Do you struggle with coming up with ideas for easy home cooked meals? You are not alone. Here is the ultimate guide to easy home cooked meals.

The first step to easy home cooked meals sounds simple but too often it gets missed. You must plan ahead. It’s much harder to come home from work, open up the fridge and then realize you have no idea what to cook for dinner. By planning ahead you will already know what is for dinner. This means creating a meal plan a week ahead. See my blog post on The one hour gluten free meal plan. for some ideas about how to do this.

Second, you need to think about what you can easily prepare ahead of time. If you are like me and most other people I know, this means using crockpot recipes and a rice cooker on a regular basis. This makes having easy home cooked meals a lot easier. See this blot post for 5 of my favorites. 5 of My Favorite Gluten free crockpot meals You can also find endless ideas on Pinterest.

Third, Use apps and websites like Yummly.com and Allrecipes.com. These are game changers when it comes to easy home cooked meals and meal prep.

Fourth, Keep plenty of recipes on Google Drive and Pinterest. I use these to bookmark and organize simple home cooked recipes that I am planning to make. I can organize my recipes via folders on Google Drive and save to Pinterest anything that looks good and that I might want to cook later.

Fifth, Always have ingredients on hand for easy home cooked meals that you can prepare at any time. This means you should keep a nice selection of frozen and canned vegetables as well as some fresh, meats, gluten free grains and other things so that you always have what you need to create at least 1-2 simple home cooked meals without having to run to the grocery store.