I look forward to the post on meal planning! I'm trying really hard to get into a routine of cooking healthy dinner a few nights a week now that I've finally finished grad school. I can't seem to find a system that sticks though.

My husband and I keep track of good-looking recipes on sites like this throughout the week, and we'll buy groceries for seven days' meals. The trickiest part, though, was lining it up with our CSA pickup. I used to have four days between farm veggies and grocery shopping and veggies would get forgotten and slimy along the way. Now, I go to the store the day after pickup and we plan with what we have, not what we might get the following week.

We have a shared Google calendar and I've created a sub-calendar just for meal-planning. We'll take an evening (after dinner, so our cravings are lessened slightly) and dig through all of our cookbooks and printed recipes for what looks good, putting them on the calendar as we go. We then go grocery shopping every weekend for all of the food for the week and cook in the evenings.

I'm trying to get more in the habit of prepping all of the food as soon as we're back from the grocery store (i.e. shredding blocks of cheese if I know we're making tacos, slicing veggies and bagging them, etc), which makes cooking the night of a lot quicker.

I use Springpad (kind of like Evernote), to store my recipes. I add them to a Board view, so I can create a visual display of what I'm making when, and with the way they have recipes set up, you can easily add ingredients to a shopping list. I'll do this on Sunday morning, and plan out anything else I want to make for the week (lunch stuff if there won't be leftovers, snacks, any canning I want to do, etc), and add those items to the list. Then I hit the farmer's market, the butcher, and then the grocery store.

As far as what meals get planned when, I try to be strategic about it. Having meals with no leftovers (like homemade pizza) are better for Fridays, because leftovers are easily forgotten over the weekend. Meals relying on fresh foods (seafood, other things without a long shelf life) are best done earlier in the week so I don't have to go to the store again. Slowcooker meals are best on Wednesday, when I usually don't have a lot of time to cook. Sundays and Mondays I have time to prep a few things for later in the week, to make it easy on myself.

Knitasha, Do you just put the name of the meal on the sub-calendar for the night of the week that you're going to cook it?

I cook large batches of components on the weekend, then mix-and-match them according to what I'm craving during the week. Grilled chicken thighs, browned ground beef, and blanched veggies like broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower get turned into Italian Saute, Thai curries, stir-fries, and more with the addition of spices and sauces. We call them "Hot Plates." You can read more about it here: http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/2010/01/14/paleo-kitchen-the-method-behind-my-madness/ and in my cookbook Well Fed: Paleo Recipes For People Who Love To Eat which includes dozens of ideas for making international meals on the fly.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's tips. Even though I've been doing this for several years now, I always feel like I could do better. I suspect there is no perfect plan--life will always happen and throw things off, leading to a refrigerator full of kale no will eat or happy accidents like 10 lbs of cherries to pit.

I plan at least a week at a time, and sometimes as much as a month at a time (like now, when back-to-school means evenings are rushed). I use a general guides like Soup Night, Pasta Night, Beans to make it easier. I use Fresh Direct, and you can store shopping lists in there. I can simply dump the Tomato Soup Week list into my cart and I'll get everything I need for a typical week. This bores me to shreds but makes my family very happy. If I see glorious eggplant at the market or some cipollini onions catch my eye, I cannot be trusted not to deviate from the plan and start roasting things.

I waste the least amount of food when I shop daily (or every other day if a meal takes some prep work). If I plan too far ahead and stock up, I feel like plans change (I suddenly have a lunch meeting, friends are meeting for happy hour/dinner) and the food I have ready to go ends up sitting around much longer than intended.

I also live alone so my meal planning is frequently for one. I'm sure this is much different for someone planning for a large family.

I sit down on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning and look through my pantry, fridge and freezer, I try to come up with meals for the week using what ever is already in the kitchen and then create my grocery list to supplement. I plan all my meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, often using the same items for multiple meals if possible. My meal plan usually just lists, 'fruit' 'side of vegetables' for my meals, so produce is usually a pretty flexible item on my grocery list (unless I need something specific for a recipe) as I'll buy whatever looks good/is on sale/at the farmers market when I do my shopping on Sundays. I don't always stick to the meal plan day to day, but will move the meals around the week, based on how late I get home from work, whether my boyfriend decides to join me for dinner etc. A big time saver for me (since I live alone) is that I usually make more than one serving for dinner so I have leftovers for lunch the next day (or multiple days).

