MEAL PLANNING

I spend most of my time thinking about food. But cooking for one can be boring, wasteful, and expensive. No cookbook or recipe is portioned for a single person. Sometimes it feels like too much fuss to make a nice meal for just me. There’s a lot of food waste involved, since it is damn near impossible for one person to finish an entire head of lettuce. Giving up on cooking entirely is too expensive, what with delivery fees and all, and that is also complicated by unfair commission and labor practices of third-party apps.

But a girl’s gotta eat, so over the last few years I’ve developed an organization system that keeps meals interesting, reduces food waste, and keeps costs down. This isn’t going to work for everyone, and is a real deep dive into how my brain works, but hopefully some of the tips are applicable to your life!

To begin: I use the the Rifle Paper Co. Weekly Meal Planner. I’m a sucker for everything they make. This meal planner comes with 52 sheets, one for every week of the year, and has the days of the week laid out with lines for three meals a day. On the right side, there is a Shopping List section that is removable! If you don’t want to pay $15 for a meal planner, you can totally write this structure out on paper. I’m going to insert a picture of my meal plan for next week below as an example.

Weekly Meal Plan with Days of Week on Left and Shopping List on Right

I leave this in the kitchen, off to the side. If I think of a dish or crave something, I’ll jot it down on one of the dinner lines. After last week’s blog post, I was really craving the hand-pulled noodles from the Xi’an Famous Foods cookbook, so that was the first dish I wrote down. I was also struck by a burrito craving, which is odd because burritos are never my preference. It bothers me that you can’t get every ingredient in one mouthful? Anyway, I had a burrito craving so I wrote that down. I also really wanted mac & cheese later in the week. Then I stress baked a loaf of bread, so I knew I would have to use that up. Those three cravings and the loaf of bread formed the start of this week’s meals.

Throughout the week, I also write down the things I am running out of on the “Shopping List” side of the planner. You can see that I have “butter,” “sugar,” “yeast,” and “gallon bags” at the top of the list. I noticed all of those things running low and immediately wrote them down. If you don’t write them down, you will forget as soon as you close that cabinet and will not have the crucial ingredient to make something later. Write it down as soon as you see it!

STEP 1: Write down foods you crave throughout the week + last week’s ingredients you need to use up. Add anything you’re running low on, add to the “Shopping List” side as soon as you notice it.

Then, the day before I plan to go grocery shopping, I sit down with the meal planner and build out meals for the entire week from the notes I’ve jotted down throughout the week. This is where reducing food waste comes in — because I’ve prioritized the things I really want to eat already, I can think of what other dishes I know how to make that use up ingredients in those dishes.

With the hand-pulled noodles, for example, I looked up the recipe in the Xi’an Famous Foods cookbook and realized the only thing I didn’t have on hand is napa cabbage. Obviously, one noodle dish isn’t going to use up an entire napa cabbage, so I brainstormed other dishes I know how to make that use it. This led me to add nian gao pian on Thursday, a rice cake dish with napa cabbage that my mom used to make us.

Because I had a loaf of bread to use up, I thought of dishes that involve bread. On Monday, that meant adding a veggie sandwich with herby mayo and potato chips. I don’t have a ton of time to cook on Mondays, so a basic sandwich was perfect. From there, I tried to think of any food waste that could come from the veggie sandwich — an entire cucumber doesn’t go into a single sandwich. One of my favorite things to make with cucumber is a teriyaki-glazed salmon with julienned cucumber and sesame rice, so I added that dish.

Since my burrito craving meant I’d be buying an entire pack of flour tortillas, I decided to eat breakfast burritos for breakfast to use those up. My personal preference is soft scrambled eggs with cheese, roasted red bell peppers, and roasted potatoes. These also freeze really well!

STEP 2: Sit down with the meal planner (this takes me ~30 min) and try to build out other meals from the ingredients used in the craving meals, to reduce food waste and costs.

As I sit down to plan, I think through/go through my pantry cupboards and freezer. The salmon, for example, I wouldn’t have to buy this week, because I have frozen portions of salmon in the freezer from my local fishmonger (love you, Aqua Best!). I also already had the rice cakes in the freezer, ready to go.

When thinking of ways to use up the bread, I considered soups, grilled cheese, etc., but I wanted to try to use up what I already had in the pantry. There was half a bag of Great Northern beans in my pantry that I hadn’t used in a while, so I decided to make the Marlow & Sons brothy bean recipe that Carla Lalli Music wrote about. This recipe is so good with freshly baked bread, so I added it.

STEP 3: Inventory the pantry/freezer to use up what you already have.

And just like that, I had seven dinners and a breakfast plan! All set on meals, I started on the Shopping List section. One by one, I looked up the recipes/thought through the ingredients I’d need for each meal. For the veggie sandwich, I wanted tomatoes, cucumber, avocado inside and I didn’t have potato chips on hand (those never last in this house) and I wanted dill to make herby mayo. I wrote all of that down, then moved on to the next one. Easy as that! This ensures I’m never missing an ingredient when it comes time to cook.

STEP 4: Consider each meal and write down the ingredients you don’t have on hand to create a Shopping List you can rip off and take to the store with you.

