To ask how much time you spend meal planning?

[Totallyuseless31]

I seem to spend huge amounts of time meal planning, only to not make all the meals as they were too time consuming, or dds ate the ingredients etc. so I spend about an hour a week on it only to fail. How much time do you spend meal planning? And what are your best time saving tips? Also to what extent do you meal plan (eg just evening meals or all meals and snacks)? If you just do evening meals what do you do for the other meals and snacks?

About 2 seconds. What have we got in the fridge that still serms edible and doesn't have fur growing on it?

We'll have that then

An hour a day meal planning smacks of eeking out taaks to fill the day .

Someone on here said they spend an hour a day meal planning? Must have missed that.

I plan five dinners for the week with the assumption we'll have one night of leftovers and one take-away.

I made a list of all our favorite meals and cut it up into strips of paper that I keep in a little cup. Each Sunday I pick five slips and that's our menu. I write the menu on a white board on the fridge and add any ingredients we haven't got to my shopping list.

Every time I make a family favorite, I make a huge batch and freeze some in ziploc bags lying flat on the freezer shelf. So some weeks if I'm too tired to cook, we'll have a frozen meal. Freezer meals include vegetarian chili, pesto (freeze in muffin cups), soup, meatballs, sloppy joes, carnitas.

Breakfast we cycle through the usual: eggs, slowcooker oatmeal, cold cereal, toast and jam, smoothies, etc.

Lunch is usually leftovers or a sandwich. It's only DH, dd age 2, and me, so no packed lunches yet.

About an hour planning,that includes asking everyone what meals they would like,writing it all down and then putting it into weekly order.
I meal plan for a month at a time.

I only meal plan for evening meals.
Other meals,everyone chooses what they want.
For example breakfast they can choose from cereal,something on toast,bagels,toasting muffins,crumpets,yogurt,fruit and at the weekend DH always does a cooked breakfast.

Lunches 3 of the older one's choose to eat at school,youngest nearly always has packed lunch,oldest if working takes a packed lunch if at home eats with me and his Dad.

Days off and weekends we give them a choice from what we have in for lunch.The same with snacks they always ask before helping themselves and there's always lots to choose from.

With your DD's eating the ingredients would it help if you just stuck a label on the items saying for dinner.That way they can't say they forgot if you just told them it was for a dinner.

I try to meal plan around activity's and days out we have planned.
So if the children have judo(they have that once a week)I make sure something quick is on the meal planner for that day.Because we don't have much time(about an hour from getting in from school)for dinner and getting the 3 youngest changed and ready to go.

Time saving tips,if you can batch cook it works for us.I might make 3 mince dinners all at the same time,chilli,lasagna,bologneise and then use 1 for that night and stick the other 2 in the freezer.And then a few days later I might make 3 chicken dinners,again use 1 that night and 2 in the freezer.By the 3rd and 4th week we pretty much have a freezer full of homemade meals already done.

Open freezer/fridge. Look at contents, choose what to eat. That's about it really. I know it's not the MN way but I'm not organised enough to meal plan

Shopping list is done on Sunday night and we decide what we will have each night. DH is the cook here, always makes extra portions to freeze, so one night at least a week is out of the freezer. Usually buy up to Thursday and then go again on Friday for the weekend. I feel it works because we have very little waste, and also whoever is home first can start the meal without having to think about what to have.

About 10 minutes on Friday night. I have a look at what is on offer in our shop, if anything needs to be used up from the fridge and freezer, and plan the meals accordingly.

Sometimes meals are swapped or changed during the week : I have enough leftover rice and roast pork from yesterday to make Cantonese rice tonight, instead of the dauphinoise potatoes I had planned.

None.

I don't like what I'm going to eat being pre determined.

At 3pm I'll have an idea about what I want to eat that night and if we don't have it in then I'll go to the supermarket after the school run. Sometimes dp will pick up something on the way home from work.

I'd I do buy ingredients for something a few days in advance I'll find that when the time comes I'm not in the mood for that particular meal and we'll end up throwing things out. So for me meal planning wastes money.

About 5-10 mins a week before I shop.

