10 Holiday Meal Planning Tips

By Lacey / November 01, 2011 - 0 comments

The holidays always seem to sneak up on me. So to save myself some stress this year I’ve been looking for ways to make holiday cooking more fun and easy before the holidays actually hit. 

Check out these 10 holiday meal planning tips I've put together:

Tip 1) Start planning early: print out or bookmark recipes and create your shopping list 2-3 weeks before the holiday

Tip 2) Try using a free printable grocery shopping list like this one or this one

Tip 3) Figure out what ingredients you can buy 2-3 weeks ahead of time (when they may be on sale) and which ones, like fresh herbs, you’ll need to purchased 2-3 days beforehand

Tip 4) Estimate one pound of turkey and 3/4 pound of ham or roast per person

Tip 5) Estimate one cup of stuffing per pound of turkey and 3-4 ounces of each side dish per person

Tip 6) If you’re trying a new recipe this year, save yourself some stress by testing it out a before the big day

Tip 7) A week before, unpack any special dishes and scrub infrequently used pans languishing in the dark recesses of the kitchen cupboards

Tip 8) Make and freeze pie pastry, cookies, or other desserts a few days to a week before

Tip 9) Cook one or two recipes the day before or see if you can prepare one of your dishes in a slow-cooker the day of

Tip 10) For both the day before and the day of the holiday, create a timetable which lists out the cooking steps for your various recipes. For example, 11:00 am: chop vegetables for stuffing; 11:15: put casserole in oven; 11:25: remove pie from oven, and so on