Meal Planning (updated 01/08/2023)
OK, so this post isn’t anything to do with collecting music or movie memorabilia, but the more you save on your weekly food bill, the more money you have to buy autographs!
Contents
- Meal planning for beginners.
- Set aside some meal preparation time.
- Free apps to help you plan.
- Stocktakes are essential – here’s an easy technique.
- Get the rest of your household on board.
- Choose your base protein and veg.
- The floating meal
- Don’t be afraid to deviate from the recipe.
- Go for a theme.
- Shop seasonally to keep fruit and veg costs down.
- Store your ingredients properly
- Some quick food storage tips:
- Batch cooking doesn’t need to mean lots of effort
- Go meatless at least once a week.
- Got a slow cooker? Get it out of the cupboard.
- A meal plan example to help you get started.
- Footnotes
Meal planning for beginners
With grocery prices rising, it can be tough to see where you can cut back.
One way to do this, is to make sure you’re planning and organising your meals every week to stick to a budget and prevent any food waste.
Campaign group WRAP says the average household throws away £14 of food per week – that’s £56 per month or £730 a year.
I wrote this blog to provide meal planning tips, some common-sense ideas (not always that obvious) and using some freely available apps.
Getting started:
Set aside some meal preparation time
First, get into the habit of making time to plan your meals every week. It might feel like a huge task, but it will save you time during the week as you won’t need to think about dinner every night and can avoid top-up shops.
Once you’re in the habit, it gets much easier. Schedule an hour at the weekend or a time you’re free and do whatever you need to do to remind yourself. Be realistic to make sure you stick to it.
Sync this meal planning time close to when you do your weekly shop to make sure your shopping list is up to date.
Free apps to help you plan
Scribbling ideas on the back of a receipt will work fine, but if you want to get serious about meal planning, having somewhere to store everything together is helpful.
It is useful to keep your meal plans all in one place as it means you can go back and get inspiration. It’s helpful to add notes or create a list of recipes you really love.
Get a meal planner notebook from Amazon with a space for each day and a shopping list box. Or try a magnetic whiteboard planner so you can stick it to the fridge where everyone can see and wipe it clean if something changes.
Prefer to keep things on your phone? Download a meal planning app instead.
Here are a few of my favourite free apps:
Mealboard. A good option is MealBoard. It lets you add a list of what’s in your cupboard, then choose meals for the week. You can either search its recipes, import a recipe you found online or manually add your own then create the list of ingredients you need. You can share the list with others in your household.
Whisk. Another handy app is Whisk. You can join communities of people interested types of recipes or diets, which is great for inspiration. For example, there’s a Middle Eastern Flavours community with over 8,000 people sharing recipes and tips. There’s also the option to see what people have said about recipes.
You can choose recipes from the app, add your own or import from the web, then get a shopping list. Everything can be shared with other people, so the rest of your household knows what is on the menu.
Lollipop. If you’re a fan of pricey recipe boxes, Lollipop is a good alternative. It gives you recipes to choose from, creates a list (which you can edit if you already have the ingredients) and allows you to add whatever else you need (like toothpaste), then you can order your shopping directly through the app.
Right now, it’s partnered with Sainsbury’s, which might not be the cheapest, but it may be an easy way to get into the swing of meal planning. Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to share your shopping list or meal plan with other members of your household, like some of the other apps.
Stocktakes are essential – here’s an easy technique
One of the best things to do before you get into meal planning is a store cupboard stocktake.
It can be easy to buy extra when you’re not sure what you have already. I found four open packets of vegetable stock cubes when I first started doing this.
1. Declutter your cupboards. Throw out anything that is past its best. If there’s something that is still good to eat but you know you won’t use, try to re-gift it. If you don’t have friends or family who would use it, use Olio to give food you don’t want to your neighbours or find a food bank.
2. Organise what’s left. Once you’ve cleared out what you don’t need, start organising and writing down what you have left.
Food writer Jack Monroe suggests taking an A4 sheet and splitting it into five categories – proteins, carbohydrates, fruit & veg, flavour and snacks. Read more about Jack’s stocktake method.
Other people prefer to create a digital document either in a meal prep app, Google docs or the notes app on your phone. Then you’ll always have it with you, and you can quickly search it to check if you have an ingredient.
3. Build up your basics. If your store cupboard is looking bare, it’s good to build up supplies as this makes meal planning much easier. BBC Good Food has a list of suggested store cupboard essentials.
