Are you tired of eating out? Do you want to wean yourself off takeouts? Many of my clients tell me they would like to eat more homemade meals but don’t know how to incorporate them into their lives. The process seems overwhelming, and one of the reasons is they lack meal-planning skills.
We tend to under-appreciate the importance and complexity of meal planning. We used to learn it from our mothers and caretakers by observing. And now it’s slowly becoming a lost skill. It’s not surprising, considering how easy and convenient it is to outsource our food. Here in DC, we have thousands of meals available to us at a click of a button on our phones. Combine it with already-made, microwavable meals, and meal delivery services, and you start thinking, why bother with something so time-consuming and complex?
David Perell, in his article The Microwave Economy, suggests that skipping the hard-to-measure joy of making and eating fresh food robs us of our humanity. The craftsmanship and aliveness of homemade meals are ”a cultural pillar of every society.” In addition, I genuinely believe it’s the healthiest way to nourish yourself. The time spent grocery shopping, prepping, and cooking food is an investment in your health and longevity. It improves the quality of your life now and in the golden days. Cooking your own food makes your meals more satisfying, and you appreciate it more.
So here is my step-by-step process for meal planning, grocery shopping, and home cooking. I have used these skills for more than 25 years, refining and adapting them to the circumstances of my life. This is just one of the ways to do it, and you should adjust my process to fit your lifestyle. Start small and gradually grow your repertoire of recipes and skills.
6-step meal planning process overview
- Make a plan of what you are going to cook and when
- Choose your recipes and make an ingredient list
- Go grocery shopping
- Time your recipes and cook
- What to do with the leftovers
- Ways to get better at this
Make a plan of what you are going to cook
We know how to use calendars and other planning tools for work. Why not apply it to your meal planning? At least at the beginning when you are building the habit. I really encourage you to start small. You can begin with one meal at a time. For example, start by making breakfast. Here are some low-carb breakfast ideas. You can later add lunch or dinner. Alternatively, you can start with just one day a week, gradually extending to two, three, and so forth.
Depending on the flexibility of your schedule, decide how often you’ll be going to the grocery store. If you are pretty flexible, you can buy enough for a couple of days and go back when you run out of ingredients. However, you need to have a system in place that reminds you that you are getting low on food and that you need to go grocery shopping soon. I never run out of food entirely. But a specific emptiness in my fruit bowl or the fridge raises a red flag in my mind. At that point, I check on some essentials like eggs, cheese, and leftovers and decide how soon I need to go.
If you don’t have much flexibility in your schedule, choose a day that works and stick with it. Make a plan to buy enough food until you have a chance to go back to the store. If you grocery shop only once a week, you need to make a 7-day meal plan. Here is my 1-week meal planning template for your convenience.
Choose your recipe(s)
How do you decide what to cook?
I have collected hundreds of recipes over the course of my life. Many of them are in my head, some are on my website, in my cookbook library, in a hand-written notebook, and others are in my New York Times cooking app. The problem is not where to find recipes but rather how to organize them so they are easily accessible. Cooking apps are definitely the most convenient way to do it.
If you are just starting your personal collection, choose recipes with fewer ingredients and prepping steps. Go for something you have already tasted and enjoyed. Ask your friends and family to share the recipes that you like.
I find one-pot dishes like chili, stews, or soups to be very practical. You can make a big pot of chili and enjoy it for a few days!
Another way to plan a meal is by combining a protein (chicken, fish, beef, etc.) with a side dish. I like choosing recipes that you can cook at the same time. For example, while your chicken is in the oven, your hands are free to make a side dish to go with it. I might cook enough protein to last a couple of days and vary the side dish each day. This way, my meals look and taste different.
Some people prefer batch cooking on the weekends, while others cook daily. If you don’t plan on cooking all your recipes in one day, consider the freshness of the ingredients. For example, if you are buying a piece of fresh fish and a chicken sealed in a vacuum package, you want to cook your fish first and leave the chicken for later.
Make an ingredient list for the recipes on your meal plan
Now that you’ve decided on your recipes, make a list of ingredients you need to buy. Many cooking apps will make your shopping list for you based on the recipes you choose. Always check your fridge and pantry for ingredients before adding them to the list. Also, consider the quantities. Are you making the recipe as-is, doubling it, or cutting it in half? You don’t want to overstock, especially on perishables like lettuce or fresh herbs. And there are ingredients that can last for a long time, like dried beans, grains, pasta, flour, vinegar, spices, etc. It’s a good idea to have a variety of long-lasting ingredients in your pantry. Grow your pantry collection as you learn new recipes.
Grocery shop based on your meal plan
Okay, that’s easy, right? I recommend that you shop a day before or the same day that you are planning on cooking. Ideally, you’ll find your ingredients along the perimeter of the store in the chilled and fresh produce sections. Real food spoils quickly, so it needs to be refrigerated.
The isles in the middle of a supermarket hold packaged foods. Most of them are highly processed, stripped of their natural nutrients to be shelf-stable, and full of preservatives. Avoid these foods.
Some people find it hard to resist the isles with their favorite chips, candy, or snacks. To avoid this, you can grocery shop online and either pick them up at the store or have them delivered to your home. It saves time and makes it easier to resist the strong pull of snack foods.
Time your recipes and cook
The way I time my cooking is by working the clock backward. I start with the time I want to eat. Then I look at the recipes to see how long each one will take and start with the recipe that takes the longest.
To give you an example, I often bake a whole chicken with hardy vegetables like potatoes around it. It takes about an hour and a half to bake a chicken. If I want to have dinner at 7 pm, I need to put it in the oven at 5:30 pm. My oven takes 30 minutes to warm up, so I have to turn it on at 5:00 pm. At the same time, I take my chicken out of the fridge, put my favorite spice blend all over it, and place it breast-side up on a baking tray. Then I cut potatoes into small pieces, about 1 inch, add olive oil and salt, and arrange them around the chicken.
At 5:30 pm, I put the tray in the oven at 350F. My dinner is practically done! And I have more than an hour to do other things. I typically return to the kitchen around 6:30 pm to make a salad, baste the chicken skin with some of its juices, and set the table.
What to do with the leftovers
After you’ve enjoyed your delicious dinner, you may have a whole bunch of leftovers to deal with. You might decide to divide the leftovers into single-serving portions and package those into plastic or glass containers. This way, you can just grab one of them in the morning and take it with you to work for lunch.
You can also freeze all or some of the containers for future use. After a couple of weeks of doing this, you’ll have a variety of cooked dishes in your freezer to choose from. This way, you don’t have to eat the same dish three days in a row. Label the container because it’s hard to tell what’s inside after freezing.
I rarely freeze my leftovers because I feed a whole family, and food goes fast. Most leftovers are totally safe to eat after 3-5 days in the fridge. If in doubt, use your nose to detect any sign of spoilage.
Ways to get better at home cooking
Like any skill, meal planning and cooking gets easier as you practice them. Get really familiar with cooking your favorite dish(es) on regular bases even if you are starting with just one! When you are ready, add another recipe to your repertoire, and continue to build it gradually. You should find a recipe blog or a cookbook that inspires you.
Cook together! Cooking and having fun with it is the best! You can do it with a friend, your partner, or kids. Talking and chopping, relaxing and tasting – a great way to spend an evening, unplug from work, and reconnect with your favorite people. And a great dinner is a reward at the end!
Be a kind critic of your home cooking efforts. Taste the food and be curious about it. Is there a way to improve it? Maybe it should have spent a bit less time cooking, or maybe longer. Or perhaps it needed more salt or spices. Make corrections to the recipe for the next time.
And keep on cooking!
