#115: The Plan Once, Shop Once Strategy

Welcome back to Meal Planning Like a Pro! Today, we are covering a few more "advanced" meal planning strategies to help you streamline grocery shopping and reduce decision fatigue.

In this episode, we talk a lot about meal planning for a longer stretch of time and then only grocery shopping once to save time and energy. We also cover coordinating your recipes to save money and adapting your plan for sales or seasonal ingredients.

If you’re working on building your meal planning habit this month, you’re not alone. Find us on Instagram, where we’re sharing more tips for staying consistent, even when life is chaotic.

Get Riley's Grocery Swap Guide by emailing us at podcast@plantoeat.com.

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Plan once Shop once - meal plan pro #2
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[00:00:00] I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello, welcome back to the plan to eat podcast. Riley and I are back today talking more about our meal plan, like a pro series. Today we are diving into basically the idea of what meal planning is, which is you plan once and then you shop once. That's kind of the strategy of meal planning in general, but, uh, we're, we're giving it a name plan once, shop once.

Riley: Last time we talked about meal planning, like three days and three meals at a time. But if you wanna maximize your meal planning strategy, you can plan further out. So what I would say is, like, if you listen to our last episode, this is kind of like building on that. Like you're, you've gotten that nailed down.

Now you're gonna just like, you're gonna become a more advanced [00:01:00] planner now. So, I mean, you could, you can do this by five to seven meals at once or even to up to 10 days. We have literally interviewed people on this podcast who meal plan for the entire month,

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: which is incredible and I've actually never done that, so I can't speak to it.

But that lady is shopping smart and she's planning smart.

Roni: mean, I hear from customers all the time about. Implementing some sort of a monthly meal planning strategy, because if meal planning is not your jam, why not just do it once a month, you know, like get it all out of the way. And that's not necessarily what we're talking about here. We're talking more about this, like you're thinking about the next 10 days you're trying to minimize your grocery shopping trips and.

For me, and I think this is same for you, Riley like the next 10 days doesn't mean that I'm planning 10 meals. Usually it means I'm planning roughly six to seven and that's gonna take care of me for like 10 days.

Riley: And I find like we can move into the why behind you would even why you would do [00:02:00] this, but. One of the reasons that I do it is because it eliminates like a shop. It eliminates one entire shopping trip from my month. 'cause let's just say every month has four weeks, and I'm only going every 10 days. So I'm going three times instead of four times.

And it does save me a substantial amount of money by pushing my meal plan a little further. Honestly, by not spending that much more at each of those trips.

Roni: I totally agree. And then there's also the time savings of, I know you often do grocery pickup at the grocery store, but I like to typically go into the grocery store and so eliminating a a 45 minute grocery run from my month is also a pretty big deal too.

Riley: Yeah, I mean, you have to remember that the reason that I do that grocery pickup so often is because I live 45 minutes from the grocery store, so like 45 there, 45 back. We're at an hour and a half plus. The 45 minutes to an hour I'm in there, it can just really add up. So

Roni: Yeah, for sure. So also going to the grocery store, like RI mentioned, [00:03:00] you're gonna save some money and part of that is less impulse spending because if you're eliminating a grocery trip, then you are not going in there and buying the fun snacky things or the fun holiday things we already have.

Halloween stuff in the grocery store, and I'm like, it is August people.

Riley: It's kind of wild. It also, I mean, we talked about this quite a bit last time, but. For me it eliminates like the decision fatigue. Like I just already planned it, like we're just doing the thing and that is such, it becomes an autopilot for me. And I think that that stress reliever of my meal plan being on autopilot, 'cause I know I've got it planned for so long, it eliminates for me the.

Well, I'm not craving that thing because I just love the way it feels to have it already done. But I know, like we talked about last week, there's a ton of people who have that as a frustration around meal planning. So that's, you go back and listen to last week's episode.

Roni: I think there's an, there's another element here too that is not something that we talk about all that often, but, you know, when you're meal planning [00:04:00] and you're using this strategy of like, I'm gonna plan once and I'm only gonna shop once, I'm gonna plan for longer out. It's kind of like a self-care situation because you're take, because you are taking that mental load off of yourself, both from having to think about dinner every single night, but also just extending the amount of time that you are.