There might be some things on there you know you’ll never use but it’s good inspiration. You don’t need to buy everything at once, but it can be worth topping up with a few things in each shop.
Use Jack Monroe’s protein, carbs, fruit & veg, flavour and snacks method above to organise your cupboards, fridge, and freezer too. Having one section for each makes it easier to scan what you have and build a meal. Within each section, pull what is going off first to the front so you remember to use it up.
Get the rest of your household on board
Try to do your best to make your meal plan suit everyone. Note down everyone’s schedule before you start. If you’re all going to be eating at different times, choose recipes that can be reheated throughout the evening.
If everyone in your household is old enough to get involved, make sure they all know what is on the meal plan so you can make any changes based on plans and preferences before you go shopping. Some of the meal plans I have listed above have a sharing function or you can stick it on the fridge for everyone to see.
To keep everyone on track, set a goal and reward. For example, if you can cut back your grocery spending by £20 a week, you’ll have a day out together.
Now onto the actual meal planning:
Choose your base protein and veg
It’s better to choose one or two base ingredients each week so you can maximise how many meals you get out of one pack.
For example, chicken and tofu one week, pork and lentils the next. Focus on what you already have in the fridge or freezer first for inspiration, then look at what’s on offer.
Supermarkets often have weekly meat and veg ‘picks of the week’. Note down what is on offer at your supermarket by searching online and plan your meals around those items. I have an Aldi near me, and they often discount bags of vegetables to 49p. Also try and look out for wonky veg – they aren’t wonky once you have cooked them!
If you’re struggling for ideas, Tesco has a what can I make with this? recipe finder or try Supercook – it lets you make a list of the ingredients you have, and it will search the internet for recipes.
The floating meal
The floating meal means if your plans change, the food you bought won’t go to waste. Having some flexibility is key to keeping up with a meal plan.
Either choose to eat some leftovers you already have in the freezer or pick out a recipe where the main ingredients are replaced with frozen or canned ingredients (or foods with a slightly longer shelf life, like potatoes).
That way, if you end up eating out or something happens, you can just move the meal you’d planned to the following week, with no concerns about the ingredients going off.
The British Frozen Food Federation’s Fresh from the Freezer website has lots of ideas on meals you can prepare from freezer essentials.
Don’t be afraid to deviate from the recipe
If you don’t have an ingredient or don’t want to buy a whole bottle of a sauce you know you aren’t likely to use often, look for a simple substitute. If you search online, you can find substitutes for most ingredients.
Although it’s quite American, this list from the New York Times groups foods together so you can choose an alternative ingredient to get similar results. You’ll need to register to access it.
While the result might not be the same, it should be close enough!
Go for a theme
Using themes can really help to narrow down the options. Sometimes the problem with meal planning is just feeling so overwhelmed by it all.
Monday is pasta night, Wednesday is Mexican night, Friday is fish night etc. Make the themes broad enough that you don’t have the same menu every week or you’ll get bored quickly, but it gives you some structure.
It doesn’t have to be strict – don’t worry if you don’t want pasta every week – but can help you get into a routine.
Shop seasonally to keep fruit and veg costs down
Buying seasonal fruit and veg will usually save you money. It costs a lot more to grow and import food that is out of season. The Veg Society has a list of what is in season when.
If you’re buying something out of season, check the frozen section. Frozen veg is often cheaper and it usually has the same level of nutrients as fresh (sometimes even more as it’s frozen straight after picking). For example, frozen spinach (2) at Tesco costs £2.06/kg compared to £3.54/kg for fresh stuff.
If you plan, you can also buy your favourite meat, fruit, and veg when it’s on offer and freeze it yourself. Not everything freezes well but campaign group LoveFoodHateWaste has a guide on how to safely freeze different foods.
Store your ingredients properly
When you do your grocery shop, it’s important to store everything properly to make the food last as long as possible.
The LoveFoodHateWaste guide also tells you how to store different foods, and it even has some recipes to use up food that is past its best.
Some quick food storage tips:
❄️ Check your fridge temperature to prevent food going off quickly. It should be between 0 and 5°C. You can pick up a cheap fridge thermometer to make sure it’s accurate.
🍎 Most fruit will last longer in the fridge, rather than sitting at room temperature in your fruit bowl. Bananas and pineapple are exceptions.
🥔 The Food Standards Agency now recommends storing potatoes in the fridge, so they last three times longer.
