Monthly Meal Planning

kacie

I know there's threads where people post their meal plans, but how do you go about doing a monthly one? Without repeating a lot of meals. 

I want to cut down shopping and oven use over winter, so thinking one big monthly shop and one day of batch cooking with the oven, the rest of the month I'll use the airfryer and slow cooker. 

bouicca21

What I do is to make a list of possible meals in no particular order - then work out what I need to buy and what order to make them so as to ensure best use of oven if it’s going to be used at all. It’s pretty flexible so if I spot a good ys bargain I can adapt. Plus I’m not stuck thinking ‘gosh it’s Tuesday I’ve got to have xyz’ cos that’s what’s on the plan.

I’m more a fortnightly person than a monthly one as  I like to buy fresh fruit and veg. So it’s a biggish monthly shop but mini trips to the shops or the market in between for what I want to buy fresh.

London_1

I too shop roughly once a fortnight, and its usually for fresh fruit and veg.
A 'big' shop for me depends on what I have tucked away from my monthly food only budget.

At the moment I have July £14.63,August £17.92 (if I buy nothing between now and Wednesday), so will hopefully have £32.65 parked in a separate account.
 
Just now my freezer is full, and also my 5 kitchen cupboards, and I have an emergency stash upstairs on a couple of shelves that I cleared from my book case.So I'm hoping that if I can stick to my food budget for a few more months and hopefully tuck a bit more away towards a 'big' shop to see me through the coldest months,which in the south of England is usually Dec -Feb 

I menu plan every Sunday morning and its easy for me, as I live alone so it doesn't take long I have 6 main meals to cook as one meal a week I go to my DDs for dinner. I'm not a great breakfast eater and like a light lunch of soup and crackers and cheese with maybe a piece of fruit.
My main meal is around 6.00 and usually is at least two veggie meals a week one fish and three meat ones I like lasagne for one of my meals as I'm not over keen on a lot of pasta, and also like a chilli or curry. I mainly batch cook so its a case of retrieving from the freezer and adding sides to it. 
it works for me, and I can easily keep to a reasonable budget and epending on what I run short of can do my shopping fairly well twice a month

JackieO xx

leftatthetrafficlights

kacie said:

I know there's threads where people post their meal plans, but how do you go about doing a monthly one? Without repeating a lot of meals. 

I want to cut down shopping and oven use over winter, so thinking one big monthly shop and one day of batch cooking with the oven, the rest of the month I'll use the airfryer and slow cooker. 

It very much depends on what you like to eat - the best thing to do is to write down 30 meals that you'd be happy to eat; so if you are a meat eater - 5 pork, 5 beef, 5 chicken, 5 lamb, 5 fish; 5 veggie/vegan.

You can then buy a big joint of each meat and cut according to your other plans - for instance, a large pork joint can be cut down into a joint for roasting; slices for chops in dijon and cream sauce;  cubes/ strips for stir fry or casserole; mince for stuffed tomatoes/peppers/courgette or a pork and apple mince pie; leftover bits for meatballs/kebabs etc. 

With beef you can do a roast; make a casserole; slices for teriyaki beef stir fry; make a huge pot of basic savoury mince and make the filling for cottage pie/mince and onion pie then add tomatoes and divide and add the relevant herbs and spices to cook into chilli/bolognese/lasagne/meatballs etc

Lamb you can do a sardinian roast; freeze the sauce for a pasta dish; cut some off to mince for kofta kebabs; use leftover roast for shepherd's pie; use the bones and veg to make soup etc...

Chicken do a roast, make stir fry, curry and a pie with the leftovers, soup with the bones.

Get a side of salmon and have a couple of steaks with lemon and dill; fishcakes; salmon pilaff; salmon and cream pasta sauce; salmon stuffed ravioli 

Vegan and veggie stuff can be made with any seasonal veg that you have bought plus pulses and grains. 

If you have bits of anything left then make some pasta and chuck the leftovers in for ravioli... or throw it all together in a pie/pasta sauce of some description...


