A Simple, Affordable Meal Plan Anyone Can Do

What's the status of your pantry, freezer, and fridge? Do you know the exact contents you already own? Step one: organize your pantry and fridge/freezer. You may discover some awesome items. I had mountains of canned beans, a few pounds of frozen ground beef, a package of tofu, and items that I honestly had forgotten about because other items hid them from my view. After reorganizing everything and forming an inventory, I started to form meals around the foods I already owned.

May Designs has a meal planner journal that makes it really easy to plan out meals on one side of the page and write out a grocery list on the other. This helps keep me accountable so I don't end up running to the store unnecessarily throughout the week. I'm also less likely to "cheat" and go out for a meal when I know exactly what I've planned to prep and eat.

When it comes to recipes I make during the week, I heavily rely on a one-pot, my blender, and a slow cooker. Those help me cut down on time, effort, energy, and dishes.

A word to the wise about leftovers: I meal plan so I only eat the same thing twice. If a recipe serves four (and I'm dining solo), I'll simply cut the recipe in half from the get-go.

Now you're ready to see what I cooked up in one week!

Breakfast: Homemade coffee (with milk), oatmeal (with whatever nuts, frozen fruit, jam you have on hand)
Lunch: Slow-cooker taco soup (made the night before so it's ready to be packed up; include shredded cheese and corn chips on the side)
Dinner: Hurry Up Alfredo (a vegan sauce made of cashew nuts in a blender) or a traditional, easy one-pot alfredo

*Feel free to add avocado and a side salad to the lunch as well as steamed broccoli to the dinner.

Breakfast: Homemade coffee (with milk) and a fried egg on avocado toast
Lunch: Alfredo pasta leftovers
Dinner: Slow-cooker taco soup leftovers with a simple salad

Breakfast: Homemade coffee (with milk) and microwaveable mug oatmeal with peanut butter and bananas (to eat on your morning commute or make when you get to work)
Lunch: Chickpea soup with side salad
Dinner: 20-minute baked chicken, caramelized onions, and steamed broccoli (feel free to add rice or potatoes to this too; I sometimes rely on the frozen rice to speed the meal up even more)

Breakfast: Homemade coffee and Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs on toast
Lunch: Baked chicken leftovers with side salad
Dinner: Lentil-millet salad (you can substitute rice for the millet and dried cranberries for pomegranate) with sautéed or steamed greens on the side

*If the millet-lentil salad isn't filling enough, sometimes, I'll eat it with canned tuna or will sauté a piece of salmon (Trader Joe's has awesome frozen salmon)

Breakfast: Banana-almond smoothie (I like to add protein powder to mine)
Lunch: Lentil-rice pilaf leftovers
Dinner: Leftover chickpea soup and/or frozen pizza*

*Usually I'm dead tired by Friday, so I want something comforting that requires little effort. I'll top my pizza with arugula!

Breakfast: Homemade coffee (with milk) and blender oatmeal banana pancakes (with whatever fruit/syrups/jams, etc., you have on hand as toppers)
Lunch: Slow-cooker beans with quinoa, scallions, and cheddar cheese
Dinner: 3-ingredient tomato sauce or slow-cooker bolognese with pasta

Breakfast: Homemade coffee (with milk), Paula Deen's scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit
Lunch: 3-ingredient tomato sauce with pasta leftovers
Dinner: Leftover slow-cooker beans