Before I learned how to meal plan, I would wander through the grocery store searching for ideas for dinner while simultaneously surfing my phone for recipes. Ultimately I would end up overbuying all sorts of ingredients in case I needed them and lots of frozen dinners and pizza. I would repeat this a couple times per week.
Later in the week when I got home from work, exhausted, I would stare in the refrigerator at all those ingredients and feel overwhelmed since I didn’t really have a plan for them. Ultimately I would end up eating a sandwich, a bowl of cereal, or making a frozen pizza. Either that or on my way home from work I would stop off at the drive-thru. So unhealthy and stressful. I typically ended up throwing away a lot of the food that I bought.
Then I discovered meal planning and literally, my whole life changed! As our family expanded this task actually became essential to my well-being. Read on as I share all of my tips and secrets so that you can learn how to meal plan too!
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Here are the topics that will be covered in this article:
There so are many good reasons to learn how to meal plan!
Financial: I would guess the main reason that motivates people to meal plan is to save money. In fact, as long as you follow your meal plan, on average you will save around 40%.
Time: By investing 20-30 minutes per week up front, you will save 20-30 minutes every day trying to figure out what to eat and then randomly shopping at the store without a mission.
De-stress: Once our family expanded to include 3 little ones, meal times were the most stressful part of the day. By taking out the guesswork and announcing in advance what we are eating, I have reduced my stress immensely. This also offloads some of my work by allowing others in the household to jump in and start cooking before I even get home from work.
Health: This may not be obvious to everyone, but if you have a plan to eat healthy food then you will eat it. If you don’t have a plan, hunger will cause you to gravitate towards unhealthy selections and fast-food. But don’t take my word for it. There are studies that show when you pre-decide what you are going to eat you make healthier choices.
Less food waste: This is my personal largest motivator. Learning how to meal plan is the main reason that we have been able to cut our household garbage from 2 full bags per week down to 1/2 bag per week! Seventeen percent of food worldwide is trashed and up to 40% of food in American is thrown away. Worse, 8-10% of greenhouse gases are due to food waste from the methane produced in landfills. The largest food wasters are individual households, NOT grocery stores, restaurants, or farms. That means we can all do something about the problem – and meal planning is a big part of the solution.
What if I Am Not a Planner?
If you are not naturally good at planning, don’t worry!! There are a lot of people out there just like you.
In the case of a non-planner, I invite you to keep an open mind and experiment with just one or two of the strategies listed in this article. You may find that you actually enjoy the process. And remember there is no right or wrong way to meal plan.
Even planning just plan one meal per week will pay off. Making small changes will give you health, financial, and time benefits and also keep a lot of food out of the landfill. Who knows, maybe you will one day become a meal planning champ!
If all else fails, you can certainly follow my weekly meal plans by subscribing to the Green Life Philosophy blog. I’ve done all the hard work for you. You’ll have do all the cooking though!!
The Number One Meal Planning Mistake
My early attempts at meal planning were a flop. I would search for hours for recipes to please the whole family and then go out shopping for all sorts of obscure ingredients. Ultimately, I failed because it was too much work and I had a lot of leftover ingredients that would end up in the garbage.
Then I realized I was meal planning backwards. Most people search for recipes and then buy the ingredients, but it is a lot more efficient to start with the ingredients you have and plan meals around them.
In order to make this work, you need to have a basic stocked pantry and a few other items on hand in your refrigerator and freezer.
Check out this article for ideas on how to stock your pantry ->
Before You Meal Plan
Before you even start working out what you are going to eat, it is important to plan your planning. What I mean is to set aside a time where you can be uninterrupted and go through the steps listed below.
Once you get the hang of meal planning you can expect to spend 20-30 minutes per week on the activity. So mark your time accordingly on the calendar and let the other members of your household know that is what you will be doing. Make this an activity that you enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee and some quiet moments to yourself.
