Apparently most people have 6 meals they make on a loop? How about you?

[BarrelOfOtters]

Some random study I read.

It's probably about right..

stirfry
fajitas
a roast of some kind (not every week)
salmon and veg
sea bass with veg
fishfingers chips and peas (or similar)
a curry - usually prawn.

I live alone. Cooking one portion of lasagne or pasta bake or cottage pie just doesn't work
It tastes the same, and it's so easy to just be able to heat up something I cooked earlier
I get whatever out in the morning and it keeps in the fridge if I don't fancy it

Probably more than 6 in our case

Fish and chips or new potatoes
Roast chicken or lamb
Pork chops with stuffing topping
Beef stew
BBQ chicken
Chicken or veg curry
Spag Bol
Chile con carne
Veggie or meat burgers
Fajitas
Risotto
Turkey stir fry

So about 12

I may have 50 ish dinners in the rotation but I eat the same lunch every day during the week because I frankly can’t be bothered to add another decision / variable into my life.

@neverenoughchelseaboots
I have a colour coded spreadsheet which distributes them by type so that there’s not too much similar stuff in a week.

Oh God! Thank you!!! I thought I was the only person who does that! My shopping list has 70 rows colour coded for store and type, with tick boxes to say we want that item this shop. 4 columns fit on an A4 page, so it lasts a month each time I print it, I use different colour pens for each store.

That's me too.

Things like a cottage pie I make enough potatoes and mince for 4 people and then assemble it in 4 portions, one that I cook and eat there and then and the other three go in the freezer.

In families it can be useful to make one more portion than the number eating and then freezing it for the day someone wants to eat something different or at a different time.

I don't live alone but now am just cooking for DH and I as teen dd cooks for herself. I also find batch cooking really useful - I'll do a large pot of chilli, curry, spag Bol etc and freeze maybe 6 portions individually in recycled takeaway containers. So easy to do 1 if alone, 2 for us or more if visitors are here. There is very little extra work to do a large pot compared to a small pot (sometimes less as it justifies getting out the food processor to chop).

And the same for cottage pie, lasagana, chicken and mushroom pie, smoked fish and broccoli pie, etc. I have a few freezer-safe Pyrex dishes for 1 and for 2 people, so will make 2 or 3 at once and freeze a few. And sometimes I will make a family-sized lasagna (6 portions) and freeze cooked leftovers as ready to microwave portions (which often ends up only 1/2 as DH sees there's plenty and has double 🤣).

We do lots of meals just for the night, but in a busy household, having those freezer meals is a huge benefit.

We have neighbours who swear by batch cooking everything on a Saturday for the whole next week, including the following weekend. They swear by it and tell us to try it. We did once but I think it’s easier if you eat stuff like lasagne and chili - easily portionable stuff - which defrosts well. And if you have a chest freezer! We don’t have one and eat more salads and things like grilled fish and vegetables, especially this time of the year, whereas they love stuff you can chuck in the slow cooker year round. So we always have to do a midweek top up shop to buy more bags of salad leaves etc. which can only be bought to last for a few days after our big shop. It’s easier to batch cook in winter we find: stews and things we like then can easily be defrosted and still taste good.

Would love to know if anyone has batch cooking recipes which aren’t the usual more wintery stuff!

Used to but not anymore....started having Gousto and Hello Fresh when they were on offer a few times, built up a collection of recipes from them and now use them a lot.

not me.

I have a list of meals, and I choose from that. The list has loads of meals on, and I tend to make about 20-30 regularly, but most weeks I'll throw in one of the others.

dh has about 6 meals he makes. He only cooks once a week, and so we eat his meals about once a month or less. I still get bored of them.

I cannot imagine eating the same 6/8 meals on a loop.

and like a pp, most of mine can be made in 30-40 minutes, and most of them I make without needing recipes. the exception being ones with spices, where I need the recipe to measure out the spices.

Not surprised at all! I’m a particularly fussy eater (or possibly a “super taster” which would explain a lot) so I’m quite limited on what I eat.

we tend to do:

roast dinner every Sunday
mince every Tuesday (bolognese for the youngest, mince in gravy for me and the older kids, husband rotates between those 2 and chilli)

then non fixed day meals:

chargrill chicken with potato wedges
steak with potato wedges
casserole
”mini” roast (so not quite the full roast as such)
Bangers and mash
toad in the hole
usually do burgers and oven chips or similar for the kids once a week
this time of year a bbq features a bit more too!

we do other things occasionally, but they’re definitely our staples! Obviously less casseroles in the summer, although I will still make one if we get a rainy day.

Oh and my husband has started introducing a curry night for him and the older boys roughly once a week. I cook something different with the meat for me and our youngest.

Yep I think that's about right.
Curry
Faijitas or tacos
Chili
Freezer dinner
Roast
Pasta carbonara type dish

I think most families have favourites though and when things are busy we all resort to things that we know kids will eat. I can guarantee that if I'm just cooking for me and my 10yo because the others are out we'll have beans on toast about 90% of the time.

We have a veg box which means we cook more seasonally so right now we're eating a lot of asparagus whereas in the autumn we eat more cauliflower so that expands the list of regular meals (and to add to the cauliflower cheese discussion cauliflower cheese and sausages are a favourite in our house).

