1 Month Menu Plan Filipino Dish
Práxedes Jamal
Ever wish you could make your groceries last longer? This Costco Meal Plan and grocery list will help you make enough dinners for a family of four for one month for under $250!
It used to drive me crazy how quickly we would go through food in our house. Setting aside the food that I need for the recipes I develop for this blog and for clients, our family of four still goes through a LOT of food on our own. And we go through the food WAY too quickly!
A few years ago, I started learning how to shop and cook smarter. I learned how to shop once and eat for a week. Then, I learned how to shop once and eat for a month. I just go to the store for fill-in items; my one big shopping trip
And admittedly, I do get tired of it sometimes that I just give in and get pizza. But listen: that's a-okay. I think it's important, especially when times are challenging, to give ourselves grace. We do the best we can with what we have.
The list and recipes for my Costco meal plan below are what I use in general during normal times. However, these are not normal times. And this meal plan has already been helpful just a few days into home quarantine!
Most of us have a big box bulk store like Costco or Sam's Club in our towns. Here's a look at the groceries I can buy at my local Costco for $242.70. Note: prices vary by location and do not include tax because we don't have sales tax in Oregon.
The savings on meat alone is one of the main reasons I shop at the big box store. I'm still researching local farms to see if they can give me this much meat for this cheap -- and this much variety of meat too, not just one kind. But for now, I'm gonna stick with Costco.
This Costco meal plan of course doesn't include every single little item in every one of these recipes. That's because I'm not including items I usually already have on hand and do not normally buy at Costco.
Fresh herbs can take a dish from okay to amazing, so herbs that I don't grow in my garden I will pick up from the store as needed. We also go through a lot of bananas and salad, so I buy those items fresh each week. I've never found pasta or eggs that I like at Costco, so I buy those locally.
The trick to ensuring we actually USE all of the food as effectively as possible is to prep as much as possible right away. As soon as I get home from buying groceries, I put the basics away and start prepping.
Chop carrots, celery, and onions for various uses. I always have bags full of mirepoix - chopped carrots, celery, and onions - in my freezer. This is the starter base for so many soups, sauces, stir-fries, and more. You can see in the photo above that I chop some of these vegetables larger for roasts and chopped finer for classic mirepoix prep.
Divide the meat into amounts per meal. For chicken thighs, chicken breasts, and ground turkey, this is pretty easy. Those items are usually already divided into packaging per pound. Depending on what you are cooking, you may want to divide the meat into half-pound freezer bags.
Slice and cut citrus into wedges. I use lemons every single day - in my water, for cooking and baking - and there's no way that even I would go through 5 pounds of lemons in a month. That's a lot of lemons! So I slice a few lemons and cut a few more into wedges. I freeze those for later.
Here's a look at a general idea of what I would make using the ingredients listed above. These meals would cover my family of four for one month. And for less than $250, plus the cost of odds and ends from my weekly trip to the local grocery store.
So, with one Costco shopping trip plus what we already have on hand, I can feed my family of four a whole month's worth of dinners for under $250. We usually round out dinner with fruit and a salad or cut veggies.
With the recipes listed above, we often end up having leftovers. So I will freeze half for a second meal to enjoy in the future. This helps us stretch our dollar - and our food supply! - even further!
Holy Cow! Well, no cow 'cause you dont' do red meat at home, but wow! Our Costco trips obviously need some planning because they are in no way as organized as your list. We do quite a few of the same meals as your family is eating but throw in pork adobo, enchiladas and a few quickie freezer type for our rushed nights. Our go-to side dishes are potatoes, asparagus and corn. We're currently planning and shopping on a weekly basis. Might have to take a look at doing it on a monthly basis - I feel inspired!
Wow - great job. Lately, I've been doing a weekly shopping run and then one major day of prep cooking, but as things have gotten busier lately it's been hard to pull this off on a weekly basis!
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Hi! If you're looking for easy, fast, delicious family-friendly recipes, wine pairings, and travel tips, you've come to the right place! I'm Marlynn - a cookbook author, writer, photographer, and mom of two teenagers + a lovable lab retriever. I hold a WSET 2 with Distinction in wine, and am a member of Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) and the International Food, Wine, and Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA).
