In thinking that meal planning can’t be out of the ordinary?

[Fono]

I’ve always operated a system within my household where I will sit down every Sunday morning and plan all of our meals (lunch and dinner) for the following week and then formulate my shopping list based on everything we need specifically for those meals. This means we have minimal wastage at the end of any given week, prevents over-buying and everyone knows exactly what we are eating and when.

I have a board in our kitchen where I’ll write up the meals for the week and recently every time I’ve had a visitor to the house I’m met with the same shocked reaction about meal planning, like it’s a completely foreign concept.

I’d never previously thought that I did anything out of the ordinary and I’d assumed most households did this? If not, I’m genuinely interested to know what other families do? Imo given the cost of living crisis, meal planning is more important than ever!

You got me there However, I spent my Saturday hiking in the Peak District with friends, rather than the morning meal planning on a special whiteboard and then the afternoon in a supermarket

But I just don't understaaaaand.
Right ingredients for what?
You cook based on ingredients you have. Not based on recipe.

I also don't buy fresh herbs. I have my own. If I get some and they don't get used they get chopped into freezer. I have full cupboard of spices and dried herbs. I have stock of basics like tinned tomatoes, dry pulses, etc. Some are just good improvisation chefs, some are good following recipes, it is as simple as that.

I see nice stirfry veg, I buy stirfry veg. Is it going to be used in noodle stir-fry or in rice dish? Maybe made into some kind of spring roll? With fosh or chicken? Who knows. But they will be eaten.

Dill is rank anyway😂

@FivePotatoes , I was thinking of something like pasta in a ready-made sauce, and thought yuk.
The difference, I imagine, is that I will have cooked up a huge batch of it, so only cook once. When I make a curry, there are basic ingredients that I would need to have in, and there are lots of ingredients like spices that are in the store cupboard.

I shop every couple of days to reduce food waste - means nothing goes off in the fridge and I can adapt to changing schedules. Also if we unexpected have leftovers I can utilise them eg I have pork from yesterday and it may do one or two meals depending on who is here for dinner

I don't think it is extraordinary, but I suspect the majority of people I know don't meal plan.

I planned pretty carefully up until very recently when both my kids went to Uni. I had an Ocado delivery at the same time every week, and therefore every week on the night before I would check my cupboards and fridge, sketch out meals for the week, and do the shopping. Meals might move around, but I'd have a rough idea what we would have when, taking into account how much time I would have, who would be around, and eating stuff that wouldn't last well first.

Since the kids left, I've switched to a weekly veg box which is a bit unpredictable, plus a fortnightly Ocado shop. I'm enjoying experimenting a bit more, and eating more vegetarian food, without the kids turning their noses up and wanting spag bol! It's working well, but meal planning worked better before I think.

What I really can't understand is why busy families don't all do an online shop (unless they are going to Aldi/Lidl as it is cheaper but they don't deliver). I can't believe the number of busy women (and it usually women) who waste time going to the supermarket!

I also think it’s entirely subjective to your family’s needs whether it’s necessarily more efficient to have a rigid meal plan. Say you’ve planned a roast chicken dinner for Tuesday, risotto with the leftover chicken and vegetables from Tuesday for Wednesday, and quick omelettes for Thursday because you know you’re going to be late home. But then on Tuesday your last meeting at work badly overruns and you don’t get home until 8pm. You can’t roast your chicken because then you wouldn’t eat before 10pm; which means Wednesday’s dinner plans are also out of kilter because there won’t be any leftover roast chicken and vegetables for the risotto, so you now need to think up something else. And you also can’t use the chicken on Thursday because you already know you needed to plan for something quick and easy.

This would happen to us every single week. If all carefully thought out dinners were chalked up on a board in the kitchen we’d constantly be doing the culinary equivalent of wearing Sunday’s “day of the week” underwear on a Tuesday!

@mast0650

I like the supermarket

I go at least 4 times a week. I find planning stressful whereas I can calculate what I need easier at shorter intervals.

