Let’s start the new year right with my Prep Ahead Healthy Meal Plan for January! Are you ready to cook from scratch in 2023?? Featuring inspiration for 28 quick,  healthy, from scratch meals plus seven easy tasks to fill your freezer, this plan will help you cook from scratch in 2023!

Start the New Year Right with this Prep Ahead Healthy Menu Plan

If you’re looking to eat start cooking from scratch this year so you can eat healthier and save money, this is your year. Follow along in January as I work with you to do just that. Let’s take control of cooking and eating, shall we? Let’s all cook from scratch a lot more this year!

Monthly Menu Ideas

One of my largest obstacles to cooking from scratch is not being prepared. This healthy meal plan is here to save the day! Simply pick one option from each category and fill your week with quick and easy, from scratch meal ideas! There are enough meal ideas here for four full weeks!

Meatless Mondays

• Homemade bean burritos {cook extra beans to freeze}
• Cheesy Enchilada Rice Skillet
• Slow Cooker Broccoli, Rice & Cheese Casserole
• Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

Taco Tuesdays

• Regular ole soft and hard beef taco smorgasbord (make this extra taco meat for a crowd, freeze the extras and enjoy it later in the month in taco rice bowls)
• Taco Soup made in the slow cooker
• Make your own taco rice bowl using frozen taco meat from earlier in the month
• Chicken Taco Salad

Wing It Wednesdays

• Homemade Rotisserie Chicken {cook an extra chicken or extra chicken breasts if you prefer, and freeze, for cooked chicken ready for quick meals}. Also use the chicken carcass to make homemade stock for the freezer.
• Mediterranean Chicken
• One Pot Greek Chicken Pasta
• Parmesan Garlic Chicken

Porker or Beef Thursday 😀

• Greek Marinated Pork Loin
• Italian Stuffed Peppers
• Spinach Mozzeralla Meatloaf
• One Skillet Oven Potatoes & Brats

Pizza Friday

• Bacon Pizza {freeze extra pizza dough}
• 4 Cheese, No Sauce Pizza
• Greek Pizza
• Sausage and veggie pizza

Soupper Saturday

• Butternut Squash & Tomato Soup
• Homemade French Onion Soup
• Immune Boosting Creamy Chicken Stew
• Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup in the Instant Pot

From the Sea Sunday

• Salmon Street Tacos
• Greek Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner
• Salmon and Asparagus Sheet Pan Dinner
• 30 Minute Homemade Shrimp Lo Mein

Ditch the Breakfast Cereal with these Homemade Breakfast Ideas

• Cottage Cheese Blender Pancakes
• Yogurt and granola
• Smoothies & toast. See how you can make smoothie packets for the freezer here!
• 5 Minute Egg Sandwiches
• Mix and Match Scones {Bonus freezer task! Make extra packets to add to your freezer, on the day you make scones for breakfast!}

Want to really make from scratch easier? Start filling your freezer! Cook from scratch with these tasks!

Seven – 30 minute {or there about} tasks for filling the freezer

It will help you cook subsequent meals quicker if you do these seven tasks on the first full week of the month. That way you’ll have leftovers for other meals this month that will make meal prep faster. However, if you’re really busy or don’t have the ingredients ready to go, just shift the tasks to a day when you are able to get it done! Again, flexibility is key.

You can read how I fill my freezer in 30 minutes a day over at Premeditated Leftovers – I wrote a blog post there a while ago.

1. On Monday, cook up a huge pot of dried beans and freeze in 3-2 cup portions, with the liquid. Make sure you soak the beans Sunday night! I highly recommend owning a really big stainless steel stock pot. I have a 12 qt stock pot similar to this one that I use for canning and cooking beans. It comes in really handy! I generally cook 8 cups of dried beans, which yields about 3-4 bags for my freezer after we’ve eaten the beans for lunch and also for dinner. If you’re not familiar cooking dried beans, you’ll want to soak the beans over night and then cook about 1-2 hours the next day in fresh water. You can read here for more details, need be.

2. On Tuesday, {preferably the week you eat regular ole tacos, so you also get your dinner prep out of the way too} make a huge batch of taco meat using ground meat of choice and beans from Monday’s cook or the freezer, and freeze extra portions of meat.

3. On Wednesday, roast an extra chicken, in addition to cooking a rotisserie chicken for dinner, so that I have cooked chicken ready for the remainder of the Wednesday chicken meals.

4. On Thursday, make enough crock pot ham so that you have leftovers to freeze. Also, cook up a big batch of bacon in the oven. Freeze some in whole pieces to use on the egg sandwiches, and also freeze some crumbles to use on the bacon pizza! Don’t forget to save the bacon grease as it makes a great, free fat in which to cook your eggs and veggies!

5. On Friday,  Make and freeze 4 extra potions of pizza dough for each of the other pizza nights in January.

6. On Saturday, make a huge batch of homemade bread. I bake bread in 5 loaf quantities and then freeze extra or store in my fridge. This task actually takes about an hour and half, start to finish – but really only about 30 minutes active prep and clean-up. I’d also make up a double batch of Artisan Bread Dough on Saturday too, so you have a nice crusty bread to go with your soups!

7. On Sunday, make a huge batch of fruit and honey granola to enjoy for breakfasts and snacks.

At the end of the 7 days, you should have quite a few meal components added to your freezer to simplify meal prep at a later date!