While I Always Make a Meal Plan, and Why I Almost Never Follow It 100%

My meal planning style is pretty much pantry principle rather than plan a week and shop for what you need, but I still make a weekly meal plan. For me, waiting until the night before to decide what to make might work, but I am a planner so I like a little more organization than that.

What I don't do is shop weekly or base meals off of sales flyers; the basis of our meals is legumes and grains and those are purchased in bulk and stored in my pantry. We don't eat meat, fish, dairy, or eggs so I don't have to worry about sales on those food items. I cook from scratch; a loss leader sale on boxed macaroni and cheese or canned soup means nothing to me. Once a month I make sure I have all the pantry and freezer staples (oils, sweeteners, grains, legumes, seeds, yeast, baking powder, spices, herbs, frozen fruits and vegetables, dates, etc.) I will need for the month and order or buy what I am low on. I buy basic and loss leader produce every two weeks or so and use those to round out our meals

For planning, I make a master main meal menu and then I customize it for each week.  Right now the master plan looks like this:

Sundays:

Pinto Beans, Brown Basmati Rice, Vegetable

Mondays:

Legumes, Grain, Vegetable

Tuesdays:

Burritos (Homemade Tortillas)

Wednesdays:

Variety

Thursdays:

Pinto or Black Beans, Cornbread Muffins, Vegetable

Fridays:

Use It Up

Saturdays:

Pizza or French Toast

Sundays are my personal rest day; I do the basic tidying chores (bed making, etc.) but don't do laundry and don't cook a labor intensive meal. The beans are made in the pressure cooker, the rice in a rice maker, and the vegetables are a mashed avocado and either a cabbage salad or a seasonal vegetable that has been prepped ahead of time.

Mondays are the day I plan to use the various legumes I have in the pantry that are NOT pinto beans. I might make mujadara, split pea soup or a bean soup, baked beans, a legume based casserole, etc.

Tuesdays I plan on burritos because my family loves them and I am working my way through 25# of einkorn flour so I need to make tortillas regularly. I use planned over beans and rice from Sunday.

Wednesdays I reserve for making something that isn't part of our weekly repertoire; it might be a brand new recipe or a favorite meal that doesn't appear that often. For example, if potatoes were cheap at the last grocery shopping I might make Indian spiced potatoes served with rice and dal. I call this our Variety day.

Thursdays I make beans again, pinto or black, and cornmeal muffins so I can make sure I am getting through my bulk popcorn bucket.

Fridays are my Use It Up Day. I check for leftovers that might need to be used, refrigerator items nearing their expiration dates, and pantry items that have been languishing uneaten.

Saturdays we either make pizza as a family, or I make French toast with leftover bread from the week.

Here is an actual weekly menu:

Sunday:

Pinto Beans, Brown Basmati Rice, Cabbage Salad

Monday:

Mujadara, Sautéed Zucchini, Green Salad

Tuesday:

Bean Burritos with Mexican Rice and Sautéed Mexican Squash and Onions

Wednesday:

Scrambled Tofu, Field Roast Sausages, Breakfast Potatoes, Sautéed Zucchini

(The tofu and sausages were at their expiration dates)

Thursday:

Pinto Beans, Cornbread Muffins, Roasted Carrots

Friday:

Miso Soup, Soba Noodles, Cucumber Salad

(Using soba noodles that have been in the pantry and the sale cucumbers I bought)

Saturday:

PB&J

(The guys weren't home at main meal time, and we attended a party that evening)

It might look like the schedule is set in stone, but since it is pantry based I can be very flexible. If Thursday is a bean day but I see too many unused leftovers I can change the menu on the spot without worrying that anything will go bad. I still decide the night before what the vegetable will be for the next day's meal, checking the produce we have to see what might need to be eaten soonest; I might plan for sautéed cabbage but then see that the zucchini is getting soft, so we'll eat that instead.

I do change the master menu, usually seasonally. For example, in the cooler months there is always a soup night. If I notice the family fatiguing on a meal I will swap it out for something else; recently we all got tired of pasta every week so that has moved into my Variety category. I added the second bean night with cornbread muffins after I did the math to figure out how much popcorn to use weekly and realized I wasn't going to get it used up if I didn't bake a corn-based bread weekly.

I don't bother planning more than a week at a time (I have in the past) because there are too many variables involved and I would inevitably be changing the plan. A week at a time works best for me :)