Trello is the go-to place for visual planners, and I discovered that meal planning through the platform is aesthetic goals.
Here’s a glimpse at my board. I’ll show you how to create this for yourself and you can even copy my formatting with this free Trello template.
Curate the recipes
I’m usually looking for new recipes on Pinterest or Instagram.
My go-to recipe sites, when I’m not just browsing on Insta and Pinterest:
See my favorite wellness Instagrammers for more recipe inspiration.
Separate by category
To keep it simple, separate by meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts and drinks. You can even throw a party planning category in there, if you find yourself hosting a lot.
Make it searchable & use labels
Use searchable keywords you’d find yourself categorizing your food with. There’s a “search cards” section on the right-hand side on Trello where you can type in keywords and it’ll show you only the cards with those terms.
Keyword ideas:
- Vegan
- Gluten-free
- Dairy-free
- Paleo
- Spicy
- Simple dinner (20 minutes or less)
- Keywords based on the meal type (smoothies, chicken, salad, chocolate, etc.)
You want to make it easy for you to type in a word in the search bar, so you can find all your recipes that fit your cravings.
Depending on the way that you eat, you can choose labels that work best for you. Here are mine: Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Instant Pot, Made (to indicate that I’ve made this meal before).
Screenshot and upload photos
Option 1: Copy & paste recipe to the card
You’ll need a photo of the food, the ingredients and the recipe. I used to copy & paste and format recipes into the description section, and this is totally an option for you. But it was a lot of work to format everything in the way that I wanted it to look (see below) and I found that I wasn’t updated new recipes often.
Option 2: Screenshot everything
I now use this option to organize my meals. I simplified the process and just screenshot the ingredients, recipe and image for convenience. Screenshotting is my best friend when it comes to efficiency.
Option 3: Include only the link
Websites can be a pain to navigate when cooking, so that’s why I stick with the visual screenshots, but this is a simple method that definitely does the trick.
Add comments based on what you learn after making the meal
Examples:
- Get these ingredients from [insert store with best prices for ingredients]
- Add extra seasoning
- Use dairy free alternative
- Boyfriend’s favorite
- Skip the [insert ingredient here]
- Add 1 teaspoon of [insert ingredient here]
So after you’ve created your board filled with recipes with visuals, separated by type of meal, labeled and filled with keywords, you can move on to the meal planning process.
How to meal plan for the week
I have a weekly board, separate from my meal planning board, that I use for creating my weekly schedule. It’s separated by days of the week to create a time blocking schedule.
When I am planning meals for the week, I will use the copy function on Trello to copy the card with the meal I’m looking to make into my weekly board. I’ll position it to the time of day that I’ll likely be eating the meal. This allows you to see visually what your meal plans look like for the week.
For more on details on creating the weekly board, go to this Trello post.
I created a Trello board that you can copy! Get free access.
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