What do you do if you don't meal plan?

[SingularityCat]

For some reason I always thought when people talked about "meal planning" they meant partially pre-preparing meals during the weekend for the week ahead, not just planning in advance what you're going to eat that week and shopping accordingly.

I don't understand how you can do any differently than this? So those of you who don't meal plan, what do you do? Do you just go to the shops really regularly? Or buy staples and then make stuff using that? I'm intrigued!

Have a veg box which is the basis of our food for the week and make it up from there. Try to do one new recipe a week.

l have a decent stock of canned tomatoes, pulses, spices etc and a few frozen veg for emergencies. Buy meat locally but we only eat it once a week and fish from the market weekly too - but again will work that out on the spot.

Oddly I find the process more fun than planning!

Very little gets wasted. If we have veg left at the end of the week I make soup & freeze it.

I am someone who meal plans and find it quite stressful reading this thread 😂 It must be so much effort to be constantly having to decide what to eat/ go out every couple of days to buy ingredients! I like that I only have to think about it once a week and also means we don't waste a lot.

I'm usually a planner but sometimes I'm disorganised and end up winging it. I always end up spending more and it takes ages because I'll have an idea in the spice aisle and need to cycle back for an extra veg or a different cheese for instance.

There's nothing worse than feeling as though you've done a full shop but in fact all of your recipes are short of an ingredient or two.

I cook what is ready to eat from the garden.

So I have various types of pasta, rice, noodles, flour etc in the cupboards as staples. Also various herbs.

I go to the garden and pick what is ready. Then on the walk back to the kitchen figure out what I'm going to use it for.

So today I have loads of tomatoes, peppers, chilis, courgettes, beans and mange tout. I'll make a salsa with the tomatoes and chillis and peppers, add some of my garlic and onions harvested a few weeks ago to make a jar of salsa which I'll ferment and start eating in 3 days which can stay in the fridge for a few weeks.

I'll make a pepper, courgette and bean stew, with tomatoes, and make some dumplings to go in it.

I'll put the rest of the chillis and peppers into the freezer, and use the rest of the tomatoes to make a large batch of passata, which I'll take some aside to make a tomato pizza base for pizza on friday.

The mange tout, I'll probably either use tomorrow in a salad or I'll freeze them for soups later in the year.

Much the same as other comments on this thread ... always have a range of staples in, well stocked fridge/freezer and DH (retired) or I can easily pop to the shops whenever we want to. And I genuinely enjoy food shopping . I have occasionally done some 'rough' meal planning but often find that on days I've planned a salad meal (for example) the weather turns cold or vice versa. I might have planned a roast and then DH & DS say they will be late back and I can't be bothered to cook a big meal etc. And I never know how someone knows that they will enjoy a particular meal in six nights time .. I like to choose what I eat on the day depending on how I feel, how hungry I am, what time I am getting in etc. But there is usually only two of us at home unless DS is home from Uni so I think it's different if you have a family and absolutely know you will all be in to eat every evening.

We do the same.

I go shopping everyday, always have. I never know in advance what I want to eat and if I plan meals, I never want them.

I love popping into the supermarket so it works for me. Obviously have a few things in a store cupboard/freezer and I have a pad where I make a note if something is running low ie oxo cubes. If we have leftovers from a roast say, I'll do a stew the next day so might not always need to go but generally do.

I spend less this way. I only buy what I need.

Standard weekly shop here too. I aspire to be a meal planner but I'm not there yet. We don't waste anything because if something isn't used before it goes out of date it goes in the freezer, either as it is or after I've made it into soup. Every now and again it means a week or two of minimal shopping while I use up what's in the freezer. Those are the weeks when more planning gets done. We do tend to have the same meals on a (non rigid) rotation though, which wouldn't suit everyone.

I struggle to get my head round not planning. Mind you we are so bored of everything we eat, we don't want to eat anything atm.

We still have 3 DCs at home and all have dinner together. We have a vague meal plan that's mostly the same dozen meals on rotation. DH cooks during the week and doesn't have a huge range, I tend to get more adventurous at the weekend. We have a well stocked pantry and freezer, then buy the same stuff most weeks. It's boring, but cheap and works for now.

