Should I meal plan?
Meal planning suits some people but not everyone. Some people hate the idea of a plan! But no matter who you are and how unpredictable your life is, there are ways of making sure you always have a good healthy home cooked meal to eat instead of resorting to junk foods, which will benefit you and your wallet.
What is meal planning?
It’s working out a plan for all the meals you will eat in a week, along with shopping lists and cooking plans. But don’t worry if this sounds way too organised, or you can’t face the idea of having to eat something you don’t feel like on the day – we can help you too. (Skip to the bottom of the article). The benefit of meal planning is you buy only what you need, you waste less and good meal planning can cut down on your cooking time too.
What to think about when meal planning
- What do you/the family want to eat – if there are other people, get them involved in the plan too, so that you don’t end up cooking stuff no-one wants to eat. Kids will be more likely to eat something if they were involved in picking it.
Things to think about when choosing recipes:
- Shared ingredients – can you use one large pack of mince for two different recipes, for example?
- If you’re going to use the oven, think about using it for several things at once, like roast veggies for the next day’s meal.
- Something where left overs could be used in another dish – e.g. left over pasta sauce could be used in a lasagna later in the week, left over cooked rice can become fried rice later in the week, along with left over ham from sandwiches. Left over boiled potatoes & carrots can become mash or potato salad.
- Unless you want to shop more than once a week, you’ll need some recipes that don’t need a load of very fresh ingredients. Dishes like Channa Masala that use tinned/storecupboard ingredients and long life veg like onions are ideal.
- Cooked food should keep up to 5 days in your fridge, if it’s the right temperature. So Chicken bought on Saturday can be cooked on Monday and left overs should be fine until the weekend
Write out a list of the recipes, then a shopping list, and think about the shelf life of things. Now start to order your recipes in a sensible order. So for example if I had a recipe that included bean sprouts (which keep 3 days at best), that’s one you want to cook & eat early in the week. Anything where you’re planning to use left overs in another dish has to come first (of course!) Meat needs to be cooked early in the week but can be reheated or used later on. By doing this you’ll be more aware of the use by/best before dates
Plan when you’re going to do the cooking (and will you involve anyone else?). Will you cook every day or can you do several different meals in advance? Maybe you can chop all your onions for the week and keep them in a bag in the fridge ready to go, which will save time. Cooking double quantities of things doesn’t usually take twice the time and will save you energy on cooking, too. You can freeze any extra.
I can’t meal plan….
Some people’s lives are just too unpredictable for meal planning. Maybe you get too sick occasionally to cook, or work random hours. Don’t worry! We have help for you too!
The worst thing for your waistline and your wallet is coming home to an empty fridge and thinking “I’m starving” and ordering a takeaway. So here are some strategies to avoid this. The freezer and microwave are your friends!!
- Make sure you have good store cupboard staples in stock. This means things you can easily make a meal of. They may be tins, rice, pasta, but also long life veg like onions, carrots, celery, cabbage, peppers. Frozen meat, veg and herbs are great too – frozen “mini chicken fillets” can be defrosted really quickly by dropping them into a bowl of water.
- Find some recipes you enjoy that freeze well and that you can batch cook. Cooking double quantities of things doesn’t usually take twice the time and will save you energy on cooking, too. When you have time, make a big batch of them and divide them into individual portions. Old plastic takeaway containers are great for this and if you don’t have any, ask friends/neighbours as they are probably throwing some out.
- It may be convenient to include rice with your curry, for example, so that you can heat the whole thing at once in the microwave.
- Label the tub well with name & date – write on them with a Sharpie or stick a bit of masking tape on them and write on that (Sharpie writing can be scrubbed off with a scourer later) and pop in the freezer.
- Once you’ve “stored up” a few different dishes, keep a list of what’s in your freezer. This will serve as a “menu” for when you’re hungry, just like a takeaway. It means that you don’t have to eat the same thing every day and just top up the supply with something different every so often to give yourself lots of variety. Cross it off when you’ve eaten it!