What problems do you face with meal planning and how do you solve them?

[leokorr]

I'll go first 😁I have two main issues with meal planning:

1. It becomes repetative very fast, since I don't know a lot o frecipes.
2. It is hard to prep for everyone in the house, since tastes could greatly vary.

I was constantly looking for new recepies, but it is also time consuming so now I'm looking into how to automate it (maybe with some app or smth)

After 20 years of it I have acute decision fatigue. I can really see the appeal of having a rota ( pasta Monday, stir fry Tuesday etc) but can’t bring mys of to actually do it.

After years of meal planning I'm bloody sick of it. I'd happily live on bread and cheese or salad and hummus personally. I realise this is absolutely no help but I needed to rant.

I solve it by ordering from meal boxes. Not the cheapest option but works out reasonably for 2 as no waste

My main issues are a lack of inspiration and the fact that I don't tolerate dairy well any more. I'm not sure why not knowing many recipes would be a problem tbh - there are millions of recipes online!

I have an app called Stashcook. It's for storing and organising recipes you've found online. You can also alter the number of people/portions and it automatically changes the quantities of the ingredients.

Gousto

Four week rota.

And some of the items are not that different eg pasta pesto with salad and pasta with carbonara sauce and salad.

But it works for us.

Saturdays I usually cut loose and make something new and exciting and spend time looking on Insta and old recipe books for that.

Definitely the decision fatigue. I've started writing down meals when I think "ooh I really fancy xxx one night" because when I sit down to actually plan, nothing comes to mind. So my list of stuff I fancy helps with inspiration. Otherwise it's just repetitive.

On top of that I'm trying to lose weight and feed two kids who are apparently always hungry, and a husband who's doing a fairly manual job at the moment. So it's a challenge finding stuff we will all enjoy.

I'd happily eat a lot of fish and salad but DS hates fish. I don't want to eat a lot of pasta, but it's quick and filling for DH and the kids. Dd will eat most things, until she won't. We're trying to eat less upf stuff as well. We have a pretty small window to cook, eat, and get the kids to bed in the evening so food needs to be simple and easy.

It's a lot to ask to come up with lots of interesting, tasty, healthy easy to cook meals that fit all those criteria.

This is me! I swear when the kids move out I will eat cereal, toast, cheese and biscuits, posh crisps and dips with the odd M&S ready meal thrown in. Maybe some fruit so I don't get scurvy!

My problem with planning is the endlessness of it and then having planned stuff having to cook and eat it when I no longer feel like it. The other problem I have now I have teen DC is I'm never sure when they are going to be eating at home so often either make far too much or not enough food.

None of this is any help I realise!

• Decision fatigue
• having to choose things I wouldn’t normally in order to cater for the whole family
• Ridiculous subs in shopping order or short dates
• sick to death of being responsible for 21 meals a week for 5 people

I know. I dream of sitting in front of the TV with a plate of feta cheese, hummus and flatbreads, washed down with Prosecco and followed by chocolate. Good point about scurvy though!

If money is not the primary concern then meal boxes. Even for a month or two to build up a stack of interesting meals. I get them every fortnight then repeat the ones I like. I save a huge amount of money by not going to the supermarket. Gusto os my favourite.

Maybe a few olives would ward off scurvy?

What problems do I face with meal planning ? I'm sick to death of it and despite 17 years of asking DH will never be proactive and give it some thought.

How do I solve the problem ? I haven't yet found the answer to this. Does my head in.

I spent an afternoon collecting a few recipes under the headings slow cooker, pasta, easy and DIY. I gave each category a day so each day has 6 recipes to it. Then I wrote down all the ingredients for each meal. It is in excel so now when I do the weekly shop, I select a meal for each day and then skip to the shopping lists. I plan for 4 days as DH tends to sort Friday and weekend cooking out

Both parents working rotating shifts covering a 24/7 pattern but one parent working an 8 day pattern abd the other a 10 day pattern so it's never the same.

so meals may need to be portable but with full kitchen facilities available to finish (me) or portable with solely a microwave (Dh). Or the meal needs to be quick to prep

I’m 47 years in and, as of July 1, I will only cook for me, DH can do his own meals.
He’s recently decided that he’s ‘gone off’ certain foods but, apart from cheese, things cooked in sauces and eggs, he can’t tell me what else he won’t eat until he tries whatever I’ve cooked. He’s been on a certain medication for 3 years and has just read the long list of side effects and decided he’s got this one 😵‍💫🤬
I have said I will not cook for him after this month as I’m not wasting time, money and effort. It suits me down to the ground because a) I hate food shopping and cooking and b) I can happily live on salads, homemade soup, fresh bread and fruit. I will also save a lot of money!