When I began my food budget challenge it was because I had to figure out how to negate the effects of COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the numbers. After stocking up for three months (and trying to find peanut butter and applesauce on nearly empty shelves), I was left with just $200 a month for food.
After I announced to the world that I was dedicated to staying within our budget, which meant trying to strategize menus for a family of six, using just two, crisp $100 bills each month, people began to ask what in the world I was feeding my family.
By using my cost figures as a model, you can begin creating your own weekly menus, based on what you find on sale at the grocery store and farmers markets. You will begin to lower your grocery bills dramatically.
I wish I could tell you that we are terribly adventurous when it comes to the first meal of the day, but, we are not. Nope! We stick with good old cream of wheat or oatmeal pretty much seven days a week.
The boys add a little cocoa to their cream of wheat to make it into cocoa wheats and Larry and I add fruit and a splash of plant-based milk to our oatmeal every morning. Oatmeal contains a boatload of fiber and protein. It truly is a great way to fill up and take care of your health at the same time.
I did begin the week with my smoky white bean soup. Then, for two days we ate what I am calling an elbow macaroni trio. I created a three different hot pasta dishes, beginning with a base of elbow macaroni and then adding leftover sauces and pesto that I had in the fridge. They were amazing!
Happily, the food went further than I thought it would and I wound up with plenty of leftovers to package up for my husband and sons to take to work for lunch the next day. Overall, it was a win-win situation.
Not making the best use of leftover food is undoubtedly the primary way that food rots in the fridge and winds up being thrown out. Here is a list of strategies to get you well on your way to saving money on feeding your family and not pitching food into the garbage can.
This week, we indulged in some beloved seasonal produce for our side dishes, including roasted beets and oil-free cabbage slaw. I had a handful of potatoes left over from my last 50# organic potato haul and wound up mashing them and serving them topped with homemade pesto. Divine! Finally, homemade baked beans are not only easy, they are always a great idea. You can make them in the crockpot in a snap and they are incredibly inexpensive.
What I would love for you to do over the next two weeks is watch my entire Keto 101 series where I explain everything you need to know about the Keto diet. And while you are doing that you will follow this meal plan for 7 days straight before going into my meal plan for week 2. Over the next 4 weeks I will give you 4 meal plans, use each meal plan for a week before switching over. At the end of it you should find yourself familiar with Keto and hopefully a few pounds lighter.
While I use a lot of avocado oil for my cooking there are some alternatives available. You can use butter, ghee, olive oil, coconut oil, lard, chicken fat, duck fat, bacon fat and goose fat for your cooking. You want to avoid all hydrogenated vegetable oils. Stick to the list above for cooking
In the video I mention not to throw the broccoli stem. There are 3 uses for it. You can make my broccoli cheddar soup. You can cut the stalk into cubes and boil it and use it like a fake potato in my Keto poha recipe. And you can use it to thicken your sauces by boiling it and then blending it into a puree like I did in my Keto pot roast recipe. If you are vegetarian you can use cottage cheese instead of the beef. You can also used crumbled tofu.
For vegetarians, paneer and halloumi are good options or even fresh buffalo mozzarella. The salad is just lettuce with baby spinach and cherry tomatoes and a bit of cabbage shredded in. You can also make your own salad mix or just buy it from the store. You can also substitute the soya sauce for the more Keto friendly coconut aminos.
Just edit the quantities based on your appetite. If you have left over food you can always freeze it for up to a full month. So this is more just a list, quantities will vary based on how much you eat.
You need to adjust it to your requirements. Two servings is just a general serving size because I have to input one. If you are a 5 foot woman you will have different requirements from a 6 foot tall male. So take a bowl of it, eat and if you are hungry eat more, if you struggle to finish the bowl leave it and eat it later/next day.
Happy new year Judy! As I mentioned in the post itself, some creamed spinach is good. Maybe throw in some cheese on your eggs. Or just a side salad with olive oil, salt and lime. Maybe some asparagus.
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