Who meal plans here?

[Anonymous]

I hate meal planning and only do it if we are hosting people. I love cooking and like to make whatever inspires me on a given day. In order to pull this off without a lot of extra work or waste, I keep an extremely well-stocked freezer and pantry. We get grocery delivery once a week from Washington’s Green Grocer, and in addition to their large organic box, I’ll add a few things from their a la carte menu that look good. I then come up with a dinner plan each day based on whatever vegetables remain from the box for that week. I go to the grocery store for random items once a month max.

My family are fortunately not picky at all, and love trying new things, but they do have favorites that I work in every few days. Left to my own devices, I would rarely make pasta or meals with ground beef, and I’d make a vegetarian or pescatarian dinner the majority of the time instead of just a couple days per week. But those are really the only constraints, so I’m free to try several new recipes each week. I’ve been very grateful to be able to work from home these last couple of years since I have more time and energy to explore new cuisines and make more elaborate meals. I totally understand why meal planning reduces stress for some families, but it would make me feel too boxed in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can you not? I mean, how can you not without putting on weight, spending a ton, and/or having dinner take three times as long to make?

I plan out our meals on a weekly basis. Often, one will flow into the next -- so leftovers from one night's pulled pork will get used another day for pork tacos, quesadillas, pozole, etc. Or an uneaten salmon filet gets put into a quiche or crepe the next day.

I try to do a mix of crowd favorites and new ideas, and a mix of time/attention-intensive recipes and easier/quicker/set-and-forget stuff. Plus there's always pasta and breakfast-for-dinner if we run into a bind.

This just seems like basic adulting. It's not an exceptional skill.

I don't meal plan specifically and have no problem going to the grocery store once a week. I have plenty of staples on hand, and buy an assortment of proteins. It's not hard. I find rigid things like "taco Tuesday" boring because they quickly become repetitive. I do love to cook, though, and spend a fair amount of time finding and trying new recipes.

Same. I keep a variety of produce, proteins, and breada on hand. My pantry is always well-stocked with staples. I shop once a week and cook dinner most nights.

[Anonymous]

I don't exactly meal plan but something along the lines of: fish 2x/week, chicken legs 1x/week; chicken sausage 1x/week, meatballs 1x/week etc. We don't eat a lot of red meat so occasionally would throw that in. Soup daily for kids except weekends (can you tell I was born in the Soviet Union?) We either eat out or order out twice a week on the weekends. Lunch is usually leftovers or frozen meals from TJs or what not. Sides are whatever veggies look good that week or frozen veggies. We eat a lot of brown rice and potatoes. Kids are little so breakfast is yogurt or cheerios or what have you. It works at this stage in our lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4 in our house, 2 kids now teens. I used to try and meal plan, but tried and gave up too many times to bother. Just keep the house stocked with food, grocery shop once a week for fresh produce, and I usually decide what is for dinner the night before or the morning of (and take chicken, ground turkey or pork, sausage, etc)., out of the freezer. If I see nice looking seafood while at the store for my regular shopping, I will pick that up.

We also do Imperfectfoods.com delivery once a week, and will make a plug for them. You can change what they assign in your box (delete, add, increase) every week, and skip a week or weeks any time. I have found you do have to read why they have what they have (I don't care of the outside of a cantaloupe is scarred or a squash is funny shaped), but some items I have not cared for and won't get again (when a particular stone fruit is too small, I have found it not to be worth it).

Never heard of imperfectfood! You recommend? Do you tend to just buy the produce?

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this counts as "meal planning," but I generally base my weekly shopping on two dishes then eat leftovers. So on Monday I'll shop and buy supplies for, say chili and red curry. Make a pot of chili on Monday, eat leftovers T/W/Th, then make the curry and eat the F/S/Su.

Only one trip to the grocery store and only two days cooking, the rest I can just pop a tupperware in the microwave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It always surprises me when people do not meal plan. My working mom did weekly meal planning, so it was the only thing I knew. Had no idea that some people just wing it and make multiple trips to the grocery store until I was an adult. There was a period of time when I was younger and eating a lot of take out that I didn’t meal plan (I could also walk by the store on the way home from work), but I can’t imagine it with a family.

Me too - so inefficient.

[Anonymous]

Also grew up with my working mom meal planning and shopping 1x a week. Once I married and had kids it made so much sense. Am now an empty nester and have dropped it bc I HATE COOKING.....but realize how much meal planning helped me actually feed my family in a relatively healthy way.