I do do a big shop most weekends that dp pays for, I buy longer life products, household stuff etc but that's usually Lidl, it's literally 2 mins in the car away, we usually walk takes 5-6 mins

Well, I don't get too hung up on whether I should use waxy potatoes or floury ones, for starters.
But you're looking at it the wrong way round. I don't think 'I must cook Mexican tonight – oh shit, I haven't got any coriander!' I look in the veg box and store cupboard and think, 'I've got peppers, onions and some black beans. That sounds a bit Mexican' and look up some recipes. Or if there's lots of root veg and it's a miserable day like today, I'll think of a veg curry, knowing that I've always got rice and the right spices in the cupboard, and whoever is passing the shops on the way home can get some naan breads.

Actually I meal plan. Christmas food. Because I have 2 traditional dinners. Is that meal planning even.

I don't do an online shop because I hate not being able to choose the food I want - whether it's fruit/veg or meat etc. we had to do an online shop a couple of times during lockdown due to positive Covid tests & found we got food a day off from its use by date which was absolutely pointless! Normally I'd pick the ones from the back which had near a week on them.
Plus I think it will depend on location - how close you live to a large supermarket, if you commute etc. I work from home & live semi rurally so don't pass any shops on the school run & have no commute. So I go to the supermarket once a week for the main food shop, & possibly once or twice more if we need something specific from another.

What I really can't understand is why busy families don't all do an online shop (unless they are going to Aldi/Lidl as it is cheaper but they don't deliver). I can't believe the number of busy women (and it usually women) who waste time going to the supermarket!

I do the very occasional online shop but I much prefer to shop in person. I like to pick my own fruit and vegetables so that they're fresh and ripe. I like seeing what new products they have and you don't get yellow stickered items online. I love a bargain especially as it allows me to try items that I'd normally be reluctant to pay full price for. Plus sometimes seeing a random ingredient inspires me.

Friday night I hadn't been shopping and I couldn't be arsed. I usually get take away but I couldn't even be bothered to do that. I had a look in the fridge and wasn't inspired so went to the freezer and cupboards, googled the ingredients I'd found, got a bbc good food recipe that was close enough but I adapted slightly - cooked and ate it. Leftovers in the freezer.

How is that some sort of sad way to be? I don't get it?

Actually some weeks I meal plan I end up wasting more food than I save.

Two weeks ago I planned Sunday to Saturday's meal for the week with no meal plan on the Wednesday as I was working late and DH was going to have tea with DS.

What actually happened was on Sunday Ds and gf turned up unexpectedly and took us out for tea.

Monday Dh didn't feel great and couldn't face eating. I went out with my friend to the cinema ( unplanned)

Tuesday I was asked if I could work late instead of Wednesday so I did that. Wednesday DH had already made arrangements to go out as I was supposed to be working so I invited my friend round and we just had dips, breadsticks and ncie things
Thursday Dh came home after having a bad day and said the infamous words 'pub! now!' so we went out to a nice country pub and had a meal there.
Friday Dh suggested we go away for the weekend so we went to Dumfries until Sunday.

So not one meal from the plan!

Online shop often doesn't work for me because 90% of my shopping is fresh. It's great though when I need to stock up on non perishables!
Tried ordering fresh as well but wasn't as happy with it as when I pick it myself.

That should have said 90% of my regular weekly shopping

Just do this every week and you'll never need to do a supermarket shop ever again.

Online shopping is so longwinded and I don't want someone to tie me down with delivery slots. It just doesn't suit my way of thinking. Depends what's on at work as well, I mightt need to throw myself in to something and mostly I'm terrible in these scenarios, dinner slips my mind until the DC ask if they will be fed any time soon! My DC would faint with surprise if I had plans on fridges!