I'm in awe of @AlisonDonut that sounds so idillic!

I buy whatever veg and staples are in season and/or cheap and then cook meals based on that. Thankfully I'm a good cook, and good at throwing stuff together - I never follow recipes. To me meal planning can be expensive because it leads you buy certain ingredients even if they're expensive.

This

I do this.

It sounds as though not meal planning might work if you eat 'meat n 2 veg'-type meals.
But we mainly eat 'ethnic' foods (yes, I know, sorry for the outdated term), so we need to know we've got exactly the right ingredients and spices etc.

We don’t meal plan. DH eats in school and (understandably) doesn’t want curry for lunch and then for supper…so I have staples in, some batch cooked stuff frozen and buy slightly after his meat and veg weekly. I used (pre COVID) to get two smallish deliveries, which was perfect…must go back to that.

We do a monthly shop and just get the usual things we eat. And then we just cook whatever we have in the freezer/fridge/cupboard.
I've never been one for meal planning.

I should meal plan, but I keep being too lazy and not having the time to do it so I just kind of go around the supermarket thinking OK, lunches, breakfasts, dinners, snacks in each section.

I inevitably forget things or buy too much of something. Our meals are not very varied or interesting. I am a haphazard cook. I'd like to do better but it's not a priority at the moment.

TBH even when I do meal plan, I don't use recipes or fancy ingredients, I just think OK we'll have chilli, fish and chips, pasta, stew... whatever x about 7. (Maybe 6 if there are a couple of things that are likely to generate leftovers) And if I'm doing a shopping order online, I start with the reduced foods or swap ideas around based on what's on offer/lower priced and kind of meal plan as I go.

I will often buy longer-life meals like frozen stuff or tins, to cover about 4-6 days and then only need to think about fresh ingredients for a couple of "proper" cooked meals. If the longlife stuff doesn't get used that week, it's OK. If the freezer is starting to resemble a tetris game then I stop buying frozen stuff for a while.

I am not good at it myself at all my my mother in law is always stocked up on staples and has two fridges full of meats / sausages / fish etc so can decide what to cook each day.

I just have a look in the fridge/cupboard and see what I fancy (or what has to be used up soon), then pop to the shop (walking distance & range of shops) for any additional ingredients.

I have tried meal planning, but our lives are a bit too changeable at the last minute and I found it frustrating.

I shop twice a week and I pretty much decide as I walk around the supermarket, usually based on what's on a good deal.

For example if I see big tub of yoghurt on offer I'll do curry rice and naan.
If there's some nice fish I pick that up and then grab what I need to go with it.

We don't typically eat meat n two veg type meals, but a lot of them have similar ingredients from a very basic list. Our meals are currently (I am aware this is really shit/boring )

Spaghetti bolognese
Chilli with rice
Sweet and sour chicken or pork with rice
Chicken curry (jar sauce) with rice
Fried chicken/peppers/mushrooms with stock rice
Baked salmon fillet with veg/potatoes
Baked chicken breast or leg with veg/potatoes
Pork or beef stew
Ready made lasagne with garlic bread
Frozen pizza/ready made pizza base with own toppings
Cottage pie
Chicken nuggets with frozen veg and/or chips
Burger and chips
Frozen schnitzel and chips
Fish and chips (maybe peas!)
Pasta with tomato sauce and cheese/sausage/ham
Pasta with pesto
Tuna tomato pasta
Jacket potato with tuna or leftovers
"Schinkennudeln" (A kind of pasta with ham and egg)

Staples always in the fridge, freezer and pantry. I'd buy a couple of meals worth of ingredients intentionally and just cook what we fancy on the day

The idea of planning meals makes me cringe. I find I might be in the mood for a meal one day, but not another. And get great pleasure knocking something up given ingredients before me. I will scan the veg, and think a little about what could be used in another meal on another day so as to not use everything up in one go. I sometimes have an inkling early in the day as what to eat later, but other times don't know 5 minutes before cooking.

I mealplan for every 5 days and aim to use every fresh item up in the fridge by then.