You can do the same with all of the meat/fish/veggie options to be honest - the above stuff is just a few ideas-  if you're struggling with how to structure the meals then think:-  one day pasta; one rice; one grain; one salad; one potato; one a one-pot; one soup; one leftovers or something similar to suit your preferences! 
HTH! 😁

kacie

I don't think I could think of 30 meals! Especially ones that I can freeze the leftovers for. Living alone means every meal has leftovers, so one joint will easily do a week and half really. 

One issue I have is I don't like mince, so that eliminates a lot of the regular batch cooking meals. However I should eat more rice based meals, and will actually learn to make my own egg fried rice, which is something I've always wanted to do. 

bouicca21

My current mix and match list of possible meals has got 16 on it. That’s more than enough for a month if each meal is repeated.

 As a singleton I always reckon on eating the same meal twice because most recipes are for 4, sometimes 6, and it’s really difficult to cut them down to one, plus cooking two portions means less work the second time.  

Also as a singleton I only cook the things I like so it’s no problem eating the same meal twice in a week. It’s not like cooking for the family when you have to remember that Fanny Fanackerpans won’t eat x y or z and so have to cook  a compromise meal.

pickledonionspaceraider

I do approx fortnightly one, to ensure I can have some fresh bits in.  I work out at least 14 meals 

I barely repeat exact meals in a month, but for example we may have many meals that contain a same ingredient ie sausages (if they are on a good deal) - and ill end up trying out different things as well as the obvious sausage and mash , sausage and chips, sausage cobs, sausage casserole - ill do things like sausage pasta, hash, risotto.

IN fact come to think about it, we eat a LOT of quorn sausages - and I have turned into Bubba Gump when he is giving shrimp recipes hahaha

katkin

I keep a list of meals we like on a spreadsheet that I can go back to for ideas about what I can do with what's in stock and what's seasonal and on deal in the shops.

From this I create a weekly meal plan and note this on the thread here. The thread is also good for inspiration. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6356309/could-we-start-a-meal-plan-thread-again-so-its-not-lost-in-the-gc#latest

Meals are based on knowing we eat a protein - chicken, fish, beef, pork, beans, quorn etc, carbohydrate - rice, potatoes, pasta, cous-cous, other grains etc and veg/salads - whatever you like, making up nearly half of your plate. I keep a good stock of herbs, spices and seasoning in for sauces, flavouring etc,

I buy a "big shop" online once a month and top up fresh items once a week in store - this is a quick pop in as I really don't like supermarkets! The big shop includes all the basic blocks that are storable (freezer, cupboard, shelf stable etc) to build the month's meals on, so mainly the protein and most carbs.
 
Worth being flexible to keep the costs down and eating what you really enjoy so there is no waste. I'd make double of everything you like and freeze the extras. You'll soon build up a stock. 

I'd find a month difficult with no flexibility and I really, really like planning and cooking! 

joedenise

When I do my monthly meal plan I start by checking what I already have in the freezer.  This is different meats, fish etc plus HM ready meals.  I also check what I have in the cupboards - things like various tins of beans, tomatoes, baked beans, tuna etc.

I type up a table on my laptop and start by slotting in as many of the meats at the weekend as possible - usually a joint of some sort which the LOs get turned into new HM ready meals which I'll freeze and slot into the table later in the month.  I work out what I can use from the cupboard to make meals. I also keep a stock of dried beans of various kinds so can also use those to make meals.

I generally cook enough for 4-6 portions at a time even though there are only 2 of us.  The extra portions get frozen to use later.

By the time I've gone through all my stocks I've probably got over half the meals already made in the freezer.  I can then add in other meals and add things to the shopping list.

I buy regularly used tinned things like tomatoes, baked beans, chickpeas, tuna once a month and stock up to a certain amount of tins (different number for each, for example tomatoes I top up to 12, tuna a pack of 4.  I also buy 12 UHT milk as we use that all the time; that is usually every 5-6 weeks depending on how much has been used.

So I do a big shop once and month and then a weekly shop for fresh fruit, veg, butter, eggs etc.

YorksLass

Pretty much my system too, joedenise.  I'd add Be Flexible to the meal plan to take advantage of any ys/discontinued you might come across.

joedenise

YorksLass said:

Pretty much my system too, joedenise.  I'd add Be Flexible to the meal plan to take advantage of any ys/discontinued you might come across.

Yes, absolutely.  It's never written in stone!