Tips on meal planning for family

[Littleraysofsunshine]

Do you make lists I meals? How do you plan your shopping trip?

I want to cook some hearty meals and make sure I know what I'm cooking each day but my shopping trip doesn't go to plan with two under two in tow.... Distraction so I forget half what I need then struggle to make meals up.

I want to do hearty, healthy nutritious meals each day. And stuff I can also cook and it all last for a few days like stews Etc

Tips please on how you plan your meals for your family!!

For midweek meals, I try to do 1 pasta, 1 vegetable-based, 1 chicken, 1 red meat and 1 fish so that there's a good balance across the week and also to help inspire me. If I know I've already got sausages and salmon on the list, then I'll hunt down a chicken curry recipe and think of a nice pasta dish.

Then - for each meal - I try to think of a way to get some veg in there. If it's not already part of the dish, then what could I serve on the side?

I write each meal on the calendar, so that I can remember what to get out of the freezer before I leave for work in the morning. Either DH or I can crack on with making dinner while the other one's putting DD to bed.

Finally, I divide up my shopping list so that all the fruit and veg is listed together, all the fish and meat and all the dairy - then everything else. I'm much more likely to forget stuff if it's all jumbled up in a random order.

HTH

Mine are older so I ask he family to choose a meal for one night in the week each and as I'm the cook I get to choose the others .

We have things like

Lobby (local stew dish)
Toad in the hole
Spag Bol
Roast dinners
Chicken korma
Fish pie
Fish and chips
Spanish omelette
Cottage pie
Homemade burgers

If you have a look on bbc food I think there is a section on meal planning.

Anyway, basically I make a meal plan each week and then shop for it. It's much cheaper for me to do it that way. I know some people have a fixed rolling meal plan but that would drive me a bit crazy.

If shopping is a problem, could you do it online?