I keep my kitchen stocked with basics but any special ingredients are purchased as needed. I'm terrible at planning meals more than a few days ahead. I have a couple simple meals in my routine that I always have ingredients for, but aside from that I'm a slave to my cravings. If I planned to make lasagna but I'm craving tacos, I cannot get myself to make and enjoy lasagna. To avoid food waste, I wait to buy fresh ingredients until the day of unless it's something I know will get eaten in another meal before it spoils.

maybe this is weird but am i the only one who checks the weather forecast before i meal plan?

i use springpad too, its really handy. I love being able to clip recipes and then select them and add the ingredients to a shopping list. You can just cross off whatever you already have then head to the store. I just did my meal planning and shopping last night and felt super stuck, but once i opened up my springpad recipe folder i had a grocery list and menu in no time!

I use a free app "Food Planner" to both store recipes I find online and plan meals and shopping lists. Before the app? I kinda just winged it, feast or famine. It's very easy to import a recipe from a wepage, even if it can't import the recipe perfectly it creates a recipe title with a link. I cook so many more delicious things now that I would have forgotten about or not purchased the correct ingredients for by winging it.
I shop every two weeks at Costco and Aldis, and rely heavily on frozen fruits & veggies and root veggies/squash for the second week when cucumbers, melons, & mushrooms are used up. Garden produce supplements, and you'd be shocked how long hearts of romaine or peppers last in the fridge. Staying out of the stores saves us a bundle, and planning makes sure we're not miserable ;)

I have been making a weekly menu (meals Sunday through Friday) each week that I post on my blog. http://www.marinmamacooks.com/2012/08/marin-mamas-weekly-dinner-menu.html
It has helped me tremendously as I don't have to ponder "what's for dinner" each night. My kids and hubby love it as well because they know ahead of time what I'm making for dinner. The list really works and saves me at least 1 hour a day and makes trips to the grocery store that much easier. I tend to cook seasonally anyway, so I know my ingredients will be available at the grocery store or farmers market.

I also prepare a lot of make-ahead meals for those busy evenings, as well as prepare meals that serve 2 nights.

@Adamwa, I also check the weather. I do NOT want French Onion Soup if it's going to be Indian summer. Driving rain? Sounds great for FOS.

A useful tip - plan for an extra few people at the table. I always have leftovers, which my family don't mind eating, but at least I don't find myself in the awkward situation of not having enough food if people drop in unexpectedly.

I am single but I do make myself dinner every night. I keep it simple for myself.

When I was a kid, my mother had a rotation meals for our large family. She did the same basics over & over (she worked) with salad or seasonal veg on the side. Spaghetti, pork chops, chicken pot pie, pot roast, meatloaf, hamburgers, Sunday roast/fried chicken. If I had a family that is the approach that I would take too, although mine would include stir frys, tacos, etc. As kids we really loved the "usual".

I have the same issue as Akay. I live alone and frequently spend a lot of time out with friends. So I have a lot of non-perishable basics: pastas, canned soups and beans, tomato paste and tuna. And then some basic sandwich and snacking components: carrots, hummus, decent deli cheese. And then frozen vegetables. When I know I'm going to be home for the evening I'll plan the meal the night before or the morning of based on my staples. Usually I might need a meat or one or two vegetables to make up a meal. It helps to have a good grocer right on the way home though.

I plan a menu for the following week, shop on Saturday and cook and prep items on Sunday. Main entrees get reheated for dinner and veggies cooked the day of, throughout the week. We have roast chicken once a week as it is one of my daughter's favorite meals - I brine the chicken and prep brussels sprouts (the usual side dish) on Sunday, throw both in the oven usually on Tuesday or Wednesday for a quick, healthy and delicious meal. And like @pearmelon, I also make enough to take as leftovers for lunch for my husband and I the following day. Not only does everything gets eaten up, we don't have random items spoiling in the pantry or fridge, we end up eating healthier and saving money because we cut back on take out meals and evenings are less harried for me, a mom of a 2-year-old toddler with a husband who works late all the time.

