How do you meal-plan?

[Amanda]

What is your method of planning out the week's meals?

I normally wake till I'm hungry (so I'm more motivated to think about food), think about what sounds good to me, search around online for mouth-watering recipes, write up a grocery list of the ingredients + everyday staples, then go shopping.

Switching to doing this from just shopping whenever I felt like it and improvising in the aisles has led to multiple hundreds of dollars in savings. I'm sure if I also took into account per serving cost of each meal I could cut this cost down even more.

[Karen Bowness]

I go meal-by-meal. I try to find a recipe that uses up whatever leftovers I have (last week was a giant cabbage that seemed to multiply every time I looked at it). I pick things up on my way home from work to cook that night. My boyfriend and I keep a gdocs list of staples that need refilling, whoever goes to the store next gets those and checks them off the list. 

Since we live close to the grocery store and don't have a car, if we can't carry it, it doesn't come home -- limits impulse buying on heavy things, anyway. 

[Elise Nussbaum]

I sit down on Saturday or Sunday and make my meal list then... I have a couple of Word docs called "dinner ideas" or I leaf through a cookbook. I cook four dinners a week, so the trip is manageable without a car.

[Karen Bowness]

I cook every other day, and shop on my way home, so I usually aim to use up an ingredient that I have extra of, but otherwise it is whatever looks delicious. Often very weather dependent.

[psil...@gmail.com]

I spend a lot of time and effort menu planning. So it's probably WAY more labor intensive than anyone would do. I am also just really learning to cook, so I don't have a slew of recipes in my back pocket that I can just whip out. 

I plan a breakfast casserole type thing that will feed us all week.

I make up a lunch throw together (casserole, stir fry, rice dish etc) and split it up into portions and freeze all but one. 

Then I scour all of the internet for recipes that sound good and fit. We do 2 nights vegan, 2 nights vegetarian, 2 nights of meat and then a leftover night. 

I copy the recipes URL into a google doc and type the ingredients I don't have beneath it. A dinner would look like this:

(1) Chicken Tika Masala
http://www.chef-in-training.com/2013/01/chicken-tikka-masala/
chicken
jalapeno
ground ginger
tomato sauce
heavy cream

I add random groceries at the top and voila! I am done. I love having all of the recipes in the same place. I can also share the doc with my husband or parents (who are regular dinner guests at our house since my dad went vegan and my mom won't cook)