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!

Why don't you just record what you end up cooking during the week- then you have a meal plan for next week!

Really not the case here, I cook all sorts of stuff. I have a well-stocked cupboard of herbs and spices. I rarely use actual recipes and if I do have a recipe with an unusual ingredient I don't have I just swap it out for something else. I don't tend to do recipes with complicated fresh ingredients or buy stuff specifically for a particular recipe. But I have a wide range of long-life ingredients including things like lime juice, harissa paste, spices, garlic paste and so on and can generally chuck something in that will work.

Once in a blue moon I pop down the road to get something I'm lacking. Otherwise I shop whenever we run out of milk (approx once a week) and stock up on anything we've run out of, plus pick up random things I fancy that we'll eat at some point, usually frozen or freezable.

The only fresh stuff I buy regularly is dairy, cheese, ham, fruit and veg. Everything else is in the freezer ready when I need it.

Go grocery shopping for inspiration - most meals are based around carb/meat/veg components - so just get 3-4 different veg, a few meat options (including frozen fish etc), 3-4 different fruits, some salad and some treats (ega pack of crisps or icecream). Occasionally odd bits and bobs like cling film or tomato ketchup etc.

Come home and improvise through the week with the ingredients we have.

Just make whatever I fancy. There are three supermarkets within a 2-min walk and two big supermarkets within a 10 min walk (including an M&S Simply Food on the ground floor of my apartment building) so I just pop out if there's an ingredient or something I fancy that I don't have in.

I pretty much go to the supermarket every day and buy a few things, and rarely do a big shop.

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.

Most people who eat "ethnic" will keep a well-stocked herb and spice rack as a matter of course.

I don't eat meat and pretty much only eat Indian, MENA or Italian food. I never meal plan.

It sounds as though not meal planning might work if you eat 'meat n 2 veg'-type meals. But we mainly eat 'ethnic' foods

It works perfectly well for “ethnic” cooking too. Our food tends to have a heavy south east Asian influence.

That doesn't even make sense does it? All meals are meat, veg, pulses and so on.

It's how you cook them and what herbs and spices you use.

Keep a good range of dried and frozen herbs and spices and you no more need to meal plan for "ethnic" food than you do the "meat and two veg"

Staples and a range of salad/ veggies. Three times a week I catch the local co op at reduced time. I got lots of lovely roast beef at 70p a pack down from 3.50 so warmed some through in gravy and had a quick roast dinner with freezer veg. Salmon fillets two for a quid. Pan fry serve with salad. If there’s nothing yellow stickered we eat from the freezer or pasta with leftover bits from the fridge.

I just make any old shite.

I buy chicken weekly, generally have tofu, quorn, bacon and sausages in the freezer. Then just decide on a theme - Mexican, Italian whatever and cook on the day if at home or in advance for work days.

We do half and half. We plan meals for the week and buy that stuff accordingly but also have fully stocked staples in case things change (eg we don't feel like something one evening or have a guest etc). We rarely have food wastage :)

I just go to the shops, buy basics, and then eat them during the week. Does that make me unusual?!

I just add lots of things we like to the order, then cook what the mood fancies/fits my needs/needs using up on the day. Then my husband adds the things he'd like to cook on his days.

We've not starved yet, and it saves any mental load around cooking.

Oh, and I cook loads of different meals. Italian, Lebanese, Thai etc. But I don't follow recipes usually. I just think, "ooh, tonight I fancy spicy Thai" and sling in a melange of appropriate flavours. Which is probably closer to authentic than slavishly following a recipe book anyway.

We genuinely don't though, and you seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the fact that people can do this.

We just buy a big old pile of ingredients and eat them til they're gone. There's a bag of paneer in the fridge that I've yet to find the inspiration to cook. Impulse buy!

If you don't get the mindset, fine, but don't try to claim we're doing something that we're not.

We just buy a big old pile of ingredients and eat them til they're gone. There's a bag of paneer in the fridge that I've yet to find the inspiration to cook. Impulse buy!