I look online at grocery circulars to see what's on sale for the week and plan meals around that so I can save a little money. Then I go to that grocery store on Sunday to get non perishables and any veg or fruit I'll use within a few days. For the second part of the week I stop on my way home from work at a fruit/veg market a block away from my apartment to pick up the remaining perishables. I used to do all of my shopping on Sundays but always ended up with rotting food by the middle of the week.

i pick up my CSA share on Tuesdays and then immediately afterwards go to a grocery store to get any "fill-in" foods I need (mushrooms and celery don't come in my CSA share). I live alone, but cook dinner just about every night unless I am working, then take leftovers for lunch. I also have friends and family over for dinner on Sundays, so that is a day I can serve something like a watermelon, which can be hard to finish by myself.

I love the seasonality of the CSA and don't mind finding different things to do with eggplant. Usually I will plan 3-4 meals at a time, go again to the farmer's market on the weekend, plan the big Sunday meal, and then have lots of leftovers for lunch during the week.

I start with a blank index card. I list at least 7 meals that I will be interested in cooking for the next week. Usually this includes a composed salad of some sort, a soup, something with beans, a fish dish, a pasta dish or two, and what we call a "thunder-bowl", which is usually whole grain+greens and veggies+eggs on top. Tonight it's bulger, kale and broccoli, eggs, and maybe a bit of choriso.
The shopping list goes on the reverse of the index card. This goes to the store with me, and the meals are crossed off when eaten.

Meal planning can be daunting and to get my husband involved I had to take several steps back by asking simply what foods he liked. I wrote a post on the process http://bodhibear.net/2011/01/meal-planning-with-my-mate/

We weekly plan after a weekend meal with calendars and weather forecasts out in front of us. We keep it flexible to juxtapose the meals we pick for the week. This system serves our home well.

Our farmer's market is on Saturday mornings, so I take a few minutes Friday night to plan meals for the week using my Pinterest board as well as an email address that I have specifically for recipes that I have sent to myself. After the farmer's market, I go to a grocery store for the rest.

It's just my husband and me so we typically make three meals per week, which last two days each (unless it's something big like lasagna that lasts 4 meals!), and then we have the 7th day to eat out.

I check the weather, make a list of things I have in the house, think of what's in season, and then try to plan meals. It sometimes doesn't work out, though, and I have to change my menus if the store doesn't have what I want or if the particular vegetable I wanted to use doesn't look fresh or is imported from someplace I don't want it to be from. Meal planning is always complicated and confusing for me, but I do keep trying.

As a recent convert to meal planning i'm slightly obsessed, I've saved a huge amount since i've started. Here's the way I do it.

The evening before market day is spent reading through recipe books deciding what to cook for every meal. I take a piece of paper and on the left hand side I write the days of the week, next to this I write what I plan to eat, leaving blank meals I'll be eating out. As I right down each meal on the right hand side I start righting the shopping list, this helps me to miss that vital ingredients.

Once I've done the shopping I cook enough food to last around 3-4 days (this usually includes a few lunches and breakfasts), freezing any extra portions and generally roasting off lots of veg. I also marinade a few different meats which I then cook on the 3rd or 4th or day or freeze if i don't think I'll have time to cook it or it won't last. I also roast another lot of veg.

Doing it this way means I only cook a couple of days a week but always have something lovely to eat, or something that just needs to be thrown in the oven. It's made things so much easier and also means If I want to cook a fancy desert it's not such a drag as dinner is always pretty much sorted.

the day the flyers arrive, I figure out what is on sale. combined with a list of produce I already have, I create a weekly meal plan. I usually make 1 hearty soup, 1 hearty grain dish and another dish depending on my mood. It also helps me combine recipes with similar produce (ie using a big squash in multiple recipes). I tend to use up veggie odds and ends in salads or bowls. The only times this doesn't work is if the weather changes, or I pick up some el cheapo unadvertised special on produce. It helps to have a well-stocked pantry.

Batch cook lunches to take to work for the week on a weekend that either freeze well or can be kept in the fridge up to 5 days. Draft a "roadmap" of what you'd ideally like for dinners and create a shopping list based on that, but be flexible enough to make changes based on sales, availability and quality at the local store. Keep breakfasts and sides simple with staple dry goods you can buy in bulk.

I use a blank monthly calendar and plan the week's meals on the weekend, basing my grocery list on only those items. I now have a year and a half worth of meals to look back on – especially handy for ideas and to see what we were eating the same time a year ago.

I also love Pinterest for this because it's just like all my recipes as visual bookmarks. I scroll through my food board and see what looks good for the week ahead. And if you follow like-minded eaters, there are always lots of seasonal ideas to try every week.