[Anonymous]

I meal plan. I have a table laid out in Word for 7 days with rows for Breakfast (now deleted), Lunch (summer/weekends only) and Dinner. Now that the kids are older I don't use all the rows but I do put in general foods.

Having a meal plan doesn't stop me from being spontaneous, it helps me be creative so that I am not serving the same things all the time. Because I do it online and then print it out, it is easy to look back a few weeks and see what my trends have been and then to think about what people like that I haven't been serving.

And of course it is helpful to know what to shop for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've always meal planned, and was chatting with some co workers about this. They seemed genuinely surprised. This is apparently not a thing? How many of you meal plan? How does your meal plan look?

I have been meal planning for a out 15 years and it makes life infinitely simpler.

For reference I am Gen X. I grocery shop once every two weeks. I meal plan every weekend for the upcoming seven days. I rarely do takeout and make nearly everything from scratch. Maybe twice a month max for takeout. You'll notice my meal Lan us vague BC I'm never quite sure what types if veggies etc I'll have on hand.

My meal plans are general. For 7 days I plan 5 meals BC you always have leftovers. So I'll have a couple smorgasbord nights.This is my 7 day meal plan (5 meals) for this week:

Grilled tofu and grilled veg with spicy sauce (siracha mayo and bell pepper onion)
Salad night (all the toppings and green lentils for protein and barley or farro)
Fish (grilled) tacos with fresh salsa, avocado
Pasta night with basic marinara
Soup night with nuns puffs (puffy bread). Soup this week will be white bean with farro, kale etc.)

I do the same for the second week but by the end if the second week we are eating the cupboards down. At that point there won't be as much fresh veg. But I'll have plenty of frozen. So one night will be a spinach quiche and another night will be a chick pea curry with canned whole tomatoes and brown rich, yoghurt etc. You get the idea. Or black beans and rice with corn salsa roasted, made with frozen corn.

I have been meal planning for years now. I usually do 7 days at a time. On weekend I make the plan for next week and buy groceries. It would be even better to try 2 weeks, but the groceries probably won't fit in the fridge.
I usually plan for at least 5 home made meals + one quick premade meal like chicken pot pie from Costco in case I don't have time to cook a meal from scratch one night. Sometimes we'll eat out. Usually once a week at the most, but I'm trying to cut it down.

[Anonymous]

I never knew this was called Meal Planning. I call it “think about what to have for dinner this week and make sure weekly grocery list includes everything we need.” And I assumed everyone does it. We still do take out once a week. I hate grocery shopping but couldn’t go less than once weekly because we love fresh fruits and vegetables.

[Anonymous]

For those who mentioned frozen vegetables, what do you do with them? Which vegetables? I'd love to keep them on hand, but need ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who mentioned frozen vegetables, what do you do with them? Which vegetables? I'd love to keep them on hand, but need ideas.

Any you like...look at the store. So simple to microwave or cook on the stove. You have really never used them?

[Anonymous]

I meal plan. I can see how it’s what you are used to doing though. I have had weeks that I didn’t meal plan, and it always results in a mad rush with every meal. I’m just not used to thinking about it during the day.
Maybe if I were more used to thinking about it during the day, it wouldn’t come as such a surprise that there is no plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who mentioned frozen vegetables, what do you do with them? Which vegetables? I'd love to keep them on hand, but need ideas.

I keep a mix of the ones we use the most. Corn, baby peas, green beans, carrots, broccoli, mixed vegetables, etc. I cook them in the microwave. Put the whole bag of frozen vegetables in a dish, add a couple tablespoons of butter and nuke for 3-5 minutes (depends on your microwave) until al dente, and serve.

Unless I am making corn on the cob, all the vegetables we eat are the flash frozen kind. Sometimes during the summer I'll get zucchini and stuff like that from the farmer's market but the flash frozen vegetables are just as healthy (if not more healthy) as non-frozen and the shelf life is obviously much longer.

[Anonymous]

We meal plan once a week and go grocery shopping once a week.

I don't have time to be stopping at the store every day to get what I want to make that night. Meal prepping makes it all so much easier. Plus I save money because I only buy what I planned on eating.

We almost never get take out. If I want restaurant food we go out to eat but even that is only 2-3 times a month and less during covid.