Chilli
Pulled pork
Enchiladas or Tacos
Spag bol
Cottage pie
Steak
Fish fingers
Thai curry
Roast
Lasagne
Risotto

This is our list exactly plus add pizza and hamburgers that I make.

Yup

Chicken curry
Omelette
Pasta with cheese and veg
Chicken with parmesan and veg
Chicken soup
Chicken and rice
Beef stew

This is about it and sometimes I cook something new or something else if I have more time.

I hate freezing food as it just doesn't taste as nice and I don't have time for complex meals.

I have at least 4 pasta dishes I can do without a cook book. The same with curries. Several more I have on my go-to list but need a book.
Then meat and 2 veg, several stir fries, homemade pizza.

I think I can go 3 weeks without repeating but DD is a bit too fussy and hates fish.

This is an interesting thought.

We regularly do:

• nachos
• toad-in-the-hole
• roast dinner (usually chicken)
• risotto
• pesto pasta
• pasta bolognese
• sausage tray bake
• lentil soup
• masour daal
• pulled pork wraps
• stir fry
• beef casserole (colder weather only)
• jollof

Yes, but only because I've fallen into a rut of doing stuff my preschool age kids will reliably eat. I used to love trying new recipes.

• spinach pancakes with cheese
• bean and veg chilli with jacket potato and cheese
• pasta, hidden veg sauce and cheese
• veggie sausages, mash, broccoli and/or peas and gravy
• some sort of frittata
• coconut milk and kale dhal with rice and yogurt

Absolutely sick of the lot of it.

Spaghetti Bolognese
Roast chicken, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puds and veg.
Steak and chips with blue cheese sauce.
Chicken breast, spicy wedges and veg.
Chicken and bacon lardons in creme fresh served over tagiatelli.
Salmon cooked on lime juice and jacket potatoes and mushy peas
Fish in breadcrumbs mash and veg.
Macaroni cheese and a chicken breast.
Pork medallions, mash, veg.
Omelette with cheese and ham if rushing out.
Shepherds pie and veg.
Beef stew with dumplings.
Boiled gammon joint with mash and veg.
Chicken stir fry.

Also penne Arabatica
Various salads
BBQ food like burgers and Cumberland sausages.

We like variety and I enjoy cooking.

And DH makes homemade pizza once in a while too, often when we have adult children over.

Years ago, I didn't meal plan, and just shopped and then tried to work out what to make from "standard" ingredients, and yes, at that point we ended up with a small rotation of fairly uninspiring meals. And it got me down because it was so boring and I worried that we (and particularly the children) weren't getting enough variation in our diet or exposure to a range of foods. And the mental load of looking in the fridge and trying to work out what to cook...

So I started meal planning. I use Pinterest/food planning apps to help me. It's transformed the way we eat. I spend far less, we eat better food, food wastage is reduced to nearly nothing and the mental load of food and cooking is vastly reduced, plus I shop online so I save loads of time! It takes me less than half an hour to do the meal planning and the online food shop, and any one of the 2 adults or 2 teens in the house can know what we're having for dinner, and can crack on and start cooking it. No more fielding endless questions " whats for dinner" or " how do I make?" - nope, just check the calendar and use the recipe stored on the recipe app!

Meal plan this week
Chickpeas, chorizo and Green olives with smokey crumb - new recipe to us
Curried butter baked cod with cauliflower and chickpeas - new recipe to us
Smoked mackerel with celeriac and rocket salad - had once before about 1 month ago
Roasted pork belly ramen with Pak Choi - had once before 1 month + ago
Tray baked chicken, orange, fennel and olives - new recipe to us
Halloumi fajitas - have some form of fajitas about once a month
Sticky chicken gochujang sesame and spring onion - new recipe to us.

Meal plan last week
Pork stroganoff with mushrooms - have had before longer than 1 month ago
Aubergine parmigiana - I love this, so tend to have either this of the chicken version about once a month
Southern Fried chicken and BBQ beans (from scratch) - new recipe to us (didn't rate it as it happens, so won't be repeated)
Chorizo meatball all forno - new recipe to us (although we do other similar ones)
Veggie sesame ramen -new recipe to us, bit bland so probably won't repeat
Cajun cod tacos, picked pineapple and avocado salsa - have had once before about 1 month ago
Piri piri chicken with smashed sweet potatoes and broccoli - have had once before several months ago.

@neverenoughchelseaboots haha you're amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to post this!
just another question if you don't mind, do you live by the coast to get your crab? I dont, they have it in our supermarket about ten miles away in the fish counter, but obviously with my username I love crab meat lol.

I live on my own so can please myself:

Steak and salad
Salmon fillet and salad
Tomato shorba
Potato, pepper and tomato soup
Chilli con kanga
Pasta arrabiatta
Warm chicken liver salad
Spanish tortilla
Various curries, mostly veg - Meera Sodha is great for this

Real variety is when I have visitors, or when some veg is cheap and I'll buy it and make myself find a new recipe for it, hence the two enormous leeks in my fridge waiting to be made into buttered leeks and peas.

I'm inordinately pleased with my self for growing all the green bits of a salad in my veggie patch.