How to Create Your Own From Scratch Meal Plan
Learn how to create your own from scratch meal plan to alleviate stress about whats for dinner, while also allowing you to be resourceful in your kitchen.
When it comes to meal planning I feel like there are two kinds of people. There are those who like to have their entire list of meals (sometimes down to the snacks) planned before they even go shopping. And then there are those who don’t know what’s for dinner until the day of, or even the hour before. I find that I like to be somewhere in between
Although I rarely know what is for dinner the week ahead, I like having ideas or a starting point. I prefer to have meals in my repertoire that can be easily modified to use whichever ingredients I have on hand.
I want to provide for you a meal plan that works the way I think. This meal plan won’t tell you what to buy, but instead will provide a flexible way to plan meals using whatever ingredients you already have on hand, while also adding variety to your meals.
I prefer to make my meal plans seasonally. You might think this means I make salads in the spring and summer and soups the fall and winter, but mostly I pair my vegetables seasonally. I might make a salad in the fall or winter, but it would be topped with sweet potatoes and pears or grapefruit and avocado rather than berries.
How to Make a Meal Plan From Scratch
In order to help you with your meal planning, I have prepared a list of meals types you can choose from. When you make a meal plan, rather than specifying that you will have “taco soup” on Tuesday with a list of ingredients needed you will simply write soup. Then when you go to the store and find a great deal on cabbage or another veggie, you can fit it into your meal plan more seamlessly by making cabbage soup instead.
From Scratch Breakfast Ideas
When meal planning breakfasts, I follow a similar method. I plan on a main dish such as pancakes or granola, then top it with whatever seasonal fruit I have on hand. Most days for breakfast I try to have something quick or that I can make ahead, then I pair it with eggs, yogurt or nut butter for healthy fat and protein. Here are some ideas:
- hot cereal
- oatmeal
- cream of wheat
- granola
- muffins
- breakfast sandwich or toast and eggs
- biscuit
- english muffin
- bagel
- bread
- pancakes/waffles
From Scratch Lunch Menu
For lunch I like to either serve leftovers or use components of a previous meal to make something new. Meats from previous meals can easily be used to top nachos or a quesadilla or added to a fried rice. Extra sauces can be used to top a pasta or make a quick pizza. If we don’t have ingredients to make a cohesive meal, we have one of my kids’ favorites: a platter of cheese, crackers, sliced fruit, veggies and meat.
- leftovers
- sandwich
- nachos
- pasta
- pizza
- fried rice
- cheese and crackers/ charcuterie
- quesadilla
Meal Planning Dinner Categories
Dinner is the meal that probably has the most variety, but I can categorize the foods we eat into just a handful of categories. To build your meal plan, choose something from each category or make a category of your own.
- rice
- curry
- lentil
- paneer
- chicken
- stir fry
- bulgogi
- orange chicken
- sweet and sour chicken
- teriyaki
- curry
- pasta
- cream sauce
- tomato sauce
- pasta salad
- other veggie-based sauce
- soup
- stew
- creamy
- pureed
- ramen/noodle
- chili
- meat and potatoes
- mashed
- baked
- fries
- hashed
- taco/burrito
- chicken
- beef
- pork
- salad
- sandwich
- burger
- pita
- sub
- grilled
- pizza
- sheet pan dinners
- casseroles
How to Make Your Own 7 Day Meal Plan
Look at the lists above and choose meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all 7 days.
For breakfasts I frequently make a big batch of 2 things and will eat the same thing every other day for a whole week.
When planning lunches, I rarely plan ahead. I most often use leftovers and if I don’t have enough then I will come up with something on the fly. I can do this by keeping pantry staples like tortillas or chips on hand so that I can easily throw together a quesadilla or nachos without too much thought. But if you would rather plan your lunches, choose 3-4 that you can make when leftovers aren’t a good option. I plan ahead most often when we need lunch on the go.
I like to include the most variety and flexibility in my dinner meal plans. In order to do this I have made a long list of categories, each with multiple types of meals from the category. This provides variety in the meals I make so that I can use the ingredients I have on hand, as well as making a meal that fits my mood. To create your meal plan choose 5-7 dinners for your week. You may choose a very specific dinner, or just a category and plan on figuring out the specifics the day of.
One way you could plan dinners is by assigning a category to each day of the week. For example: Monday – pasta, Tuesday – tacos, Wednesday – sandwiches, etc. Then each week you can choose a different variety within the category. This would make it so that you always know at least in part what is for dinner without being restricted to specifics.
Create Your Own From Scratch Meal Plan Template
Below is a template you can print fill out to create your own from scratch meal plan. The first page includes a place for you to write the meals you plan for the week. The second page list ideas for the variety of meals you could include. I hope this meal plan provides a guideline helping to relieve the stress of the constant questions of “what’s for dinner?”, while also allowing for the flexibility needed to be resourceful and use the ingredients you have in your kitchen.