Meal planning basics

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!