Weekly menu. How to plan the meals of the week

How to plan the meals of the week. Weekly menu.

“What do we eat today?” It is one of the questions that can stress us the most when dinner time is approaching.

Our energies are already on the ground, if you have kids, it is time for the bathroom routine and you are hungry, you are married, but there is still much to do and … and … and dinner ?

It is tedious to find inspiration to make dinner or food every day. Sometimes, some ingredient is missing to prepare what we feel like. Other times, you end up juggling so many ingredients that you have on hand that the result is not very good.

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Others, you end up eating ” what you have “, because it is about to expire or that vegetable or that special meat, begins to spoil for not having planned your weekly menu.

Breathe Yesterday was the last day that you didn’t plan your weekly menu.

You think about it once and it’s over. You get rid of a problem. Instead of wasting time, every day, thinking about what you could do, you invest it in a moment, organize it and then everything is simplified.

In this post we will help you a lot, as we do month by month with the monthly batch cooking , it is a way to plan, organize and eat delicious. They are all advantages.

What are the advantages of planning your meals for the week

• You save time thinking about what to eat each day.
• At a glance, you can know if you are including a varied diet week by week.
• You save money, make better use of what you have, and waste less food.
  1. You do not need to buy things that you are not going to use, but what you need to complete the planned recipes.
  2. You waste less. And this also helps you save money. Because you prevent fruits or vegetables from spoiling or dairy products from expiring.
  3. Just as it is not advisable to go to the supermarket hungry because you end up buying more things than you need, it can be frustrating to be hungry, open the fridge or your pantry, and realize that you do not have to combine with anything.
• You can eat healthier. In advance, you can know what type of food you want to prepare or heat that day. Cooking with hunger sometimes means pulling what you have or what you find in the grocery store (or neighborhood store or store) to put in the oven or microwave and voila. Frozen pizza? Ultraprocessed for frying and that’s it?
• Be realistic, we all love to eat wonderful recipes every day. Some have been around for a while.
• No more discussion about what to cook.

Recommendations to plan your weekly menu

Set a time in your week to do it. Sunday after lunch? When the kids have gone to bed? While you watch a series? While you are on the bus or waiting for your children to leave their activity?

Check what you have in the fridge and in the cupboard to see if it is necessary to use something that must be disposed of before it breaks or expires.

Think, what do you want to eat? It is a good time to ask the family and get everyone involved. It can be a good exercise so that everyone has their favorite dish at some time of the week.

How will the weather be? Will it be hot or cold? How is the agenda for the week? If it’s going to be one of those busy weeks, it’s best to throw in basic and quick dishes, or prepare a casserole to reheat or freeze in portions.

To the mess! How to plan your weekly menu

Choose the dishes you are going to cook. Organize them according to the time you have available per day or, directly, the order of preparation to do a complete batch cooking session for the whole week.

• If you do not know what to prepare with what you already have or you fancy a dish but you do not know what ingredients you will need or how it is prepared, remember that right here in our search engine you will find all kinds of recipes and ingredients with which you can start organizing.
• Check what you need and make the shopping list, taking into account what you have and what you need,
• You can leave some space to rest and take advantage of those tuppers in the freezer, for example. It can also be your day to take advantage of the freezer emergency kit and use the frozen vegetable bags you have reserved for when you don’t feel like cooking or time.
• Those vegetables and an egg will make a spectacular stir. And if you add some cheese, it will be even more substantial and balanced.

Take the agenda or make a basic template with 7 columns, one per day of the week, and rows for breakfast, snack and dinner; if you are looking to have an overview of what you will eat.

Organize your menu as follows

Unless you already have a preset menu or follow medical indications or have any allergies or intolerances, you can organize your menu as follows.

• Vegetables and legumes must be every day . As a main dish or as a generous accompaniment to some protein or hydrate or cereal. What’s wrong? What are you missing? What do you fancy?
• Select which days you will eat meat and which fish .
• And what day do you want to make some pasta with vegetables, for example. It is a fast and very nutritious dish.
• Choose a new dish to incorporate into your recipe book. There is always something new to discover, a new way to prepare something you like or to broaden your tastes with a more exotic recipe!

Surely there will be a day that you prefer to dedicate time to yourself instead of the kitchen or a day of agenda chaos.

For those days, write down on your menu to reheat a tupper or make some vegetables steamed or microwaved , as I already mentioned . I have a whole section of easy recipes to make, which can be a good kick to prepare the weekly menu.

If you are going to take a tupper to work or you have planned a lunch or dinner during the week, record it in the menu you are planning, so as not to repeat the same type of food during the day.

A trick that works very well is deciding what type of food will be the highlight each day of the week, for example:

• Monday vegetables
• Tuesday, fish
• Wednesday, vegetable
• Thursday meat
• Friday hydrates
• Saturday meat
• Sunday, vegetable

Keep it real. Normally, weekends are usually chosen to eat out.

If this is your case or if you have planned a meal with friends or family, write it on your menu and do not buy food for those days. Save money and don’t waste food.

Some ideas to include in your weekly menu . Our favorite recipes

Any meat or fish grilled or baked, can be accompanied with some potatoes in the microwave and so you will have the food ready in 15 minutes or some spinach with cream .

What fish? for example this baked sea bass .

The microwave becomes an ally to cook this turbot .

A good way to incorporate seafood and fish into our weekly menu planning may be to make a papillote salmon .

Minced meat, chicken or turkey, also minced, can be converted into succulent hamburgers .

If you have more time, the baked sweet potato strips can work.

For the day that you do not feel like cooking or that you have to take advantage of part of the fish that you have already cooked another day, this cod omelette is phenomenal. Or croquettes that are always a solution for what you need to recycle.

What if instead of pasta we make zucchini spaghetti and we make them with pesto?

A different salad could be this one with three cheeses and nuts . And this one with chickpeas and vegetables is very strong and fast as fast as this salmorejo .

An ace up your sleeve that you always like, this chicken curry with rice that is ready in 15 minutes , less than it takes to decide to plan the weekly menu.

And these grilled prawns .

Those frozen or fresh vegetables can be the perfect complement to the plate of pasta or rice or couscous .

In summary

Start step by step to see which recipes work best for you and how you have felt or what you have missed. Learn, improve and perfect your weekly menu planning. Put it into practice for a week.

If you have no idea of ​​cooking, you have come to the right place, here we will teach you how to cook from scratch . Then little by little, you will be able to plan your meals better and in the end make more complex planning.

And if you’ve never planned a menu, start with the weekly. You will have time to come upstairs and plan the month.