To ask your advice on how to meal plan?

[TheTimeToChange]

I would love your advice on how to meal-plan please!

Breakfasts seem pretty simple - I want them to be quite quick and easy to prepare on weekdays, so normally have yoghurt and cereal or a slice of toast and a coffee or something similar.

It’s lunch and dinner that I’m more unsure about. I sometimes bring my own lunch into work, but really want to get into a habit of it.

Any ideas on how I can plan my lunches and dinners each week around tasty and healthy food that'll keep and that I’ll actually enjoy eating? (I don’t have any allergies or dietary requirements, and eat everything and anything).

My budget for the week is £40. I live in a flat-share, so sometimes cook with my flatmates or might go out to eat, but im hoping that I can factor this in if I plan weekly.

Thanks so much.

For lunch I normally just take left overs from the night before. When I do my plan I make sure I include things that give good left overs!

Be realistic-if you have a busy day/evening plan something easy. Try and do something that can havd a few extra portions to freeze once a week so you end up with things to defrost and reheat.

What do you eat now/like?

I’m veggie so my meal plan for the week is...
Lentil Dahl
Veg chilli and baked sweet potatoes
Pesto and roast veg pasta
Quorn fajitas

Eating more lentils/beans is a good way of getting cheap protein.

Do you have a microwave at work.
Summer should be easy as you can take salad,couscous,pasta with pesto.sandwiches.
Is that a £40 budget for all your food for the week?
Make a list of meals and then a shopping list.If you have freezer space then you can put leftovers in and either eat for lunch or as another evening meal.

First of all I look at what I've got in that could make a whole or part meal.
Then I note what's on during the week when we might not need a meal or need something quick and write those in.
For the rest of the meals I try to balance so we are not having two similar things in a row.
I try to factor in leftovers so if we have say, moussaka I make two one for dinner then a smaller one that I'll eat for lunch two days in a row.
Then I write down ingredients and shop.
This week were having for dinner,
steak pie with new potatoes and cabbage,
Slow cooker chicken curry with rice and poppadoms,
Quick tea so choice of Cauliflower and broccoli cheese or jacket potato with beans/cheese/tuna
Salmon fishcakes with salad and peas
Lamb meatballs in pittas with houmus, salad and cubed roast potato
Pizza
Eating out

Lunches for me (DH eats at work, DC eat sandwiches or school dinner) will be
left over cabbage fried with ham
Left over curry with broccoli
Left over cauliflower cheese
Left over fish cake.
I'll freeze extra meatballs and made two steak pies one to eat one to freeze.
Breakfast is usually a choice of yoghurt, fruit, granola, bagels, toast, croissant, porridge, eggs. Sometimes cereal and often bacon or sausage sandwich or pancakes at the weekend.

I would say as it's summer plan to have salads for lunch most days. The base can be largely the same ie leaves, tomato, cucumber, the usual suspects but vary the protein and dressings so it doesn't feel same-y. Buy fruit, nuts, yogurt etc that you can just pop into your lunch bag on the way out the door.

For dinner I'd suggest some times "doubling up" when cooking. You don't have to eat the same two nights in a row as plenty of things will keep in the fridge for a few days but it helps to use fresh ingredients up before they go off. Also, have a selection of quick meal ideas eg omelette, pasta, stir frys etc.

This sounds a bit silly but I find I get in a rut with cooking and some weeks cannot think of a single thing to cook when we're planning meals and shopping. We have a list of meals - things we've cooked regularly and liked (separated into categories like lunches, soups, veggie etc) and that helps a lot when you're stuck for inspiration

Also a cooked chicken goes a long way (roast dinner, chicken pie, chicken soup, salad, pasta, wraps etc for lunches) as does an old fashioned ham

Thanks everyone! These are great. Please do keep the ideaa coming :)

I always cook in doubles or triples and keep most food for a max of 2 days/green salads 3 days. Might be a little repetitive for some but it keeps food waste and costs right down. I do one online shop a week but do have and use a freezer.

E.g. this week's plan is:

Monday:
L: Storecupboard pasta salad
T: Sardine, lemon and chilli spaghetti

Tuesday:
L: Storecupboard pasta salad
T: Goats cheese tarts and salad

Wednesday:
L: Goats cheese tarts and salad
T: Sardine, lemon and chilli spaghetti

Thursday:
L: Moroccan rocket and turkey salad
T: Pizza and salad

Friday:
L: Moroccan rocket and turkey salad
T: Chickpea and spinach tomato curry with naan and Indian snacks

Saturday:
L: Aubergine, tomato and pine nut salad with hummous
T: Chickpea and spinach tomato curry with rice and Indian snacks

Sunday:
L: Aubergine, tomato and pine nut salad with hummous
T: Peanut and vegetable stir fry (frozen mix) with spring rolls (leftovers for Monday's lunch)

I'll usually make a cake/seed bars/biscuits/flapjack to last the week (or freeze half and alternate with the next week's batch for variety) in addition to the above. I'll also have something nice in for breakfasts on weekends such as omelette, beans on toast, crumpets, pancakes etc.

