How to plan meals

 How to plan meals

Meal planning saves money, time and makes healthy eating easier. With a well-thought-out meal plan, you can create accurate grocery lists and waste less food because you'll know exactly what you're using each ingredient for instead of just buying things and figuring out their uses later.

1 Determining your dietary needs

 

Calculate how many meals and what type of meal you need to plan. A good way to do this is to simply look back at the last week of eating. What days did you go out to eat? How many days do you have left? What days did you have enough time to make a great, huge meal? It's generally a good idea to plan meals no more than a week in advance, as plans can change and food can go bad. Write down all the meals you ate last week and see how many meals and what type you need to plan:

Breakfast: Do you ever make a unique breakfast or do you usually eat the same thing every morning?

Lunch: Do you eat out at work or pack your lunches?

Dinner: Which days do you cook? What days do you eat out or eat leftovers?

Snacks: How fast do you go through your snacks? Do you need these foods or eat them just because you were around.

 

Create a basic calendar of the week with slots for each meal. Take a pencil and paper and draw every day, put three slots for breakfast, lunch and dinner under each. You can even print and use the template at the bottom of the article or get a free meal planning app online.

 

Create a “master list” of your favorite recipes and meals. Collect your favorite recipes online and from cookbooks, helping you quickly fill your schedule with new meals. If you don't collect recipes or don't know where to start, head online and search for recipes with some of your favorite ingredients, your schedule (like "hour dinners"), or simply browse food blogs or websites. A quick search for "best recipes" on the internet will show you many more foods than you could ever try.

Sites and apps like Food Gawker let you search for recipes by style, time, ingredients (including ingredients you want to avoid), and popularity.

Remember to look at side dishes such as salads or vegetable dishes and not just the main course.

 

First, finish simple or easily adaptable meals, such as breakfast. In general, most people eat 2-3 things a day for breakfast and lunch and don't often use recipes to determine cereal and milk choices. Mark these meals on your calendar and then make a simple list of different ingredients you can combine – muesli, cereal, fruit, yogurt, cold meats, etc. You don't have to plan exactly what you're going to eat. ("12 slices of turkey") before you go to the store. Just type in ("12 slices of charcuterie") and you'll see what looks good in the store.

Understand the basics of a well-balanced meal. Planning dinners can seem difficult because they usually consist of 2-3 separate parts. However, the basics of a well-balanced meal are actually very simple. You want a main meal, usually a grain (pasta, rice, couscous, etc.), a protein like chicken, beans or fish, and at least 1-2 vegetables or fruit.

Think of each dinner as three separate parts—a grain, a vegetable, and a protein. Choose three simple recipes instead of trying to prepare one all-inclusive meal every night.

 

Combine all your recipes into your weekly grocery list. Once you have all your recipes compiled, simply mix and match them to create a shopping list. You know you will use everything you buy because it all has a purpose in your week. You can add loose snacks here and there, but in general, with proper planning, you should be able to significantly reduce the time and money spent at the store.

Before you head out, check your fridge and pantry to see what ingredients you already have.

Some people find planning all their meals daunting at first. If so, start with dinner and then shop for the rest of your groceries as usual.