I love zipist for my meal planning! I can easily clip recipes from different websites or enter my own. I used to use pinterest, but there wasn't a good was to search among all the recipes I pinned. I put new recipes I really want to make soon on my meal queue so that I remember to make them. I usually meal plan on Friday or Saturday for the week ahead based on the season, what I have in my pantry, the weather forecast, and my schedule. I then use the list compiling function on ziplist and pick up what I need.

I pick out a week's worth of dinners. Since my recipes are all online, I post the links into my shopping list file on evernote, then list all the ingredients, plus anything needed for a planned weekend breakfast or dessert. Then, besides all that, I buy a dozen eggs and whatever produce looks good, so our breakfasts and lunches are based around veggies or leftovers, or occasionally beans. We eat meat once a week, sometimes twice, and we get that at the farmer's market.

My tips:

1. Prep when you get home from the store. (This means going to the store at a time when you won't be too busy or tired to prep when you get home.)
2. Be strategic about freezing dishes and components of dishes. It's surprising how many things can be frozen with good results. (Shredded cheese, citrus zest, peeled ginger, breadcrumbs, cooked beans, etc...)
3. Don't stuff the fridge to the point that you can't see what's in it. I can see how this point wouldn't work for someone who lives a long way from the grocery store, but for many people it is pretty easy to stop at the store on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. Bonus: You'll have fresher ingredients!

I'm single and I've found that familiarizing myself with seasonal ingredients has helped me cut down on food waste and kept my meals more interesting (and delicious!).

I try to shop every other day and just buy what I need for the following day or two. I make all of my lunches the evening before, and plan what I want to make for dinner while I'm cooking that day's lunch. It's more like mini-planning, but I've found that I waste far less food and have a higher sense of gratification with what I eat.

Soups are a fantastic make ahead meal. As the weather starts to cool I make one or two a week, freeze some and share some with friends and neighbors.

I use a combination of perusing the grocery fliers to see what's on sale, what the weather is going to be and what kind of crazy week we're having. Then I hit the farmers market on Saturday's to pick up some in season produce or specialty items. Followed by a big grocery trip on Sunday's.

In terms of figuring out what to make we have a list of meals that we love and are easy to cook hanging on our fridge. Those staples make it into the rotation frequently and then I go through my pinterest boards as well as cookbooks and magazines to find 1-2 new recipes to add into the rotation. Our staples list is getting longer and longer.

Weather is also defintiely a factor. My husband is not the biggest fan of stoup or stews so I know I have to wait until it's truly cold for those. Our grill has been a lifesaver for the past 3 months with 90˚ temps frequently throughout the week. I for one will welcome cold weather so I can make soups and stews which translate into great leftovers!

i'm loving this post! i'm single and i'm a semi-planner: before i do my weekly shop, i go thru my collection of recipes; i'm also influenced by what's in season. i like to take a cooked lunch to work, so on the weekend i'll cook a big casserole or bake or something that can be divied up into five containers! i honestly don't mind eating the same thing all week if it's good. my night time meals are simpler and much lighter affairs, sometimes roasted or steamed vegies served with rice or pasta or other grainy things; sometimes just eggs on toast (as you can when you're single!). the weekend big cookup is when i choose and follow a recipe; the week nights are more casual and make it up as i go along!

Planning ahead is not my boyfriend's strong point, so I do it all on a Sunday morning before we do 'the big shop'. Factors I take into account when planning: having friends over, the weather, what we've got in that needs using up, and how much time I have to cook. We only have meat twice a week and I'm a bit fussy about not having the same type of foods two nights in a row, or for lunch and dinner. My boyfriend also eats out with work for lunch twice a week so we have lighter meals in the evenings on these days. For days when I'm working late we have some staples that we have often (homemade pizza, burgers and wedges, anchovy pasta, frittata) and for nights when I have more time we'll usually have something more complicated or a new recipe and always a pudding. I write all our meals in my diary on the Sunday, along with any reminders for the day before to get things out of the freezer. Sometimes I wish I could be more laid-back about menu-planning, and just take things day by day, but I'm a recovered/ing anorexic and this level of control really helps! We're moving house in 2 weeks so at the moment I'm just menu-planning around what needs using up in the freezer. There's a lot of curry and chilli in there to be eaten!

plantoeat.com - best meal planning site, can import directly from webpages, good search functions and allows for a pic of the food - pretty important!