And that’s it! 4 steps to meal plan. All of this may sound fussy or like a lot of work, but once you do it for a few weeks it becomes second nature. I’ve managed to get my fridge down to 0 a few times, and feels great to look at the vegetable drawer on Sunday night and see it totally empty. No sad carrots going soft, no crumpled lettuce, no cheese gone a little bit green. Just a fridge ready for the next grocery shop!

Now, to address some oddities that complicate this four step process:

LUNCH: You might notice that the lunch slots are blank. For lunch, I usually don’t have time to cook so I tend to heat up whatever I have in the freezer (more on this below) or a Daily Harvest bowl. Daily Harvest is an Instagram ad thing I totally fell for that delivers harvest bowls, smoothies, etc. I’ve tried a bajillion different meal kits and this is the only one I’ve stuck with because the packaging it arrives in is all recyclable and I’m a sucker for a good smoothie. I skip it every three weeks, since I don’t eat it every day, and that makes it pretty affordable for me. Not spon, but if you want to try it out, use my code so we both get $25 off :) [RE-DGTM7DK]

Let’s talk about my freezer. As a single person, I love my freezer. I’ve never perfected cooking a one-person portion; I tend to cook like I’m feeding ten children and a very hungry husband. But I also hate eating leftovers. I find it so boring to eat the same meal multiple times a week, which leads to me wasting whatever nice meal I cooked! Enter, the freezer. The macaroni and cheese, for example: I’ll make the whole recipe because I’m never not in the mood for it. Then I’ll portion it out into individual ziploc bags (yes, this plastic waste is bad — would love to hear alternate suggestions for freezer storage!) and toss it in the freezer. Whenever I need some mac n cheese, I reheat a portion from the freezer. Endless meals, less waste.

VEGETABLES: I’m pescatarian, so I primarily eat seafood and vegetables and eggs. To try and get more nutrients in and to make myself eat more vegetables, my personal rule is to add one vegetable to every meal — at least one. That’s why the simple macaroni and cheese became broccoli mac n cheese. I think broccoli and cheese is a delicious combo and this way I’ve added a vegetable to my dinner. Same thing with the beans and toasted bread meal — sautéing some swiss chard with sliced garlic and red pepper flakes is an easy and quick way to add a vegetable to a meal that is otherwise just carbs and protein. You can take or leave this one vegetable suggestion; as my Diaspora Storytelling teacher says, “Challenge by choice.”

MEAL ORDER: This is next level, but sometimes I also label the dinners 1-7 based on what will go bad first. Cucumbers always go moldy on me the fastest, so I try to cook those meals first. Greens will wilt before root vegetables go soft. You get it. If meals require steps, like thawing the salmon the day before, I’ll note that below the day before so I remember to take it out of the freezer.

EUROPEAN BUTTER: You can see at the bottom of the shopping list I’ve written “European Butter,” “rhubarb,” “orange,” and “yogurt.” I’ve been baking things from Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person, which is a book that really focuses on seasonality. Rhubarb is a spring fruit? vegetable? and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find it at my grocery store yet. Because baking her rhubarb cake wasn’t a necessity, I wrote down the ingredients I didn’t have at the bottom just in case I ran across fresh rhubarb. Similar thing with the European butter — I was debating making her Kouign-amann recipe that requires European butter, but I was on the fence about buying expensive butter since I also needed to get olive oil this week. A tiny budget consideration.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO COOK: I need to write the disclaimer that I don’t manage to do this perfectly or exactly every week. I eat a lot of ramen and Knorr’s Pasta Sides and buttered noodles. Sometimes I crave something mid-week that isn’t on the plan and I switch the day up or use the ingredients for that meal to make something else. Some weeks I don’t function well enough to cook, so I don’t, or I work out seven easy meals. The meal plan is flexible, and it’s a tool, not the rule. There’s no shame in being exhausted after answering 100 emails and eating some ramen. Don’t beat yourself up! You’re doing a great job!

EATING OUT: I also do eat out! Or rather, I do order takeout sometimes. For a while, I built into my budget/meal plan to order takeout every Monday, and I would mark an X on that dinner line and write in suggestions of what I felt like ordering that week. If you’re craving a pizza, order a pizza. The only rule here is to tip at least 20%. It’s about decency, people. As my mom always says, if you can’t afford the tip, you can’t afford to eat out.

I hope this was helpful! How we eat is so specific and personal that I know all of this won’t apply to you, but perhaps some of the organization will inspire how you meal plan. Follow your cravings! Nourish your body! Make sure the food you eat makes you smile!

Please reach out if you have any questions or want to discuss. I’m very into organization, so I’d love to hear your thoughts! How do you meal plan? Any freezer storage tips?

TL;DR:

STEP 1: Write down foods you crave throughout the week + last week’s ingredients you need to use up. Add anything you’re running low on, add to the “Shopping List” side as soon as you notice it.
STEP 2: Sit down with the meal planner and try to build out other meals from the ingredients used in the craving meals, to reduce food waste and costs.
STEP 3: Inventory the pantry/freezer to use up what you already have.
STEP 4: Consider each meal and write down the ingredients you don’t have on hand to create a Shopping List you can rip off and take to the store with you.

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