60 easy recipe ideas for meal planning along with step-by-step instructions and meal planning tips for beginners!
Do you spend a lot of time staring at the random ingredients in your fridge, wondering what you should eat for dinner? Are you making frequent, unplanned trips to the grocery store because you are missing a couple of key ingredients for making dinner? Do you often find yourself throwing away produce because you couldn’t cook it before it went bad?
Buying groceries without a plan is a huge waste of money AND food. Making a shopping list before heading to the store is good, but that alone is not enough.
You need a MEAL PLAN! I know what you are thinking, it is too time consuming and complicated. It really doesn’t need to be! I’m going to show you an easy way to meal plan and give you ideas for easy foods you can eat for dinner.
Meal planning will save you hundreds of dollars on your grocery bills and reduce food wastage. Because you can now buy exactly how much you need and nothing goes to waste.
And you won’t need to waste precious time on weekday evenings thinking about what to eat for dinner.
Stress-free life is within your grasp! With meal planning, you can rest assured knowing that your kitchen is stocked with everything you need for dinner!
MEAL PLANNING STEPS FOR BEGINNERS
1. Get your FREE meal planning & grocery list printable
Before we begin, grab your free meal planning and grocery list printable. You can use it to plan your meals for the whole week. And you can write down the ingredients to create your grocery list – all on one page!
2. Start by meal planning for one week at a time
Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to meal plan for the whole month at once. Start small! Meal plan for a week and buy the groceries for it. Personally, I like to meal plan every 2 weeks. This way I only have to go to the grocery store twice a month.
3. Find a cooking routine for yourself
Based on your schedule, decide how many days and how many meals you want to cook during the week. Dhruv and I can only cook in the evening because of our schedules. So we make enough food to eat it for dinner that night and for lunch the next day.
This way we have a packed lunch and don’t need to order in or eat out. We just heat it and it’s ready to go! So I only meal plan for dinners. That’s 7 meals for the week. Depending on your availability, decide how often you can cook during the week.
4. Mark the days when your schedule is tight
On your printable, mark your weeknights that are particularly busy so that you can plan for super quick dinner ideas.
5. Decide what you want to eat for dinner
List your favorite weekday meals and comfort foods. If you need help with recipe ideas for meal planning, keep reading!
6. Make your grocery list
Now that you have all your meals planned out, think of each recipe and write down the ingredients you need to make it. Once you have your grocery list, cross check your fridge, freezer and pantry for these ingredients. This way you won’t accidentally buy something you already have!
Tear the grocery list section of the meal planning printable and carry it with you to the store!
IDEAS FOR MEAL PLANNING
Before we started meal planning, we used to spend $800 a month on dining out. (Toronto is expensive!) Learning some quick and easy things to cook, and meal planning helped us reduce our dining out budget to $50!
That is a savings of $9000 a year!! 😊
This wasn’t an overnight change. We progressively reduced our budget over 4 months. I’ve written step-by-step instructions on how to effectively reduce your budget for any category.
We had to slowly rewire ourselves and make it a habit to cook at home instead of opening an app and ordering dinner. The best way to overcome the temptation to get take-out food is to cook that dish at home!
That was Dhruv’s inspiration for writing the 60+ Recipes of the World book!
This FREE recipe book has 60+ quick and easy recipes from cuisines around the world to satisfy your takeout food temptations!
The book has easy-to-follow instructions. Each recipe has a list of ingredients so that you can quickly create your grocery list in your meal planning printable.
As an added bonus, the recipe book also has categories for breakfast, smoothies, sandwiches and so much more!
If you don’t have time to cook everyday, you can use these recipes for meal prepping as well! Almost all of the recipes can be meal prepped in advance.
These recipes are super versatile. You can modify the recipe to suit your cravings! For example, use the chicken from the chicken fajitas recipe in the book to make a rice bowl, shawarma, burritos, quesadilla, sandwiches or even a salad! Let your cravings guide your imagination! 😊
TIPS TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR MEAL PLANNING GOALS
- Set aside 30 mins before your week begins to create your meal plan. Also schedule a time for your grocery run.
- Try shopping for groceries online or make it a pickup order. It saves hours of your time. Plus you won’t get tempted by the random deals at the store.
- Before you create your meal plan, take note of items in your fridge that you need to use before they go bad.
- Discuss the meal plan with your family. If they are picky eaters, it’s better to take that into consideration during the planning stage. Try theme nights to spice up weeknight dinners. For example: Tiki Thursday, Taco Tuesday, make-your-own pizza night and so on!
- Avoid overwhelming yourself. Start by meal planning no more than 2 meals per day. Initially create your meal plan for just one week. Once you get the hang of it, your success will inspire you to make meal planning a habit!
- Try not to schedule too many unknown or new recipes in one week. Cooking a new recipe tends to take a little longer than a well-known recipe. The best tip I can give you is that when you learn a new recipe, keep it in regular rotation so that you can get faster and better at it!
- Once you have your grocery list for the week, stick to it! Avoid the temptation to buy unplanned food. Most probably it will go bad before you can eat it because you don’t have a plan for it.
Here are some more meaningful ways to save hundreds of dollars on groceries. If you spend too much money on restaurants and groceries, be sure to check out how you can control your budget with 4 simple steps.
I hope these simple instructions and ideas for meal planning have inspired you to give it a shot! Let me know how this works out for you! Share your thoughts and tips in the comments below. 😊