I write out who is expected at what evening meal. Note which days are expected to be school dinner days due to tight timing in the evening. Then Jot down a suitable meal based on the time and number. Also note which days I will bake, to try and double up on oven use age.
We probably eat the same 12 basic meals in various orders a couple of times a month.
Rice and stir fry
Pasta and tomato based sause
Pasta and cheese based sause
Pizza
Fish and potato
Pasta and mince based dish
Jacket spud, protein and veg
Couscous and grilled meat and veg
Roast meat veg and spud
Cold meat and accompanying stuff
Soup
Risotto

We have allergy issues with our little ones, so new meals can take a lot of research and planning, but now we have got to the point of having around 10-12 meals which we rotate across a fortnight, so generally buy similar ingredients all the time.

We then try and be creative on a weekend and make something totally new that we've never tried.

I enjoy cooking so always try and add a different twist to some meals so the kids dont get bored.

When I am preparing to go food shopping at the weekend, I will do a rough plan of dinners for the week based on what's in, what the plans for the week are (activities, travels, weather etc) and what extra ingrediants I need to get for that plan.

During the week, I will think the night before about dinner the next day, unless I am totally wiped. So I may have to get things from the freezer, I try to peel potatoes or prep veggies the night before so I can just start cooking when I get in from work. Or I may even put something in the oven and set the timer so its' ready when we get in.

I tend not to worry that much about breakfasts/lunches - I will have the essentials in, DH makes his own sambos, DD changes her mind constantly so we do that the night before, and I make my salads. Weekend lunches we would have plenty of things in to make something.

My general plan is something along the lines of:

Sunday - a roast or dinner that needs prep work and stirring, as I have time to do that. But tried and trusted favourites usually.
Monday - a dinner that I make on Sunday (when making Sunday dinner, I do a double batch of a Monday dinner and freeze half), just needs heating of a sauce and cooking of rice/pasta, or taking something from oven like lasagna. (Spag bol, chilli, curries, lasagna, cottage pie, fish pie etc).
Tuesday - generally some kind of chop, potatoes and veggies dinner - I buy some meat/fish fresh at the weekend for this.

Wednesday - something fast for DD between getting in from school/work and getting back out to sports club training. DH and I eat later, usually something from freezer that 1 cooks while the other brings DD to training.
Thursday - either something really easy (e.g. pizza using ready-made base, grated mozzarella and grabbing toppings to suit; chicken fajitas; a stir fry that I've prepped ingredients the night before) or a "Monday dinner" from the freezer.
Friday - a super easy dinner (freezer, M&S ready meal etc) or a takeaway usually.

Saturday - something nice for DD that she will eat, and later on, DH and I cook something nice for ourselves and relax about doing it. We occasionally go out, but Saturday is "our" night. Often a curry feast (so a couple of decent curries from scratch and maybe a side dish or 2, or even HM naans - leftovers will be frozen so no waste), or fresh fish (good fishmonger is open on Saturday mornings), or steak and HM chips. Or a night for experimenting with recipes.

I think if you have done it for a long time it becomes really easy. I do an on-line shop, so all my stuff is listed and I just tick boxes. I top up mid week with fresh veg if needed.

I am a big fan of the slow cooker and all things frozen, ie frozen chicken breast, frozen veg so it is a doddle to make stuff. I batch cook stuff like tomato sauce to use as a base for pizza or pasta (I use the slow cooker to make it) I always make too much food for one dinner in the slow cooker so the leftovers are frozen, sometimes enough to make another family dinner or just enough for Dh's lunch.

Packed lunches for ds2 is easy, I freeze bread rolls, Warburtons thins, have individually wrapped croissants etc and stuff to put in them.

I write out the meals for the week on a wipe board. I try to vary the whole chicken, fish, meat bit.

I suppose meal planning and deciding what to have takes 5 minutes. I think it helps if you have stuff written down. Years ago we wrote down all things we eat that have chicken, mince, salmon, white fish, etc so you aren't constantly thinking about it. I have store cupboard/freezer basics like green thai chicken curry. Everything for that is either tinned, (coconut milk) in a jar (thai paste) or frozen, (chicken breast, green beans, onions, peppers.)

I should point out that I have a larder freezer and an American fridge freezer and I shop at Costco so I buy in bulk and freeze it too.

About 5 minutes twice a week maybe, while I'm writing a shopping list.

