A Recipe for Meal Planning in Three Simple Steps

There are many benefits to weekly menu planning, but many people find the idea overwhelming and don't know where to start. There are as many methods to menu planning as there are people who do it, but most successful home cooks and shoppers include similar steps in their strategy. Three easy steps to menu planning are: Take Stock, Plan Your Meals, and Make Your Grocery List.

Take Stock

Start your meal planning by checking your fridge for any leftovers that should be eaten. This will cut back on waste tremendously and help keep your refrigerator cleaner as well. If your family doesn't enjoy leftovers being served for dinner, consider some creative strategies to re-create them to be something new, using dishes like pot pies, shepherds' pie, and casseroles.

After you've considered what perishable foods should be included in your menu plan, step over to the pantry and take stock of any surplus dried goods you may have. It's always best to use and rotate packaged goods and dried products, like pasta, beans, and rice. Also, reminding yourself of these humble, inexpensive ingredients will help you use your resources wisely and save money.

Make sure you have back-ups of often used staples, such as flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and milk. Any ingredients you need to have on hand for favorite recipes and baked goods should be kept in reserve. It's a good idea to keep a shopping list on the fridge or the pantry door. When you open your spare bag of flour or eat the second to last yogurt cup, it's a simple matter to add these things to the list right away.

Other issues to consider and take stock of include any activities or special occasions that will take place during the week. Allow children and other family members to give suggestions about what they'd like to eat, or even assign responsibility for meals on a certain day to older children. Keeping the family invested in what's being served will go a long way to stop complaining at meal times.

Plan Your Meal List

The fun part of meal planning comes when you get to decide what you'd like to cook during the week. Take some time to enjoy browsing through your cookbooks and checking your favorite magazines or cooking shows for new recipes. When you are filling in meals for each day, consider if there will be leftovers, and how you'd like to use them. One good plan is to package leftovers directly into lunch portions and use them for lunch through the week. Or, you can recreate the leftovers and serve them as whole new dishes during the week. The leftovers of a roast chicken dinner can easily become pot pie, soup, any number of casseroles, fajitas, burritos, chicken fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, empanadas, chicken fettuccini... the possibilities can really seem endless.

While some people don't plan breakfasts and lunches while writing down the weekly menu plan, I personally recommend it. It helps to combat the cravings for unhealthy foods when blood sugar drops in the afternoon, and makes sure that breakfasts are provided and that most important meal isn't skipped. It's simple to plan breakfasts by baking muffins or providing bagels for the entire week. I find the most important part is simply to have the plan, so that you don't have to deal with deciding while tired and hungry. Lunches are equally as simple, if you'd like to use leftovers, or even just plan sandwiches. Once again, the key is really the written plan, because it will help assure that you don't run out of bread or sandwich fixings mid-week.

As you write down your meals, bear in mind your family's activities on each day. If you know that you'll be home late, and then will have to turn around and get back to school for scouting or sports, you'll want to make sure you use one of your simplest meals on that day. Pull a pre-made lasagna out of the freezer to heat or plan a slow cooker stew or casserole, so dinner can be as simple and fast as possible, but still homemade and healthy.

Make Your Shopping List and Go Shopping

The best way to make your grocery list at this point is to simply look at each meal you've written down and consider what ingredients you'll need to purchase for that recipe. Add all of these items to the list you started while checking the pantry for staples. When you get home from the store, you will save a lot of time and trouble for yourself later in the week if you prep or clean any veggies before putting them away. Any meat that's meant for the freezer should be divided into meal-sized portions, and packaged appropriately.

After that, it's a simple matter of checking your menu each day to see what's coming up and should be prepped. If you have to get items out of the freezer or want to remember to bake a batch of muffins ahead for breakfasts, this can be noted on the day it should happen. Menu planning is such an effective tool, and doesn't have to be difficult at all. Following these straight-forward tips will allow you to get started right away.