Your weekly meal planning tip: Cook in bulk for easier dinners later.

Like everything else in your life, our regular weekly meal plans are hitting pause right now. We're not running to the grocery every time we run out of something, and we're trying to be really conscientious about using what's in our pantry before we buy more food. So, the idea of throwing 5 recipes at you that you might not have ingredients for at home doesn't seem practical. And we like practical. (Of course, if you want to get a full meal plan, you can always look back through our meal plan archives. There's plenty there to browse through.) Instead, we're going to share some of our best tips for making tasty meals the family will like during this time. We hope they help! Stay strong, and stay home. We can do this. Photo by Alison Marras on Unsplash

Related: Easy meals you can make with pantry and freezer staples during the quarantine

This week's tip: Cook ahead in bulk at the beginning of the week.

I've found that I'm more exhausted than normal by the end of the day lately. And I'm guessing I'm not alone. Having some pre-cooked chicken slices on hand throughout the week has made quesadillas, soups, gyros, and salads so much easier. Sometimes I add some spice and grill them quickly for temperature and flavor, but other times we just toss them in as they are and it's still tasty. You can DIY this by cooking a big batch of ground beef or grabbing a few rotisserie chickens at the beginning of the week, but if your store is rationing meat products (only two meat items from the butcher per family, here in Nashville!) then you may need to go with some pre-cooked or frozen stuff too.