I recommend you do your meal planning directly in the kitchen and designate a spot where you can keep the following materials:
– Your calendar
– The ads for your local grocery store and coupon books
– Paper for writing your shopping list (or put into your phone)
– A pen or pencil
– Your phone/laptop or recipe book/cards
How to Meal Plan in 5 Steps
You have your materials and you are ready to plan out some yummy meals, let’s get started!
Step 1: Consult Your Calendar
The first step is to check out your calendar to find out what activities are planned for the week. Who is working and what times? Are there any after school activities, soccer games, etc? What are the weekend plans? You have to plan meals that are doable on busy nights in order for this to work. In fact I have a calendar with large boxes so that I can write our meal plan directly on the calendar. This also helps prevent the “What’s for dinner mom?” 🙂
Step 2: Check Your Inventory
As I mentioned above, the most common meal planning mistake is to start with a recipe rather than plan around the ingredients you already have. This results in food waste. So go ahead and open up your refrigerator to see what is perishing or needs to be used up soon. Write down the things you need to eat.
If you belong to a farm share (check out this article on how to choose a CSA), you will need a list of the produce you expect to get for the week. The farm should provide this to you.
Next head to the freezer and check out what you have. Dig way in the back. Is there a piece of meat that has been in there for months or even years? Or maybe a frozen meal that is starting to get a little freezer burn? Write those things down. Now head over to the pantry and identify those items that won’t be shelf stable much longer.
Armed with your list of ingredients to use, you are now ready to start figuring out what to eat!
Step 3: Sketch a Plan
I follow a general template to sketch out my meal plan for the week (see below). Gather together your grocery store coupons, calendar, and ingredient list that you complied in step 2. Next, grab a piece of paper (or write directly on your calendar) and write down days 1-7. Get out your cookbooks or recipe cards and start to come up with dishes that will use the foods you have or that you want to buy with coupons. Plug the meals into the template.
There are lots of websites where you can search by ingredients and it will give you recipe ideas. You can also use the search function on my site to find over 200 archived recipes. I like to stick to simple meals with whole ingredients that typically take about 30 minutes from start to finish. Sometimes I will make something that is easy to prepare, but takes longer to cook. These meals are put on days when I know I will be at home longer.
Struggling for recipe ideas? Check out my Bookshop list of my favorite cookbooks.
Step 4: Make a Shopping List
Once you know what you will be eating for the week, you can start creating your shopping list.
First you need to think about the ingredients for the meals you planned, then consider what you need for breakfast and lunch. Next figure out if you need to replenish any of your basic pantry stock. And finally plan a few snacks that you know everyone enjoys.
Start with day 1 of your plan and work your way down the week. Write down any ingredients that you don’t already have in stock. It pays to make sure that you have your standard pantry items and spices on hand so make sure you are standing in your kitchen while compiling your list. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve assumed I had garlic powder or a can of diced tomatoes and later discovered when I was cooking the meal that I was out of these essential ingredients. Always double check!!
I also recommend separating your shopping list into categories. I know my grocery store well and tend to follow a certain path through the store. I group my list into the things that I need in each section. Produce, bulk dry goods, dairy, meat, pantry, etc.
Step 5: Go Shopping
All right, this is where things can get wild! It is essential that you stick to your shopping list. When you get distracted by super deals or start salivating over unhealthy snacks (don’t go shopping hungry!), you end up overbuying on foods that will ultimately end up as waste.
If you know you are an impulse buyer, it may be helpful to place an online order for pick-up. That way you can select the foods that you need from your list and at the same time avoid those easy grab snacks at the check-out. It is definitely okay to intentionally put some snacks on your shopping list.
Meal Plan Template
This is my general template that I use each week for our meals. It helps me make healthy choices and ensure a variety of foods. Except for our recurring weekly pizza, I rotate meals in each category and make substitutions to work around what types of produce are in season.
Day 1: Meat + Plant-based side (or one-pan meal)
Day 2: Plant-based main + Fruit/vegetable side
Day 3: Recurring Meal
Day 4: 10 minute prep meal or Homemade freezer meal
Day 5: Meat + Plant-based side (or one-pan meal)
Day 6: 10 minute prep meal or Homemade freezer meal
Day 7: Catch-all recipe
Glossary
Meat: For environmental reasons we try to limit our meat at supper to 2-3 times per week. Typically very easy to prepare like grilled burgers, a simple roast, baked chicken, or fish.
