Time spent on meal planning?

Pepperoni

Whenever I meal plan, I seem to spend forever doing it.

It's because I'm bored of what I eat so I'm looking for new recipes, not being able to make my mind up, not liking anything 'enough' etc etc!

I'm only planning evening meals as well so it's bonkers!

Just wondering what the norm is and how you stop it from being a lengthy process. I don't have the time for it to take as long as it does, which is why I usually only end up without about 1 planned meal and doing a grocery shop on a total whim for the other meals! :eek:

freyasmum

I'm still a relative newbie, but it does get easier the more you do it!

I have found asking the family to come up with two meals each makes the process so much simpler - as well as getting them invested in the plan as well! Gives me a starting point.

However, most of our meals are things that are batch cooked, and we don't mind repeating meals.

I'm a bit of a geek and have created a spreadsheet that has our meal plan on it so I can just switch it around easily as well.

NewShadow

I'm very boring and predictable.

I grab two 'things' from the freezer and glance in the cupboard.

Write down the first 5 things that occur to me (I only plan Monday to Friday and use the weekend as 'eat up' days).

Then I figure what I'm having for lunch at work/which day's I need lunch (leftovers normally) and go out to buy anything that's needed.

If I don't fancy something I can have an omelette or something on toast and shift the plan along a day - I've got the weekends and lunches to catch up as needed.

Takes maybe half an hour Sunday morning?

PasturesNew

If I did it ... it'd take 10 minutes to come up with 3 weeks of plans, then I'd keep looping through those until I replaced one meal with something new.

You don't have to think of 365 dinners a year ... just 21 and loop them ... or just stick to 7 and always, say, have "fish on Friday" or whatever.

You could, say, do:

Sunday: Roast
Mondays: Pie
Tuesdays: Curry
Wednesdays: A mixed grill and or chips, egg, beans, fish fingers, fishcakes
Thursdays: Meatballs and rice or pasta in some sauce or other
Fridays: Fish on Fridays
Saturday: Pizzas.

That took me 30 seconds. You're over-thinking it.

SailorSam

I think a good place to start is look at the threads where other posters are planning on eating during the week, or what they're having that day.
Then pinch their good ideas.

Purple_kitten

It takes me about 10 - 15 mins, as long as I know the freezer and store cupboard and the weeks plans.

It's been useful to make sure we aren't always eating the same e.g. with us it would be new potatoes all the time so I cycle around pasta and rice. Some things are staples such as spag bol or a chop meal.

I've been doing it each week for the past year now.

VfM4meplse

freyasmum wrote: »

I have found asking the family to come up with two meals each makes the process so much simpler - as well as getting them invested in the plan as well! Gives me a starting point.

If my parents had had the foresight to do this, my eating habits would be very different now! In the other hand, they may not necessarily have wanted to eat fish fingers and spaghetti hoops

PasturesNew wrote: »

If I did it ... it'd take 10 minutes to come up with 3 weeks of plans, then I'd keep looping through those until I replaced one meal with something new.

You don't have to think of 365 dinners a year ... just 21 and loop them ... or just stick to 7 and always, say, have "fish on Friday" or whatever.

You could, say, do:

Sunday: Roast
Mondays: Pie
Tuesdays: Curry
Wednesdays: A mixed grill and or chips, egg, beans, fish fingers, fishcakes
Thursdays: Meatballs and rice or pasta in some sauce or other
Fridays: Fish on Fridays
Saturday: Pizzas.

That took me 30 seconds. You're over-thinking it.

Every day apart from Tuesdays sounds like a nightmare to me!

JIL

There was someone on here and apologies I don't know who it was but they had a fabulous way of meal planning, it was something like a pasta dish, a mince dish, something with potato, a spicy dish, a fish dish. Then they planned around that.
I thought that was a really good starting point and could bring in all sorts of combinations.
I always put some time into planning, I do five lunch plans and five dinner plans. It just helps so much to be organised when I work all week.

determined_new_ms

I shop fortnightly and meal planning honestly takes a while! How long depends on how thoroughly I am basing meals and food on what I already have in. I did a thorough inventory of what's in the freezer, so that took a while - but I would do it in drawers and when I could be bothered. I now have a list of everything in the freezer. Because my intentions are to only go to the supermarket once every 2 weeks I do plan everything, all meals, snacks, liquids etc

This is not my natural inclination but I have found being very thorough with it although takes some time saves me a lot of time over the 2 week period cos I'm not going to shops at all! Even saves time each day cos all I do now is dig out the meal plan to know what to get out of the freezer etc

MrsSave

I don't spend ages meal planning, but follow a basic pattern every week.

Sunday: roast
Monday: left over meat
Tuesday: pasta dish
Wednesday: slow cooker meal
Thursday: slow cooker meal left overs
Friday: freezer food
Saturday: treat meal (depending on how much of our food budget is left).

I try to change what we have every week, but follow this same routine more or less.

moneyistooshorttomention

The nearest I come to meal planning is to sometimes go through my favourite cookbooks and put coloured stickers by all the recipes I want to try out.

I leave them to one side and start by seeing what food I've got in (now the garden is starting to produce and people are starting to give me their surplus garden produce) and it depends on whether I'm in a cba mood (in which case - its "fill the gaps" of add something protein-wise and something filler-food wise to it). On other hand if in an experimental/can be bothered mood - then I'll look up new recipes/methods for whatever it is that I'm focused on using up.

Right now, for instance, that translates into "I've got the last of my home-grown apples to use up and a large amount of another fruit - and I'm in a cba mood = I'll have a go at making that into a fruit syrup". That's an "addition" thing - rather than a meal thing - but you get the drift.

Another thing I do is put up a list of lunches and dinners with the relevant cookbook page written by it and will sometimes work my way through by thinking "I'll do a dinner off that list". I'm working on getting organised enough to write down ingredients I don't regularly have in by the side of the recipe title (so I can add them to shopping list).

I guess I tend to be more flexible - partly because I have a noticeable number of meals out one way or another (of the "eat where I'm at" variety - rather than a Meal Out iyswim).