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Meal planning basics

You are here: Home / Kitchen BASICS / How-to / Meal planning basics

28/05/2018 By //  by Gaby Leave a Comment

Always wanted to get started with meal planning but didn’t know how? Here’s our quick guide on how to make meal planning simple.

HOW TO MEAL PLAN

  • Sit down for 10 to 15 minutes a week to plan your meals.
  • Think back over last week’s meals and try to do something different. Ask the other members of the household for ideas.
  • Think about your week and know when you have time to cook and how many meals you will need to cook.
  • Look in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what ingredients you need to use.
  • Look at previously ‘food banked’ freezer meals and plan to eat them.
  • Enter your choices on your meal planner or meal planning app. Share it to avoid the daily ‘What’s for dinner?” question.
  • Write out your shopping list, including all the sides. Double ingredients for freezable meals where possible (our app does this easily for you).
  • Don’t forget snacks or lunchbox fillers, breakfasts and lunch basics like cereal, bread, cheese, fruit etc.

PLANBUYCOOK APPROACH

Our meal planning formula is 4+2+1 = Dinner done.

Cook 4 meals from scratch each week. Double two of them and freeze half for a few weeks down the track.

Take 2 meals from the freezer, and simply cook some pasta, rice, salad or veggies on the night as required.

Make 1 meal super simple: leftovers, takeaway or something easy like toasted sandwiches or eggs on toast.

4+2+1. Meal planning made simple.

MEAL PLANNING IDEAS

Creating a bit of routine can make it easier to meal plan if you don’t know where to start. Here are some ways people plan their meals:

Plan by days of the week
e.g. Monday = BBQ
Tuesday = pasta night
Wednesday = roast

Plan by cuisine
Monday = Italian
Tuesday = Mexican
Wednesday = Asian

Plan by time available
Monday = sport = quick meal
Tuesday = day off = slow meal
Wednesday = frantic = freezer meal

And others just PlanBuyCook!

Filed Under: How-to, PLAN

Get the Plan Buy Cook meal planning app, available for iPhone and iPad to get dinner done. The Plan Buy Cook Book is available worldwide via Amazon or at all good Australian bookstores and online through Booktopia.

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