Have you planned your evening meals for next week?

28 comments

1. I recommend the app ‘mealime’, you select meals for the week and it gives you a shopping list for what you have picked, it has a free version with their own recipes and if you pay for premium you get more and can import your own recipes or recipes from websites e.g. bbc goodfood etc

   I struggle with putting together exact lists of ingredients needed and that was the difference between ordering all the time and committing to making x amount of meals because it tells you exactly what you need to buy for all the meals you’re planning

2. We always have our meals planned, it’s just normal so we have things organised and they flow together with minimal waste.

   Roast tomorrow, leftovers monday the monday night make soup on the bones of the roast for tuesday and wednesday. Usually fish from the freezer on thursday (or fresh if its suitable conditions). Friday is almost always veggie night using up whaever needs used.

3. No, but I buy much the same ingredients most weeks; onion, garlic, eggs, tomatoes etc and vary the rest to suit what’s on offer at the shop that week, and just wing it from there. If I’ve got the food in, I need to use it but if I have to go get ingredients, well, that’s when the discipline slips. I have mastered the art of creating leftovers though, which usually means there’s a lazy option lurking in the fridge for at least a couple of nights a week.

4. Nope. I never plan any meals beyond a few hours. I usually have all the ingredients and everything in the fridge, freezer, or canned, and I make whatever I fancy when the time comes.

5. Yes, I plan my meals a week in advance. Mainly just by browsing recipe sites for inspiration. I’ve recently created a spreadsheet of recipes we’ve previously cooked to help me remember what we’ve enjoyed in the past. We’re vegetarian and we try to ensure we get at least our 5 a day and the 30 a week challenge (30 different plant-based foods in a week).

   This week, we’re cooking: French dip sandwiches with portobello mushrooms and peppers; beetroot, kale, pomegranate and halloumi salad; Korean street toast; roast aubergine and potato curry with peshwari naan; spicy black bean and sweetcorn quesadillas with guacamole; charred vegetable and feta couscous. We’re out for dinner on Thursday hence only 6 meals this week.

6. Yes.

   A normal week would be 3 days veggie, 2 days meat, one fish and one DIY (both eating at different times).

   Meat and fish normally in the freezer so out the evening before to defrost. All bought monthly from the supermarket.

   Fresh veg from the local shop as and when required.

7. >If so how are you doing it?

   I just look at the expiry dates on the ingredients I’ve got and whichever is the soonest is what’s for dinner, so tomorrow I’m having something based on minced beef, then something based on chicken legs, then tortellini, then when everything is eaten up including leftovers I’ll be going through the freezer until I can be bothered doing more shopping.

8. I use Notion. List of meals that I often have (saved with recipes) and a meal planner I can just slot them in.

9. I do my planning on a Sunday morning using a magnetic dry wipe planner that lives on the fridge door.

10. No, I haven’t.

11. We only have the next couple of days planned as I stay away from home Tuesday m/Wednesday. We’ve also just been away for a week so it is a bit sketchy.

    We had homemade pizza tonight so leftover pizza covers lunch tomorrow. Sunday night I’ll be turning a leftover shepherd’s pie filling from the freezer into something with pasta.

    Monday will be a salad with our take on a Spanish tortilla with added asparagus and a side salad.

12. Yes. We plan our menu for the entire week. Then on Thursdays I go shopping for the entire weeks worth of shopping. How else would I know what to get?

13. No, we plan about two to three days ahead and shop little and often.

14. This week’s theme is “the freezer is full again”, so whatever ingredients are needed to use up as much freezer contents as possible.

    I’m particularly looking forward to the curry based on chicken thighs of unknown age.

15. I tend to have a rough plan when I go shopping. Tray bake, mince dish, chicken dish, frittata type thing, fish dish. I then buy a selection of veg and have stuff in the freezer and cupboards. Then I decide on the hoof in the supermarket. So chicken may be with lime and coriander or thai noodle soup, and select ingredients accordingly. I always have a lot of cans, sauces and condiments at home so I can knock something up. Which day of the week depends on expiry dates.