If you're using an ingredient you don't typically use, string together a bunch of recipes that incorporate that ingredient so you'll actually use all of it. For me, it's cilantro and dill. I will use it in soup and tacos and that will use up most of it. With dill, I bake with it, use it in when I'm baking chicken, and broil salmon with it.

The new (Sept) issue of Real Simple has a month worth of meals planned out, and includes a week-by-week grocery list. I also read that there are an additional 3 months' worth online, but I can't find it on their site. The meals are "weeknight" ones....simple and typically around 30 minutes to make. I made a recipe last night and while it wasn't earth-shattering, it was a nice change for us, especially since I didn't have to "plan".

I find that meal planning doesn't work for me if it's too rigid; I like having the flexibility to cook what I feel like eating that day and what needs to be used up. So I sort of semi-plan: before I go to the grocery store about once a week, I look through my recipes and check what needs to be used in the fridge, then choose several recipes to make over the next week. Then I buy what I'll need for those recipes. Each morning, I choose one of my recipes for dinner and pull out anything I need from the freezer. After dinner, the leftovers get packaged up for my boyfriend's lunch the next day. If we get tired of something before it's gone, I freeze it in individual portions for later. So we waste very little food, even though I don't rigidly plan out our meals for the week.

I use SayMmm which is a really awesome recipe storage & planning website. My biggest problem was that I had lots of recipes, but didn't have a central place to store them and when it came time to make dinner, it was just any old thing. I put them into SayMmm now and I can search them pretty easily. My favorite thing is that when you make a meal plan it will automatically make a grocery list for you, and if you're organized enough, you can track prices. (I'm usually not.) My only problem with it is that I have to manually transfer the meal plan over to google calendar... although I've written to them about that and they said they'd work on it. All in all, it helps tremendously to stay inspired, shop efficiently, and have less waste... we build in a leftovers night or make sure that the odds and ends are eaten for lunch.

I like to plan out one week at a time. Over the weekend I make my menu, I use online sources, my cookbook collection & family favorites. I create my grocery list from my menu and then shop! I always write my menu down, by the time I get to the middle of the week I forget what I was planning on making!

Sunday- red meat
Monday- pasta
Tuesday- poultry
Wednesday- legume
Thursday- kid pleaser
Friday- fish or eggs
Saturday- winter=soup, summer=salad

Since I buy meat, eggs and dairy from the farm and belong to both a CSA and a fish co-op, I wait until Tuesday night when I come home with all my ingredients to plan the menu. We have been eating the basic plan for 25 years and it gives me enough structure that I am not totally stumped, but enough flexibility to continually try new recipes and go with seasonal availability. We also eat less meat this way (though some of my legume or pasta recipes use a small amount of meat and on Thursday we might have tacos or spaghetti with meatballs or whatever my kids' friends might like) I shop on Wednesday if I need to fill in anything for a particular recipe and get my staples via a monthly co-op. We eat leftovers for lunches, and I make sure I immediately freeze or can any extra produce from the CSA.

I'm the type to scan through what's already in the fridge, freezer, and pantry and figure out what I can make the next meal. I'll stop at the grocery store for any missing ingredients. I have plenty of food stores within 5 minutes, so I don't worry about wasting fuel getting to them.

I am a recent (unemployed) law school graduate who loves to cook but has never done it on a tight budget until now. During our unemployment, I cook every meal for my boyfriend and myself and we try to eat out only on special occasions and only with a Scoutmob, Groupon, etc.

My plan, which has worked so far, is to sit down every Sunday morning with my coffee and check the internet for the best deals upon which to plan my weekly meals. I usually check Kroger and Publix for their weekly specials and BOGO deals and then Southern Savers for additional coupons. My boyfriend and I pick cheap and healthy recipes (from either my own personal recipes or recipes from online/our foodie magazines that have piqued our interest) that have ingredients that are on special/on sale for the week. When something is on sale at a really good price, I will double up on it and freeze it. Between the weekly grocery trips, well-stocked freezer and our well-stocked pantry, I usually only have to do my "big" grocery runs every two weeks.

While I love the idea of grocery shopping daily (very European and fun for foodies who find inspiration in their daily lives), as AKAY suggested, I find that I spend significantly more on my groceries when I do that.