Plant-based side: this could be a grain, vegetable, fruit, or combo of all. Sometimes I will serve more than one side if they are easy to prep, like mashed squash or apple slices.
One-pan meal: Meat and veggies all in one dish like this Pan-Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans and Potatoes.
Plant-based main: this is a vegetarian main dish like Roasted Winter Vegetables Over Curried Quinoa. The main dish is served with a simple side, usually cut up fruit.
Recurring meal: In our house it is homemade pizza night every single weekend. My husband is now a dough expert and the kids really look forward to this meal. It is also really easy to serve if we happen to have friends or family over. Since I can count on this meal once per week, I don’t even have to think about it anymore. We always keep ingredients around to make the pizza and I serve with a simple side salad or other seasonal vegetable. So easy!
10 minute prep meal: There are always at least two evenings per week that are super hectic. To avoid a run to the drive-thru we plan very easy meals on these nights. This could be something like tuna salad (open can, mix with mayo and pickles), baked/microwave potatoes, raw veggies or fruits, and frozen fruit smoothies.
Homemade freezer meal: These are NOT the TV dinner type frozen meals! The simplest way to make your own quick frozen dinners is to double up other meals that you have already planned. Eat half, freeze half. I do this a lot with soups and dishes that can be frozen in aluminum pans and put straight in the oven, like enchiladas or eggplant parmesan. I also freeze a lot of muffins. They are easy sides for soup and chili and make great grab-and-go snacks.
Catch-all recipe: To avoid food waste, it is a good idea to have some meals that are really flexible. Soups, egg scrambles, and stir fry are great ways to use up any leftover or wilted veggies in your fridge at the end of the week.
Bonus Meal Planning Tips
Of course my method of meal planning will not work for everyone. You need to tweek things to fit your lifestyle. Here are some more tips to help you figure out how to meal plan in your own reality.
1. Many people start by planning supper, but you could also start by planning breakfast or lunch. Sometimes this can make you feel like you are in control before tackling the more difficult meal. Ultimately, aim to plan all meals plus snacks.
2. Have a contingency plan if things go awry. If your schedule changes, you can still be flexible and shift your meals to eat up the food later in the week or move to early the next week.
3. Make a plan for leftovers. We have a rule that any leftovers are eaten for lunch before something else is considered. To aide with this plan, we pack lunches right after dinner and the leftovers go straight into lunch bags for the next day. That way, the leftovers don’t sit in the fridge for days before they are discovered with a layer of mold!
4. After grocery shopping, rotate your pantry and freezer stock to move things to the front that need to be eaten. This will ensure that food doesn’t expire.
5. Be flexible with recipes so that you can swap out what you have on hand during each season. For example, I put spinach and mushrooms in my quiche in the spring, then broccoli in summer, bell peppers in fall, and kale in the winter.
6. Keep it simple. Sometimes the most delicious meals are those that are the easiest to make. A fresh sliced tomato with mozzarella and a drizzle of both olive oil and balsamic vinegar is one of my favorite ways to enjoy summer and takes all of 5 minutes to prepare. If you have kids, they tend to enjoy simple flavors anyways.
7. Choose recipes that take less than 30-60 minutes kitchen to table.
8. Keep one meal on repeat week to week. As I mentioned in my meal template, we have homemade pizza and tossed salad or a veggie every Saturday night. The pizza and salad toppings change with the seasons. It doesn’t have to be pizza though. Consider taco night or breakfast for dinner. The idea is that it is something you can count on each week and is super simple.
9. Try making a big batch of soup, chili, or other meal that you can eat for several days. This works especially well for those only cooking for 1-2 people. Then you only have to plan a few meals per week.
10. Make your own freezer meals by doubling recipes and freezing half. This technique will save you so much time on busy nights and avoid a stop off at the drive-thru.
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