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Easy Ideas For When You Don’t Know What to Eat

Have you ever thought, I don’t know what to eat? This post will walk you through things to consider when you don’t know what to eat and share 20+ recipes and ideas for what to eat.

Confused Woman Looking In Open Refrigerator
Rear View Of A Confused Woman Looking In Open Refrigerator At Home

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If you’ve ever thought, I don’t know what to eat, this post should arm you with ideas and what to think about when you start to feel hungry.

Maybe you’re milling through empty pantry cabinets, trying to find something, anything in the fridge or freezer, but nothing is sounding good.

I have 50+ ideas below on what you can eat when you don’t know what you want to eat.

First of all, I like to counsel my clients to think about what’s in the way of deciding what to eat.

  • Is it feeling unable to differentiate between true hunger and emotional hunger?
  • Are you feeling low in energy?
  • Are you too busy to decide what to eat or take the time to make something?
  • Are you stressed with your kids?
  • Do you have food on hand to make something? If not, knowing what to eat can be difficult!

HOT TIP

This is also another reminder to make double or triple of meals when you do feel like cooking, so you have pre-made options in these situations.


My meal prep ebook has more tips on how to do that!

When you don’t know what to eat, making things easy for yourself is always the best practice.


Grab Our Meal Prep Ebook to Finally Conquer Meal Prep in the Kitchen


meal prep ebook

What Should I Do When I’m Hungry and I Don’t Know What to Eat?

Whether you’ve done any simple meal prep or not, I always suggest keeping your pantry loaded with these pantry staples.

Knowing how you’re feeling, when and what you last ate, your current energy levels, and what you have on hand to eat in the present may all impact what you choose to eat.

Here are some pointers to think about when you don’t know what to eat.

Ask Yourself, What Do I Want to Eat?

Sometimes, when you don’t know what to eat, thinking about what you actually are craving can be helpful.

Thanks to toxic diet culture, sometimes deciding what you want to eat and thinking about what you should eat don’t align.

bruschetta chicken sandwich stacked on white plate
mixed tuna pasta salad recipe without mayo
quinoa and sweet potato salad topped with lemons slices in white bowl with spoon

And that’s okay. We don’t have to eat our “shoulds” all the time.

Meaning, everything we put into our mouths doesn’t have to be 100% healthy or whole grain. Thinking this is an indication of an unhealthy relationship with food.

One of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating is to challenge the food police, and this is how you can really learn to honor what you truly want without feeling guilt.

This principle is a major one that comes into play when you think about deciding what to eat.

girl looking in the fridge deciding what to eat

You should be able to be flexible with food, and not feel food guilt if everything you eat is not tracked or doesn’t go to plan.

Challenge The Food Police Voices

The food police is the inner voice inside our heads. We have all experienced it at some time or another, and still probably do sometimes.

The food police voice is the judgmental voice that tells us we don’t deserve dessert because we didn’t exercise today (which can lead to compulsive exercise).

Or, the voice that categorizes foods as “good” and “bad.”

It bases our [food] choices on what others may think of us, rather than on what sounds and feels satisfying in the moment.

canellinni beans in skillet served with bread

Rate Your Hunger to Determine What to Eat

Another determinant of our food choices is how hungry we really feel. I like to use the intuitive eating hunger scale with clients to determine this.

One really important point in deciding what and when to eat is learning to honor your hunger.

Your body deserves respect and should have consistent fuel.

If you don’t know what you want to eat, consider:

brown serving platter with 8 pizza rolls and dipping sauce.

These questions are important to honor those cues. 

If you’re feeling any physical signs of hunger, these signs and symptoms from your body are its way of asking for fuel.

If there are any fears of hunger, learning to challenge your fear of hunger can be life-changing.

snack plate with popcorn, peppers, tomatoes, almonds, carrots, chocolate

Food Ideas When You Don’t Know What to Eat

We’ve walked you through what to consider when you don’t know what to eat, but maybe you’re feeling like, “I don’t know what to eat and I just want you to tell me!”

In some situations, you just don’t want to exert the brainpower.

closeup of veggie pasta bake in cooking dish

As a mom with 3 young kids, I get it, and often resort to these easy midweek Wednesday or Thursday night dinner ideas.

If all else fails, it’s usually pasta (made in 10 minutes), tortillas with beans and cheese, breakfast for dinner, or a hearty smoothie.

So, consider these meal ideas and recipes for when you have no mental energy left, lack inspiration, or know you simply need to eat something.

Remember, eating something is better than nothing – so if all else fails, have some convenient, freezer items on hand for these dire situations. These freezer meal ideas can be lifesavers.

cropped-Freezer-Meals-in-Ziplock-Bags.jpg

Convenient and Frozen Meal Ideas

Many of these easy and convenient meal ideas don’t even require cooking, or are already done for you!