16. Always! Make a list of what you have in the freezer, the fridge, and any perishables that need to be eaten. Each day write the meat or fish you’re going to have and then add the rest around that. Got some salad that needs eating? Fish it is. Got a sauce in the cupboard you’d like to try? Plan it in. Planning ahead saves so much money, time, waste, and calories. It’s super easy and takes all of 20 minutes in front of the TV on a Sunday night

17. Nothing fancy this coming week:

    Beef Sausages, mashed potatoes and veg
    Chicken and Avocado salad with croutons
    Lasagna with garlic bread
    Jacket Potatoes with Tuna and side salad
    Chicken Thigh Stir fry
    Home-made Pizza with chips

18. Yes, same as always.
    Meat and veg, I’m on a low carb weight loss diet and it is working, am doing intermittent fasting.

19. I always have fixings for homemade pizza. Cheap, filling, gourmet, versatile. I make the dough but you could buy readymade bases.

    I’ve also been cooking two dinners at once, like a big batch of bolognese sauce. One night spag bol, freeze the rest or make a quick lasagne or a pasta bake. Make a beef stew with dumplings, eat all the dumplings and turn the rest of the meat into a pie (or just have it twice).

20. Yep. Meal plan written Friday, bought Saturday. I have a stock of recipes to pick through, mostly just those on shuffle.

21. Chicken and Rice, Fish and chips, both with veg.

    Throw in the odd protein yogurt and I’m set

22. We have categories, like mexican, Italian, curry, pie, roast, meat and 2 veg etc.

    Then we pick something from each category (mexican: fajitas, chili con carne, enchiladas, pie: fisherman’s pie, cottage pie, shepherds pie or pastry pie) for each week and then we plan our meals for the whole month.

    We go shopping at the start of the month and get all of the meat, all of the pantry stuff and all the frozen stuff. Then we just shop each week for perishable stuff

23. I usually plan mine on a Friday night and base it around how much time I have each day to cook and eat between work and being a parent-taxi. Sometimes I look in recipe books or online when I feel like I am eating the same things on repeat. Then I try to base it around the different carbs.
    Monday- pasta, Tues- usually something v quick like stir fry, Wed- rice (chilli, curry etc.), Thurs something with chips or mash, Fri pizza or tortillas, Sat is leftovers and my custody arrangement means I never have my daughter on a Sunday so I never make a plan for that.

24. Yes.

    We have online grocery delivery on a Sunday night, so by Saturday night we need to know what our dinners will be for Monday to Sunday, so we can order the ingredients as well as topping up staples for breakfast, lunch, TEABAGS, etc.

    There’s five of us, and a complicated matrix of sports activities, allergies and preferences in play. Typically we can’t just wing it, because someone will go hungry (or risk dropping bolognese on cricket whites).

    A friend of mine keeps a rough framework the same every week so she doesn’t have to spend lots of time planning but still has flexibility. It would look something like:

    * Monday – eggs
    * Tuesday – curry
    * Wednesday – pasta
    * Thursday – wraps
    * Friday – fish
    * Saturday – stir fry
    * Sunday – meat and potatoes

    So one week it might be omelette/Chinese curry/bolognese/fajitas/fish fingers/teriyaki/corned beef hash, and another week scrambled eggs on toast/jalfrezi/cacio e pepe/stuff from the fridge in wraps/chippy tea/chow mein/roast dinner.

25. My partner would eat the same meals every day so it has fallen to me to plan menus (with her input). It’s a combination of a ‘scrapbook’ of recipes we both like and which aren’t too much trouble to cook and a spreadsheet with 6-weeks of meals that basically repeats. I try to make sure we don’t have the same type of carbs (pasta, rice, potatoes), or protein (chicken, fish, beef, pork, etc) two days running. Everything is ‘cook from scratch’ stuff and about half of the dishes are ones where we can make one meal for that evening and one or two for the freezer at the same time.

    The ‘six-week plan’ evolves as our tastes change or we get bored with a dish but having it is a good starting point so we are not starting with a blank sheet each time.

    Once you’ve got that it’s easy to do a weekly ‘big shop’ and we only go out for a meal or get a takeaway because we both want to, not because we have run out of food or can’t decide what to cook.

26. I work a day or two ahead, sometimes more if batch cooking.

    But I like to keep a bit of wriggle room so I can be creative if I want.

    Takeaways just not an option, it’s always less hassle to rustle something up myself.

27. Whose got time to plan their meals????

28. Yes / No, we order a weeks worth of food and know the 7 meals we are going to have, but unless there’s a specific reason for a meal (quick oven job because going out etc…) we’ll normally decide on the day which one we actually have.