{"id":377421,"date":"2026-04-13T14:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377421\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T14:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:07:07","slug":"a-dietitian-approved-protein-trick-to-make-weeknight-meals-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377421\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dietitian-Approved Protein Trick to Make Weeknight Meals Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meal-planning can help you cut costs<\/a> and encourage you to make healthy food at home more often. But it does take some work. So, even though you know a meal plan will save time and effort in the long run, it’s not always easy to actually make it happen.<\/p>\n

If you find yourself caught in that trap, try a registered dietitian’s trick for making a simple meal plan that won’t leave you bored halfway through the week.<\/p>\n

Dietitian Tip of the Day: Make Weeknight Dinners Easy With This Protein Strategy<\/p>\n

“Every Sunday, I come up with a meal plan for my family,” says Natalie Rizzo, registered dietitian and TODAY nutrition editor.<\/p>\n

The plan only covers dinners, and the family usually does takeout once a week. So her meal plan covers six meals during the week, prioritizing plant-based protein<\/a> and keeping dinners interesting.<\/p>\n

“What I try to do is make a different protein every night,” she says, “because one I get bored eating the same thing every night.”<\/p>\n

Why It Matters<\/p>\n

If you have any kind of nutrition goals, meal-planning will make hitting them significantly easier. Whether you want to eat more fiber<\/a>, hit your protein goal<\/a> every day or reduce your salt intake<\/a>, having some kind of strategy like this is essential. <\/p>\n

Making a meal plan<\/a> ahead of time can also help you save money at the grocery store and cut down on food waste.<\/p>\n

But people who meal prep like this may find themselves eating the same thing frequently, or forcing themselves to eat a meal all week that they’re just not that excited about.<\/p>\n

Rizzo’s strategy of planning weeknight meals ahead of time starts with the protein and intentionally switches up the ingredients. That way, she’ll always have a healthy plant-based protein at the center of the meal, but she won’t get bored by Wednesday. <\/p>\n

How to Get Started<\/p>\n

Rizzo starts her family’s meal plan with the protein. And she makes sure to choose a different protein for each night of the week and then plan the meal around it.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ll make sure one night is a tofu night, one night is a bean night, one night is a lentil night and one night is a tempeh night,” she says. To change things up, about once a month, she’ll also make what she calls “faux meats,” which are foods like Beyond Burgers or Impossible meats.<\/p>\n

It also helps to keep themed food nights in mind, like taco Tuesdays using black beans<\/a> or pizza Fridays with cheese and chickpeas on top (it works, she swears). Or you might try making one night every week your pasta night or stir fry night, for instance.<\/p>\n

That can help ease some of the mental load of trying to figure out what to eat every single night.<\/p>\n

TODAY\u2019s Expert Tip of the Day<\/a> series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meal-planning can help you cut costs and encourage you to make healthy food at home more often. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-377421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nutrition","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}