25 Meal Ideas for Busy Entrepreneurs
Time-saving hacks for busy entrepreneurs
Listen, I’m absolutely not a food blogger. Far from it. This post isn’t about food. It’s about saving time. It’s about turning a time-sucking task into an efficient process.
Like you, I’m a busy entrepreneur mom, wife, and community advocate looking for doable processes to simplify my life.
Less time figuring out what my family eats means more time doing things I enjoy with people I love.
Simplifying meal planning for work/life balance
I know I’m not the only one who feels the pressure of doing all the things. Work/life balance is one of the trickiest challenges female business owners face (Read: 9 Unexpected Tips to Achieve Work/Life Balance as a Female Entrepreneur).
Having my own business provides the freedom make a full-time income on a part-time schedule. That’s lovely, but it also comes with juggling lots of responsibilities to make sure my family is thriving. With the time flexibility of running my own business, it just makes sense for me to take the lead on meal planning, grocery ordering, and dinner making.
The bane of my existence is figuring out what to feed my family for dinner every week. The meal planning task is a massive headache and creates friction in my role as mom, budgeter, and business owner.
I’ve gritted my teeth at the thought of planning a week’s worth of meals more than once. Needless to say, I dread figuring out what to have for dinner. I’m fed up and ready make it simpler.
Creating processes for work/life balance
So, like any smart (exhausted) entrepreneur looking for work/life balance, I turned our meal planning into a process and I’m sharing it with you here.
In our family, we typically make three different meals each week. We cook enough of each meal to eat leftovers for 1-2 days afterward. That means three freshly cooked meals covers 6-9 meals that we can have for other busy nights or lunches. Let’s be real. We also keep staples like pb&j and nuggets in stock for nights when making a meal just isn’t feasible.
Make it your own
Thankfully, we don’t have any food allergies in our family. If there’s a meal on the list below that your family can’t eat or doesn’t like, do a quick search to swap in an option that will work for your family.
It really doesn’t matter what’s on your meal planning list – just that you have a go-to list you can refer to each week when it’s time to plan out your meals.
The idea is to plan ahead so you can eliminate the friction and energy-suck that comes with figuring out what to plan for dinner every week.
Scroll down to find the clickable recipe pdf download with links to the list of meals below.
I tried to find recipes with 5-star ratings, but I don’t promise the meals are Michelin star-worthy because the only thing my undiscerning palate won’t eat is Hardees which baffles my daughter because she loves the start on their logo (good branding!).
Family Meeting Night
Another rhythm in our family is Family Meetings on Sunday evenings during our meal together. It’s become a habit for me to print off a batch of this insanely simple week-at-a-glance calendar. I pull one out, mark the dates, and plan the week ahead. That includes what we’ll have for dinner and weekly activities so everyone is on the same page.
(I know, you’re thinking, “Francie there are fancy apps everyone in the family can opt into for this” but my process allows my five-year-old to practice participating in the family meeting and there’s nothing better than hearing what she feels is important to talk about.)
During our family meetings, we talk about the week ahead, including work obligations, appointments, activities, and social plans. I take this time to communicate with my family about the workload in my business and whether it’s heavy or light that week. We also hold space to talk about goals for the week to hold each other accountable. It’s overall just a great rhythm for us to connect and talk through life as we do it together.
If this is new for you, the process would look like this:
Choose which day of the week works best to do your meal planning.
Grab the meal ideas printable that contains actual clickable recipe links for the list of meals by opting in below (it’s an instant download on the thank you page).
Mark three meals that will work for your family’s schedule on the calendar.
Add the ingredients to your grocery pickup order.
Cook the meals and make enough to have leftovers so you aren’t cooking every night.
Free PDF Download
Grab the printable: Snag this free meal ideas printable for clickable links to recipes and 14 easy side ideas.
25 Meal Ideas for Busy Entrepreneurs
If you average making three of these meals each week, you’ll have enough variety for eight weeks and enjoy each recipe about six times each year.
Chicken Pad Thai with Broccoli
Pork Tenderloin, green beans, mac n cheese, and cornbread
BBQ marinated Chicken on a Salad (We buy the big family pack of raw chicken breasts, dice them up, divide them between two zip locks with some white vinegar, olive oil, and a marinade packet)
Baked chimichangas
Spaghetti and a salad pack
Frozen Pizza
Tacos and Mexican rice
Rosemary Salmon, Caesar Salad, veggies and rice
Orange chicken with broccoli
Steak and shrimp kabobs with rice
Hummus sandwiches
Baked Feta Pasta
Hawaiian Pork Chops
Schwarma Chicken
Enchiladas
Paninis and soup
Sheet Pan Gnochi
Burgers
Grilled Huli Huli Chicken
Easy Stir Fry
Spare Ribs, cornbread, and salad
Fancy grilled cheese
Baked Ravioli
French Bread Pizza
Steak or Chicken Fajitas
There you have it! This list of meal ideas for busy entrepreneurs gives you a go-to list while you meal plan each week. As small business owners, we’re busy running our businesses, so having a repeatable process for such a big responsibility will make putting food on the table a breeze!
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Female business resources
Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business (with free access to the resource suite)
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Hi, I’m Francie!
Nice to meet you. I’m the founder of Founding Females®. Some call me a business sage because I love to empower female entrepreneurs to breathe life into the business dreams God called them to.
After feeling like a misfit in the corporate world, I discovered a life I loved waking up to through business ownership.
I’m the author of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, a guided journal helping hundreds of women start and grow their businesses.
I’m also a passionate entrepreneurship hype girl, female leader, public speaker, and community enthusiast.
My MBA and 10 years in a corporate career and in business ownership positioned me as an entrepreneurship educator with forward-thinking strategies for starting and growing successful businesses.
As a community leader, I realized other women could thrive with the right guidance and support. I created the Founding Females® Mastermind Community that provides a safe space for women to build better businesses.
I believes that anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship. Looking to grow your own business? Click for info about how to work with me.
About Founding Females®
The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. We create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support.
In addition, Founding Females offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.