I'm now in mourning for my paragraphs. Stupid app.

Keep all of your meal plans in a book that way you can flick back when you're stuck for ideas.
Try to plan for left overs i.e if you need some tomatoes for a recipe and know it will only use half a packet plan to use the other half in a salad for lunch.

I made a massive list of all the meals we like on my phone, quite detailed so chilli, vegetarian chilli, fajitas etc. Then in I am stuck for ideas I go through and pick out 5 or 6 with a plan to try something new as well. I shop online so at the checkout I run through and make sure I have all the ingredients for that weeks meals

I agree with the salads for lunch and maybe soup in a flask when it's colder weather, or pasta from the night before if you can heat it up at work.

I don't meal plan except for maybe a day ahead . (Unlike posters here.)

I DO though have a fairly regular routine shopping list which means I buy enough for us to have a variety of dinners.
I work on the basis of us having fish 2-3 times a week, so I'll have salmon, cod/ haddock, sea bass in the freezer always. We only eat red meat once a week, usually a casserole or shepherds pie. I aim to have a veggie dinner once a week or more, and I usually buy either a whole chicken or chicken breasts each week. These are versatile and I'll get 2-3 meals out of the chicken (hot, cold, stock made for risotto etc).

Then I buy a selection of veg , fruit and dairy.

I guess if you are house sharing you may be limited by freezer space but you could still put some main meal ingredients in the freezer?

And batch cook so if you make pasta sauce you make double and freeze, etc.

Leftovers for lunch really helps. Otherwise buy some bagged salad leaves (i know they're bad but they're easy) and just add some preprepared protein, boiled eggs, cheese, smoked salmon, chicken etc. You could buy five lunch boxes and prep it on a sunday and just grab a lunchbox out of the fridge.
For dinners I have a 6 week plan with a variety of meals each week meat veg etc. and i have some that can be prepped in advance and frozen others that i can chop the veg and keep it in the fridge until needed so i just throw stuff in the pan with meat and so it depends on the day how busy I am which I choose.

Synedoch I want to come and eat at your house!

I keep packets of cous cous, box of salted crackers, and mini tins of tuna (aldi do ones with spices/dressings in). Those for lunch if I havent made a salad (which I have alongside a cup a soup).

Dinner do stuff that can be tubbed up. Make a veggie chilli, a fajita seasoned mix of peppers, onion and halloumi, and a moussakka. Thats 6 dinners minimum with the possibility of more if you can freeze extras.

batch cook some stuff - make enough for 4 portions, eat one, one for lunch, remainder in portions in the freezer.

For lunches, have your salad base and have plenty of interesting things to go on top - cheese, ham, hard boiled eggs, tuna, cold chicken etc. and things to go with it: Croutons, coleslaw, couscous, seeds, nuts, sweetcorn. Put the dressing on the bottom of the box, then something quite robust over it (like cucumber or corn) and then the lettuce, or the lettuce will be all wilted.

Dinners: Think of all the things you like to eat - eg mince dishes (bolognese, cottage pie, mealoaf etc>) chicken dishes (roast, pie, fajitas), - make some big lists of dishes by category. Then choose a meal by category for each day of the week, keeping an eye on what you could eat two nights in a row or what you could eat as lunch leftovers.

People have covered the actual meals, but in terms of doing the planning: commit to a certain time each week and sit down with a cup of tea and your diary/phone. Think about what you've got on and how that impacts the time you have, also keep an eye on the weather - nothing worse than chicken casserole on a boiling hot day just because you planned it! After three or four weeks you'll have enough meals to do a rotating menu which will take some of the pressure off, but keep the commitment to planning time, it's crucial to making a system work for you. Whenever you do anything like spag bol double up and freeze in individual portions, that way you're never more than 15 mins away from a decent meal if you have access to a microwave to defrost in.

There are some great you tube videos on this. And meal plans available for free. I usually buy and prep lunches for 4 days on Sunday evening. Dinner I plan for but cook on the night. I might repeat the same meal for two nights then onto the next. Things like roast veg can be done Sunday night.

I eg said this before on this type of thread but we go through cookbook themes.
We are currently on HFW more veg, previously it was the Middle Eastern Vegetarian.
We tend to work our way through the books!