Meal planning for couples when one is on a low cal diet and the other on high cal?

This is relatively easy to deal with!

Chicken breasts - fill a cookie sheet with boneless skinless chicken breasts, (you can cook about 10 - 12 at a time, depending on size), give them a light rubdown of oil and sprinkle liberally with whatever you like (onion powder and garlic powder is a nice, neutral combination, but Cajun spice is nice too, if you like a little zip). Bake at 400 for 15/side - cool and freeze.

The beauty of this is that the chicken pieces are now ready for either person - chop up in a soup, toss in a salad, put in sandwiches, wraps, fajitas, add to pasta or eat by itself.. the person eating low cal and keep it simple (say in a salad), and the person on the high calorie diet can add pasta and cheese etc..

- Brown rice can also be cooked in bulk and frozen in individual portions (just cook it quickly on a cookie sheet before freezing, so that it won't overcook and get gummy).

- broth for soup is another great alternative - it can be jazzed up with pasta for one person, and left rather simple for the other.

- mash potatoes freeze wonderful and so does pasta! By making these things ahead, and freezing them in portions, then meal prep is fairly easy - you won't have to make a high cal recipe each and every time - just thaw something out! For pasta, I do this all the time! I tend to cook too much, which means I eat too much of it.. :-) So, what I will often do is make the pasta, drain and rinse in cold water. Portion it out, and freeze. When I want pasta, I drop it frozen into boiling water for literally 60 seconds and it is piping hot and ready for to eat. Mashed potatoes - thaw and reheat in a casserole dish for 40 minutes or so.. great to have on hand.

Prepare healthy meals. The person wanting higher cal can simply eat larger portions and/or make up more calories by consuming a beverage with additional (healthy) calories.

Easy. make one dish. the low cal person gets a small portion. the high cal person get a big portion.