I can't meal plan for shit. I have tried and tried and tried. 3 adults, freezer full of food and it's spag bol, nacho chilli, toad in the hole, chicken curry.
I've been trying all year to empty my freezer and I just keep filling it back up. I could feed the street with the food in there. It's a childhood trauma response that I really struggle with I must have plenty of everything - just incase. I don't stockpile so much as just need to have 2 of most things. I do feel guilty given current cost of living crisis and people using food banks. I'm working my way through my baking cupboard atm to use up as much of it as possible, aiming to get to just having to replace items as and when they are needed and then I'll get to my tin/pasta cupboards. Might share pictures for reference...
I am terrible, I know.

Just do this every week and you'll never need to do a supermarket shop ever again.
Actually, you could be on to something there!

This week is looking equally chaotic, and it's only Monday!

See I get the bit about looking at what you have and saying "I've got peppers, onions and black beans - basis for Mexican." But I don't understand how you could have co-incidetally, without any thought or planning, just happened to have also bought fresh coriander, fresh chilli, a fresh lime, sour cream, avocado etc. So either lots of the essential ingredients are missing, or some sort of planning process is going on when you shop, albeit a loose, informal one.

I don't actually think the non planners cook shite (although surely there will be a subset who just do basics and convenience food). I think its more likely that most people put more effort into planning their meals and their shopping than they acknowledge.

For example, seeing a delicious looking aubergine and buying courgette/pepper/red onion etc to go with it thinking "I could cooking a nice mediterranean vegetable dish with that lot" is a loose form of planning. As is thinking "I fancy pasta this week, I'll make sure I pick up parmesan/pecorino, fresh lemon, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil etc".

If you're not putting any thought at all into what you're likely to cook and just chucking random stuff in the trolley then its inevitable that there will be food waste, poorly made dishes or the need for top up shops. I don't think many people do that though. They plan loosely in their head as they shop. It may not be rigid, it may not be written down, but it's still a plan.

I don't meal plan because I don't know what I'll want to eat on a given day. I'm unlikely to bother cooking something I'm not in the mood to eat. I have staples (rice, noodles, pasta, chips, veggie meats, various beans, nuts, spices, frozen veg etc) and just rummage around in the cupboards/freezer/fridge until I decide what I want. If there's something nice reduced in the supermarket I'll plan a meal around that.

I assume this is why the "old style" way of doing things is roast dinner on a Sunday when you could assume everyone would be home because the world shut down and then leftovers from it through the week.

This!

lentil stew, indian veg curry, chickpeas in veg pasta sauce, chilli bean todu and rice,, cashew and tempeh stir fry, tofu thai curry, veg sausages, kale & mash or veg and bean fajitas all can be whipped up within 20-30 mins based on what I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry. No recipe needed, always plenty of veg and protein. No need to use convenience foods, why would there be?

Well, I don't feel like I need always to offer an exhaustive list of ingredients and accoutrements. No one in my house is going to kick off if I serve something involving black beans and peppers that omits sour cream or fresh chillis, or a curry that in the recipe has lentils but in my version has chick peas woe betide their arse if they do
Things like limes and avocado I always have in. And I buy those trays of fresh chillis and freeze them. Maybe the difference from a lot of people on here is that we live in a busy neighbourhood with lots of corner shops/greengrocers/supermarkets, and we all walk to and from work, or work from home, so it's trivial for one of us to pop to a shop or to go in on our way home from somewhere. I or someone else can always get fresh coriander, or lime pickle if we've run out, or e.g. sausages if I've got corn on the cob and tomatoes in and decide to roast them and add meat.

I think you're defining 'meal planning' loosely, which is fine; but what this thread is really talking about (the OP anyway) is planning in the way she does it, with a pre-planned shopping list and a board. People like me aren't saying we either shop for every meal from a standing start, or throw together arbitrary things just because we've got them in the house. We're just saying we don't do one shop and plan in advance exactly what we'll cook from it.

Recently started meal planning and wish I'd done it ages ago. I find thinking of what to eat every single evening genuinely wearisome.