Depends on age of DC but I delegate. Breakfast and lunch everyone fends for themselves; they need to tell me in advance if anything needs to be added to weekly shop. Two of the dinners are cooked by DC and one by DH; crucially they need to decide what to cook (and get it any missing ingredients added to weekly shop). We live centrally so if they don’t pre plan they can just overpay in the local corner shop; either way not my problem.

@DaffydownClock This is perfect. I love all the foods you do so could quite happily live like this.

Same here. Total boredom. I do the planning on a 3 week rota. I tried to do themed but it was too restrictive. DS2 is veggie so we mostly eat vegetarian and only have meat on Sundays for dinner. I've tried all sorts of ways to shake up the meal planning - lolly stick lottery, Cherrypick app, lists of recipes but I've just gone back to the 3 week rota. Boring but no one else seems to mind. I just get sick to death of it. I change the rota when I get a new diary 😄

That sounds brilliant! Do I need to do an excel course to be able to do it? So you click on thecrecipe ypu want and it populates a shopping list? Do you need to do an excel course to be able to it? Actually DH did an excel - we call it global shopping list- which he enjoyed so I'll task him with that!

1 Join our meal planning thread. Useful to get ideas from what other people are doing.

2 I also write down ideas or save recipes as I go that look interesting. Similarly, partly from the meal planning thread and partly from writing down most of my meal plans, sometimes I do a quick scroll through to get ideas of things I've done previously but perhaps have forgotten about. (I have also created a spreadsheet but it needs updating!

3 my problem was often around storage and freshness. I did actually solve that with additional fridge space and then a little careful planning to use things that are more perishable at the front of the week.

4 managing different dietary requirements is also an issue for us at times. DD is dairy free and a bit fussy. I have a combination of solutions for this.
a) I try at least a couple of times a week to prepare something we'll all like - eg baked/roasted chicken, spaghetti bolognaise, meatballs etc.
b) When I make things like the above, I make enough extra to freeze or save additional portions for DD for days we're having things she can't/won't eat. Or leftovers might be turned into something totally different for the rest of us but DD will just have the same meal two days in a row.
c) I choose a base ingredient everyone likes but might prepare it differently. eg, this week we're having steak. DD likes hers basically as a steak, with "normal" boring veg on the side. I will cook hers that way. The rest of us, this week, will have ours turned into delicious steak sandwiches, with a slaw and fried mushrooms. On other days, I might turn it into a stir fry for us or whatever.
d) I have a small number of very easy meals we can prepare as we need to for DD if necessary that are totally separate - eggs, pasta/pesto with bacon/chicken, pre-made crumbed chicken pieces and chips etc.

I have the Cherrypick app, and mostly it makes meal planning and shopping pretty easy. I'm fortunate that there's no fussy eaters or dietary requirement in the family.

However, I still have some issues - mostly teenagers not telling me til the 11th hour that they're out for dinner and short dates on online shopping delivery. Also have a problem that no-one in our house seems to know how to use a shopping list (very simple list, on the fridge, where we're meant to add things if they're close to running out so that I can add them to the online shop) so I often get a teenager/husband complaining that they've run out of deodorant/shampoo/stuff for packed lunches etc. If it's not on the list, it doesn't get bought, and I'm not running round after grown adults asking them if they need anything added to the shop (although I normally let them know when I'm doing the shop and remind them to make sure anything they need is on the list).

My problem is fitting cooking round family life.

So I plan and buy a weeks meals, and then it turns out that one day someone misses the train home, or there is an unexpected sports practice scheduled, or DH or I suddenly have to work late.
So we have to shunt things around, and then it turns out the meal that takes much longer to prep has the shortest dates, and needs to be cooked straight away, so either we have to stick it in the freezer and order a takeaway, or end up cooking it after the sports practice and we all end up eating at 9.

I do my best by shopping in person and rummaging around to get the longest dates on everything. But it still all falls apart sometimes. DH often fails to look at dates when he is shopping.

Luckily my family aren’t bothered about repetitiveness at least!
I have about 15 things I make on repeat, some more than others, then others that are more of a one-off.

i get a veg box which helps as everything based around that. I have never checked a use by date in my life, it’s all a scam. Have a well stocked store cupboard. And only ever make one dinner, no alternatives. Don’t often follow recipes either, just use whatever we have.

Ooh, I like the idea of theme days - some structure without getting too samey. Might try that