Meal prepping and meal planning can prevent you wasting your grocery budget. Not only are you possibly going to eat more healthy food, you’re now not choosing fast food for lunch, or dinning out at restaurants, but you also are saving money. A lot of folks assume they simply don’t have the time to meal prep, however when you begin to get in the habit of doing it before grocery outings, and on a selected day of the week, you’ll recognize it can in reality save you time. Plus, save you from the worry of what to consume or make each day of the week for 3 meals a day.
To begin, construct a meal planning strategy so as to make meal prepping much less daunting and a lot simpler if you want to stick to. Here are a few tips to help out while building out your strategy:
- Draw a column template that leaves room for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day of the week at the left, and a grocery listing at the right.
- Fill in any meals which have already been accounted for such as a birthday dinner that you’re eating out for, or a lunch function at work.
- Take inventory of what’s in your fridge, kitchen cupboards and pantry and fill in as many meals that may be crafted from the ingredients you have already got. If you’ve got leftovers from the preceding week, include these as meals too.
- You may additionally have a few ingredients that you can’t make a complete meal out of, that’s okay. Add them in your list and upload write them on grocery list the new items you’ll need to make it a complete meal. For example, you have already got burgers but are lacking the toppings and buns.
- Lastly, to fill in any blank spots for food, add in any all-new meals if you want to. Do you need some inspiration? Check out Pinterest for a few exquisite easy recipes. This also can be a great spot for finding inspiration for food to make with ingredients you have already got too.
Keep Your pantry, refrigerator & freezer stocked
Stockpile the basic staples in your pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Think long-lasting flavorful or nutrient-dense items like rice, pasta, beans, canned tomatoes and sauce, soups, frozen veggies, etc. These are staples that can without difficulty be included into a whole lot of recipes, and when you catch them on sale or purchase in bulk, you may save.
Simplify your meal making plans with themes
To keep meal planning easy, assign a category based off days of the week like Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Casserole Wednesday, and mix the recipes up to keep things from getting boring week after week.