Meal Planning Ideas - Some Ideas For Weekly Meal Planning

Planning a meal might seem obvious, but why should you go to the bother of planning meals?

I mentioned a few reasons on the main Meal Planning page but I thought I’d go into a bit more detail here with a proper meal planning guide.

When I started cooking properly, I was very keen to try every new recipe I could. This was fine in theory, but I soon found that I couldn’t get some ingredients, or I didn’t understand some of the cooking techniques. Usually I found this out just before I started cooking!

Mealtimes also got a little chaotic. I didn’t plan what I was making in advance, but went day-to-day. As usual, other things got in the way so dinners didn’t always turn out to be what I wanted.

It was about then I learned about meal planning. I would plan out my meals a week at a time so I always knew what I was going to cook. This made grocery shopping a breeze as I could build my shopping list from the recipes.

Another great aspect of meal planning is that you can sometimes prepare things ahead of time. For example, if I’m cooking a couple of dishes that all call for diced onion, or sliced capsicum or whatever, I’ll make some large batches and store them in the fridge. This really cuts down on my preparation time!

Sometimes you’ll have a recipe that says you need to marinate something overnight. With meal planning you’ll already know this and so it makes the whole cooking process easier and more enjoyable.

Meal planning also allows you to space out different types of food, so you’re not eating the same things every day. I’ll try to plan to have, say, a pasta dish on Monday, a red meat dish on Tuesday, a vegetarian dish on Wednesday, a chicken dish on Thursday, perhaps a baked lasagne on Friday, and a barbecue on Saturday. Often I’ll have something really light on a Sunday night, like tea and toast!

Planning meals also allows you to take advantage of what foods are currently in season. I recommend becoming a loyal customer of your local butcher and greengrocer. They’ll have the best quality produce and will be more than happy to advise you on what’s in season, and what foods are coming up soon. So how do I plan my meals? Easy!

I keep a diary by the phone in the kitchen where I write phone messages, what I’m doing that day, and at the bottom of each day I’ll write what dish I’m cooking, and which recipe book (with page number) it’s in. This approach is nice and simple and you don’t need to make fancy charts.

I can also look back through the weeks and see when I last had a particular dish, or if I need a little inspiration to decide what to make! After a short while, planning a meal becomes really easy!

Give these meal planning ideas a try, and I think you’ll soon wonder how you got by without them!

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