-day weight loss meal plan with a grocery list to prevent temptation from taking over.

Creating a 7 day diet plan to lose 10 pounds entails cutting calories, but you want to do that while still getting enough fuel to make it through your day. You want to be energized and satisfied with a lower calorie diet, and that’s why it’s important to look up meal plans that keep that in mind. Remember: Starving yourself is never the answer. Limiting is okay, but moderation is key, not deprivation. 

Creating a meal plan to lose weight involves including high protein foods and foods that are high in fiber. That’s because these kinds of foods keep you feeling full for a longer amount of time, so you won’t be tempted to go back and raid the snack cupboard. They also have the ability to balance out calories so you won’t feel ravenous between meals. Balancing exercise with these types of foods could help you see the results that you want (4). 

For breakfast each day, try eating baked banana-nut oatmeal cups. For lunch, try chipotle-lime cauliflower taco bowls. And for snacks, try hard boiled eggs. 

Other breakfast foods include: Muesli with raspberries and egg in a hole peppers with avocado salsa. 

Some other lunch options include: Veggie and hummus sandwiches and curried sweet potato and peanut soup. 

Dinner options include: Sheet pan chicken fajita bowls and brown rice, zucchini chickpea veggie burgers, salmon cakes and baby spinach, chicken and cucumber wraps with peanut sauce, and spinach and artichoke dip pasta.

Snack options include: Apples, clementines, bananas, cheese, raspberries, and dark chocolate. 

Resources

1. "2 Week Meal Plan for the Whole Family: Fall/Winter Menu." Bless This Mess, www.blessthismessplease.com/eating-clean-2-week-plan/.
2. Doleac, Shannon. "7 Day Family Meal Plan: A Week of Simple, Healthy Eating." Primal Peak, primalpeak.com/7-day-family-meal-plan/.
3. "ONE WEEK $50 MEAL PLAN FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR." Don't Waste The Crumbs, 21 Apr. 2021, dontwastethecrumbs.com/one-week-50-meal-plan-for-a-family-of-four/.
4. Seaver, Victoria. "7-Day Diet Meal Plan to Lose Weight: 1,200 Calories." EatingWell, 18 Feb. 2020, www.eatingwell.com/article/17375/7-day-diet-meal-plan-to-lose-weight-1200-calories/.