Feeding your large family on vacation, the NO STRESS plan

A vacation can be wonderful, relaxing, yet exciting time for a family, but for mom there’s often a whole other level of work and stress that comes along with it….enter, FOOD. Just because you’ve left your home, doesn’t suddenly mean that you no longer have to feed your family. They still expect food on a regular basis, and now you have to do it away from your home, which can be challenging unless you plan to eat out the entire time. Personally, I am not a fan of having to spend 50% of my vacation time cooking meals, especially in someone else’s kitchen (where I can never find what I need). I also hate bringing tons of ingredients along. Will I forget something crucial? Probably. But, never fear! There is hope! Here are some great ideas to help conquer the vacation food beast and enjoy your time too, mom!

Our family recently went on vacation. We did a family “retreat” at an AirBnB in Tennessee (more on that soon!). We have 9 children, so eating out can be very expensive. We also prefer homemade food since we can be more choosy about what we put in it, plus sometimes you just can’t beat the taste of homemade! The house was in a pretty remote area so there were no restaurants or grocery stores close by, so I knew I had to be extra careful in my planning. But that was the first key to success….PLANNING!

I know it sounds basic, but hear me out. I had to sit down and plan out each meal that we wanted to eat on our vacation. I had some criteria I was keeping in mind the whole time.

1. Can it be frozen and reheated well?
2. Will it feed everyone and have enough for leftovers for lunch…All of my meals must last for dinner and a lunch. Another way to simplify.
3. Do we actually enjoy this meal?

I want vacation to be filled with things we love and will enjoy eating, not things I would have to fight my kids to eat at home.

I chose things like cheesy chicken and rice casserole with broccoli (a whole meal in one dish…a huge plus!), homemade applesauce, homemade tomato soup, individual oatmeal muffins, and a charcuterie board for our fist night after traveling all day.

I put them into my menu planner and created my shopping list and went shopping for most of the ingredients…a month ahead of time. Yes, I said a MONTH ahead of time. Why you ask? Because I didn’t want the extra cooking to be a stressful event right before we were leaving. Instead, I planned to have these same meals towards the beginning of this month as well. I just shopped for and made double the food each time we had a meal we were planning to also bring with us on vacation. It’s so much easier to just double a recipe than to have to make it on two different occasions. Are you having broccoli cheddar soup? Just double your normal recipe size and freeze the extra for the trip. So simple! When it’s made, put it into well labeled gallon size freezer bags and pop it into the freezer until packing day. So, there you have it. The second key to success…COOKING AHEAD OF TIME!

When it’s time to pack, you can load all of your freezer meals into the cooler. Since they are already frozen, no extra ice is needed! Then finish it off with any refrigerated items needed and your coolers are ready to go. I make a list of everything I need to have in the cooler beforehand, so the morning of our departure, I can just go down the list crossing off things as they are packed. It helps me make sure I have everything! I do the same thing for our box of other foods like pasta, pickles, snacks, maple syrup (for the extra pancakes we made and froze), coffee supplies, etc.

Now, when we arrive, I put everything into the refrigerator and let it thaw until we are ready to cook it for a meal.

EASY, DELICIOUS, HEALTHY and FAST. Now that’s my kind of vacation food!