  • Frozen lasagna
  • Grilled cheese with frozen french fries/tater tots
  • Bowl of cereal
  • Protein bar + a piece of fruit
  • Canned tuna or salmon + toast/wrap + hummus or mayo + crackers
  • Salad bowl – Take a bagged salad kit and add beans, rotisserie chicken, lentils, tofu, etc.
  • Quick cooking oatmeal packets with toppings, or make a quick bowl of oatmeal
  • Panera soup or canned soup from the grocery store
  • Kodiak cake pancakes – this is pre-made pancake batter that cooks quickly and is high in protein!
  • Pasta – add in shredded cheese, beans or meat for protein
  • Rotisserie chicken with minute rice and a bag of frozen veggies
  • Mac and Cheese
  • Easy yogurt parfait
  • Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
  • Bagel with cream cheese
  • Toast with mashed avocado, jam, peanut butter, hummus
avocado and peanut butter toast with eggs on white plate for breakfast

Homemade Meal Options

If you have a little more energy and time, here are some more healthy ideas to feed yourself.

red curry pork meatballs over sesame noodles on white plate
taco tortellini with veggies in clear glass bowl
spoon dipping into instant pot tortellini soup
closeup of vegetarian nachos recipe | Bucket List Tummy

You may enjoy some of these other posts!

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  1. This is such a wonderful post! I definitely make make my desicion at the restaurant.. to my husbands dismay, I love looking the menu over when we go out! He always orders an app immediately when we sit down knowing I’m going to take my sweet time making sure I don’t miss out on a great meal option!

  2. I’m a last minute ordered- I like to listen to what my body wants at that minute! my cravings are always changing

  3. I definitely do a whole lot of planning as well! All those food photos are making me so hungry!! I’m definitely one to pick out my order ahead of time–it’s partly because I love food and get so overwhelmed by all the choices, haha. It helps to lessen my decision-making time! πŸ˜›

  4. Your perspective is incredibly refreshing. It seems like there is an all or nothing mentality in the healthy living world, and it perpetuates a guilty cycle because it doesn’t allow for flexibility in our diet. We can honor our hunger cues AND nourish our bodies AND enjoy treats. Life is a heck of a lot less stressful when we embrace that. I’m still learning though πŸ™‚

  5. I love this! I have been trying to get onto the intuitive eating train and while I haven’t been the most successful, I have been able to shut up my food police. To answer your question, I usually pick restaurants based on a specific dish that I want to eat. I rarely go out to eat because I am trying to build up savings, so when I do I know what I want!!

  6. I love the way you described this! The food police is less of an issue now for me than it used to be but its still around! Often times I don’t even know what I want, so planning ahead works ok for me.

  7. Oh gosh – so much truth is ALL of this!
    I’m a huge planner, so I typically have a meal planned out ahead of time unless I’m going some place new. That being said, I HAVE changed my order once or twice when I’ve arrived based on how I’m feeling in the moment!

  8. These are great tips. I have really tried thinking about how food will make me feel when deciding on a menu. And I typically love looking at a menu ahead of time, but sometimes I get there and I’m craving something different. We are going to a wedding this weekend where we didn’t get to choose our meals, I don’t like the unknown of what’s for dinner.

    1. Our bodies are ever changing, and we can certainly crave something different than we originally plan. All the power to being flexible πŸ™‚

  9. I’m getting better at picking what I want to eat, not what I should eat especially when we go out to eat. I used to always get a salad because I thought I should get that because all the other dishes had way too many ‘calories.’ Now I’m finding a great deal more food freedom, and it’s so incredible. πŸ™‚

  10. Since I can’t have gluten or dairy, I definitely glance at a menu before to just make sure I will have options. Other than that, I decide once I get there based on my mood. This is a great post, Sarah! I’m guilty of food policing but have gotten a lot better over the years!

  11. 16400 food decisions a day? Geez louise. No wonder we exhaust ourselves. I hate the food police. I hate them even more than the ones that give you parking tickets. You are right – they have no basis to tell us what we should eat because they just have no idea what we’ve done or will be doing or what we simply want. I’m getting much better at just making a decision on the spot at restaurants, but I still have to fight away that urge to look at menus before hand and pre plan.

    1. haha we make so many decisions – I may have exaggerated that number but it’s alot! I think sometimes it’s fun to just decide right at the table what to order.

  12. Yes yes yes yes yes. And I love how you bring up at the end that sometimes we do need to use our brains. I get that question a lot since I’ve been an intuitive either for over two decades. Sure I’m an intuitive eater – – but if I know I’m going to be on a road trip or at a conference or something like that I most definitely plan ahead!!