Until recently, the advice was to store your potatoes in a cool, dark, and dry place like a cupboard because of concerns that potatoes created extra sugars when stored in the fridge, which converted to a chemical called acrylamide when the potatoes were baked, roasted, or fried. Acrylamide is linked to cancer in animals. However, extensive scientific research showed that storing potatoes in the fridge doesn’t increase acrylamide any more than storing them in the cupboard.
🍞 Give bread a quick tap on a hard surface before you put it in the freezer, it separates the slices and makes it easy to lift it out slice by slice.
🧊 The freezer is your friend when it comes to cutting food waste. I didn’t realise until writing this blog that you can freeze wine(1), eggs, and herbs.
Batch cooking doesn’t need to mean lots of effort
Having a freezer full of meals that are ready to heat up doesn’t mean standing over a huge pot for hours.
While that’s a great way to stock up, it can be as simple as making a little extra when you’re cooking dinner.
When cooking a freezer friendly meal like spaghetti Bolognese or lasagne, cook double portions. It won’t be a lot more work but means you have another night sorted.
It also means you can buy bigger packs of the ingredients, which tends to work out cheaper.
Either eat the same thing the next night or freeze the leftovers for another time.
Short on freezer space? Portion up your meals into freezer bags, spread the contents out to make it as flat as possible and then freeze the bags on top of each other. Pick up some reusable freezer bags to cut down on single-use plastic.
Go meatless at least once a week
If you’re already veggie or vegan, this won’t apply but meat eaters take note. Meat is one of the biggest expenses. A survey by Linda McCartney Foods in 2019 found people saved around £209 a year on average by reducing their meat intake.
Lentils, beans, chickpeas, and high protein vegetables like peas can all be bought cheaply and are a good alternative source of protein.
Think about adapting some of your favourites into vegetarian versions instead. Aim for one meatless day a week but you can do more and make bigger savings.
You can also think about reducing your portion sizes of meat, bulking the meal out with vegetables, grains, or other proteins instead. Often the size of fillets, steaks, or other cuts of meat in supermarket packets are much bigger than recommended portion sizes. Use LoveFoodHateWaste’s portion calculator to work out how much you need.
Reducing your meat intake is good for the environment too – a portion of beef produces 90% more earth-warming emissions than a portion of peas, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
Got a slow cooker? Get it out of the cupboard
Got a slow cooker or air fryer hiding at the back of your cupboard that you never use? It can really help you get into the meal planning habit. If you don’t already have one and think it may be useful, you can pick a basic model up for under £20 (of course, only buy one if you’ll use it!).
Slow cookers are usually big enough to allow you to cook a batch and require just a tiny bit of prep.
Lots of online food bloggers specialise in slow cooker recipes. Taming Twins has a collection of ‘dump bags’ where you can simply put all the ingredients in a bag and freeze it. Then the night before you want to cook the meal, defrost it overnight, dump it all in the slow cooker before work and you’ll have a tasty meal ready to go when you finish.
Bored of Lunch also has hundreds of posts with easy slow cooker recipes (plus lots of air fryer recipes if you’ve got one of those too).
As well as saving time, your slow cooker costs less to run. Iceland and energy supplier Utilita surveyed 2,000 people on how long they used these appliances for on average and then used that timing to get estimated costs:
Electric cookers – around 31p per day
Gas cooker – 11p per day.
Slow cooker – 10p per day.
Airfryer – 9p per day.
A meal plan example to help you get started
🍗 Sunday
Roast chicken dinner with carrots, parsnips, and roast potatoes
🌯 Monday
Mexican night – fajitas with leftover chicken
🍛 Tuesday
Curry night – Butternut squash, spinach, and chickpea curry with rice
🍛 Wednesday
Leftover curry and rice
🍝 Thursday
Floating meal – Spaghetti puttanesca
🥧 Friday
Harissa meatballs with roasted carrot and aubergine couscous (add extra meatballs to the freezer).
🍜 Saturday
Chinese night – beef and broccoli noodles
🥕Lunch ideas
Carrot and coriander soup
Butternut squash salad
I hope that helps take something off your plate
Happy meal planning
Footnotes
- Just so you know, although it’s unconventional, you can freeze wine. The frozen wine won’t be quite the same when it thaws, so you probably won’t want to drink it straight out of the glass. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it to make wine coolers like sangria, and frozen wine is perfect for cooking, too.
- The convenience of frozen spinach certainly can’t be overstated: It takes up a fraction of the space that fresh spinach does (since it is blanched and then compacted), keeps much longer, and is more affordable.