Sometimes I don't bother with a shopping list and just plan in my head while I go round the supermarket. I usually have a pretty good idea of what I already have in the fridge and cupboard, so I just take them as my basis and pick up things to go with them. I actually prefer doing it that way as then if I see something on special offer, I think of a meal to incorporate it on the hoof, as it were.

I usually have at least one gap in my meal plan, as you sometimes end up with more leftovers than you thought you would - I usually have at least one leftovers meal a week, but sometimes there is so much leftover it does 2 meals.

I don't "plan" breakfasts or lunches, I just buy things like cheese, ham, salad, bread, cereal, yoghurts, fruit, milk etc, and when it's gone I buy more.

Actually, at the moment, I have a list on the fridge of potential dinners having gone through the fridge, freezer and cupboards a couple of weeks ago, so that is reducing thinking time a little. And helping me use up some older things too. (Like a jar of beef and ale casserole mix from Asda that we had on Saturday night - which I bought in 2012 a month after my Gran died, I don't get to Asda very often!! ).

But it also includes firm favourites that we go back to a lot and I had been ignoring for a while - like mac'n'cheese (with loads of veg and bacon), chicken and mushrooms with tarragon/cream/wine sauce, nasi goreng and spag bol. So I am using that for inspiration

About 5 mins :) life so much easier since I made a magnetic dry wipe meal planning board the other week :) :)

None. We live in the sticks, and keep a good stock of oil, pulses, pasta, flour, canned things etc in the house, and have a weekly veg box delivery. Meals are produced by me or DH from any combination of the above with whatever is in the fridge.

The full process takes about an hour for me:
Check diary so I know who I'm feeding when, and any quick turnarounds
Check what's in the fridge and freezer
Plan meals based around diary and decent variety (all suppers, any lunches for more than just me ie school holidays and the days with no nursery)
Ignore dh's days, he won't stick to a plan
Put all ingredients on running list, which is kept in the kitchen to write down anything we're running low on
Do internet shop

5-10 minutes when writing weekly shopping list . Usually rotate about 12 dinners and occasionally chuck in a new one if I've got a new receipe book. I plan dinners and my lunches. Dd has school dinners and dh can sort his own lunch out.

wobbly first post on the thread!

15 mins, and then 1 hour to get the stuff. It's really so very easy, I can't understand when people on here make this out to be a full day task.

About half an hour a week, when I do the shopping list too, but I have a blackboard in the kitchen where I jot down any recipes I come across during the week that I want to try.
Since meal planning, I've found we have cut down on cost and waste, while at the same time eating a much more interesting and varied diet.
We have 2 meat dishes, 1 fish and the rest are a mix of vegetarian and "light meat" ie it might be pasta with bacon bits.
I also make sure we vary between pasta, rice, potatoes, polenta, couscous, bread-based etc meals throughout the week, and serve a variety of veg and salad with each meal.
At first, it took me forever to do, but I've got better and better at it, and really enjoy it. The best thing is that we eat a great variety of foods now, not just the same things again and again, though favourites obviously get planned in too.
I've also found its given me more time, because I know what we're having and I know we've got the ingredients for it at home. I'm a total meal planning convert!

Ladyluck10 probably because they're batch cooking.

If I'm making spag bol or lasagne or other freezable meals I'll double or triple up. Sometimes I make 2 or 3 kinds of lunches at the same time (salady bits which require cooking bulgar wheat/quinoa/couscous. ). If I'm doing all that I'll probably spend 2-3 hours in the kitchen but then I'll have all my lunches done for the week and lots of meals ready for the freezer (on one occasion I made 16 portions of spag bol... good for lazy days).

I have a selcection of meals I make regularly. when I shop I look out for the ingredients involved. at tea time, I think how I feel about cooking which meal and look in the fridge to see what needs using and make the meal that is the best fit to the ingredients/my energy levels/time available.

I think I have to plan ahead more now that I have a toddler and live in the states, than when I worked full time in the UK with no kids. Before, I could online shop and/or pick up bits on the way home from work.

Now, every trip to the supermarket involves a 2 year old, and if I want anything other than milk or veg I have to get in the car. So I like to plan ahead a bit to make sure I have things in.

Bluesbaby, that's the cooking part of it though. I think we are talking more about the planning of the meals than the prepping and cooking of them? (But who knows, I am wrong so often today that I no longer know my arse from my elbow....)