Plan a week of meals that fits your real week

Start with your week, not the recipes

Look at the calendar first. Which evenings are busy, and when do you have time? Put quick meals on the busy nights and the slower dishes on the quiet ones. A plan that ignores your week will be abandoned by Wednesday.

Plan fewer meals than you think

Four or five dinners are enough for a week. The other nights are for leftovers, something from the freezer, or a meal out. Planning every night leaves no room for life, and the food you bought for a cancelled night gets wasted.

Share ingredients across meals

A bunch of parsley, a tub of yoghurt or a cabbage is often too much for one recipe. Choose a second recipe that uses the rest. Two dishes that share a fresh ingredient waste less than two that do not.

Cook once, eat twice

Make a double batch of something that keeps well, such as a stew, rice or roasted vegetables. Serve it as it is on the first night and change it on the second: into a soup, a wrap filling or a pie.

Make the grocery list from the plan

Go through each recipe and check your pantry and fridge first. Write down only what is missing, and group the list by the part of the shop where you will find it.

Change the plan, not yourself

If a night falls through, move that meal to another day instead of skipping it. And name your meal slots to suit your household. If you eat at different times, for example suhoor and iftar in Ramadan, the plan should use those words.