Same here. I've got a big cauliflower in the fridge which is getting a bit tired; I've intended to do something with it for the last three nights but then, when it came down to it, cooked something else quicker.

Tonight should be cauliflower night, but I don't yet know if it will be veggie curry, cheesy pasta bake or jerk cauliflower wraps. I am pretty sure I do any of those with what I have in. Or maybe it will be something else! I'll decide when I start cooking - or maybe I'll be in too much of a rush tonight and the cauliflower will have to wait til tomorrow!

We used to not meal plan at all. I'd just buy a random selection or meat/fish, veg and carbs then decide on the day what I wanted to put together based on what I had in.
I spend half the amount on groceries now I bother to plan in advance though

But the most families want to know or need to know what they're having tomorrow night - if they're having Chilli before say dc go to their sporting activities.

Most maybe, but not all.

Why do children need to know in advance whether or not they are having chilli before going to sporting activities? Wind?

At the moment we just buy a load of stuff things that we like, what's on offer or discounted cheap and hope that inspiration just happens by the time we're hungry but we really need to start meal planning if only just to stop the boring "what shall we have for dinner?" every.single.day. At least then I'd only have to think about it once a week.

Just eat an egg sandwich every day (not even joking, it's just me and I usually cba).

If I feel like cooking I go to the corner shop and get some bits and bobs. I don't have a freezer.

Don't meal plan as I find it too restrictive as if we eat out then it will go to waste and this is often a spontaneous decision at the weekend. In the week I run out of snacks for the teenager if I meals plan and he likes savoury snacks like fresh baguette and cheese. You can't have fresh bread if it is bought 4 days prior.

This has really made me laugh!

I don't meal plan per se, as in I have no idea what we'll have for tea tonight or tea tomorrow night. We do have things that we cook regularly so will buy basic ingredients for. I know I'll end up making carbonara at some point so I have the things in for that, but I don't know when this week it'll happen.

I also know that each week we will use at least one packet of mince. So I buy one at the shop each week and we figure it out as we go. Sometimes it's a chilli, other times its a spagbol, other times it's a lasagne....

We always buy the standard food shop which includes various tins, fruit & veg, pasta and/or rice, meat, herbs and spices, fridge stuff etc.

My colleague does not meal plan. She does go to a supermarket every single day though. I think she's crazy. I have little enough time to myself without spending three hours a week going to the shop.

I have experimented with meal planning for years.

First I sit down on a Sunday night with a cup of tea and a cake.

Then I go through my various cookbooks and write a plan according to what interests me. I try for 1 fish meal a week, one soup, 1 breakfast for dinner and then work around it.

This worked for years and then I lost interest so I would sit down and just write down a bullet point list that I would then see what was appealing each day. This created a huge amount of food waste because I would forget about things that needed to be used up until too late.

So now I am back to a daily meal plan with designated days. I will deviate if required (this friday for example the Dcs have asked for McDonalds as it is the end of the first week of school).

It works for me because if I go off piste it invariably means that I fancy something like a King prawn risotto when I have two lamb chops about to go off in the fridge and/or I have forgotten that I have put butchers sausages in the freezer 3 weeks ago and they need to become toad in the hole.

Yep, meal plan. 4 boys who do loads of sport and it's quite hard to produce enough food to feed them on the hoof, if you haven't thought about it. Even egg on toast is almost a loaf and a dozen eggs.

Sitting down to write a list every week is the most dispiriting of all chores. Literally can not remember a single thing I've ever cooked when I'm looking at the blank sheet. One day I wrote a list of everything I could think of that I cook with everyone dibbing in and I keep a copy of that on the fridge. That helps.

I write down the meals for the week and then extract the list of ingredients from that. Sometimes the meals swap days or roll over to the next week but generally the food is there, no dashing to the shops and cuts down on waste big time.

I also keep an eye on who's doing what which means I could cook something reheatable on sports evenings etc

There a certain kind of peace knowing in the morning what you're going to cook in the evening.

It's a bore but It does work.