Needing to make all the decisions about what are we gonna have this week, what are people gonna want to eat, what do we have in the cupboards? Do I have time to go to the grocery store? Like there's just this entire mental load that kind of gets taken away. That I think we could say is self-care.

Riley: Yeah, I, I mean, I think that saving money at the store can also kind of wrap into that self-care thing too, because that, I don't know, because you're just relieving mental load. With meal planning. Like we've done a, we've done, surveys to our audience, and the average cost of food per person in the household per month was reduced from 1 99 to 1 52.

So it's 23% reduction in food costs just by meal planning. especially with the cost of [00:05:00] food right now, like if we can lower the cost per person in our household by going to the grocery store less.

And even if you get to that 10th day and you're like, oh, it's a round robin in the pantry, let's figure out what we've got. Like, you know, it kinda keeps things interesting. But it also is like you're, you're not having to pay for that meal. You're using things you already had on hand. You're reducing those costs again.

Roni: Yeah. And that's a part of that mental load thing, right? If you're, the less concerned you are about the money you're spending at the grocery store, the better off you're gonna be.

Okay. So we're gonna call this idea kind of batch planning for a lot of people, this might be exactly how you meal plan, but we're juxtaposing it compared to the last episode where we talked about meal planning, maybe just three days at a time as sort of a beginner strategy.

So. When we think about batch planning, quote unquote, we're thinking again, this like five to seven meals that you're planning all at once so that you can extend your time in between meal plans and in between shopping trips. So some of the tips that I thought about [00:06:00] for, you know, meal planning with only one grocery trip are when you're making this meal plan.

Think about the recipes that have what I would consider delicate produce and putting those earlier in the week. So things like your cilantro and your lettuce,

Riley: strawberries. I feel like they're pretty delicate.

Roni: berries. Berries is a good one. Yeah. So, yeah, things that you just know like, okay, these can only stay in the refrigerator for like four days before they get moldy, or they get wilted and then they're not good anymore.

I like to plan those earlier in my week.

Riley: One thing that I like to do is, and I know you guys are like, I'm a broken record, Riley's broken record, but I plan at least one pantry staple meal that can be used like I just mentioned a few minutes ago, at the end of the week. So you don't have to worry even about what's fresh and what's not, or like, oh, we didn't get to that and now it's.

Dead in our fridge. Like, I'm planning things that are based around things I have in my freezer. Things that I keep in my pantry, they're shelf stable. And this meal, like, [00:07:00] you know, it comes together in a way that like, it feels fresh and cooked. Like it doesn't, I never make these and think like, oh, this was made out of freezer things, or, oh, this was made outta canned goods.

Like, you know, because you're changing the way that it's not in the format that it was in your pantry. And it just changes. So it feels like a whole fresh meal, but none of those things were going bad in your house while you waited to be eaten. You can also just simply plan that your side dishes or the pr the vegetables in your meal are canned or frozen, like I just mentioned, like the whole meal could be frozen or just like the side dishes, so that by the end of the week you aren't, you're just eating things that are fresh. 

Roni: I was gonna say, unless it's canned corn. 'cause I love to eat canned corn just out of the can.

Riley: Oh, do you? I didn't know that about you. I had a college roommate who used to eat canned, uh, peas like that.

But I'm not a, I'm not a pea fan and so like, I will eat them in things, but just straight outta the canned cold, just like cracked open. I can't do it.

Roni: I would rather eat like [00:08:00] frozen peas that have been warmed up than, I think canned peas. But I don't know what it's about. Canned corn. It, it's, it's, I think it's a nostalgia thing for me. It tastes like the canned corn that we had in like the hot lunch line in elementary school. My husband thinks I'm disgusting for it, but I could eat an entire can of canned corn.

Riley: that's very interesting. I like knowing that about you gonna start buying you canned corn.

Roni: Thank you. Um, okay, so another thing to think about is maybe double check the things that are on your Staples list, which also, which could include like toilet paper or laundry soap, but also your snacks, so that way you're not going back to the grocery store for just some random staples items that you forgot to add to your shopping list.

So when you're trying to reduce the amount of times you go to the grocery store, you wanna be thorough in your grocery list.

Riley: So Roni, why don't you tell everybody what is the Staples list so that if this is something that they wanna start utilizing in their meal planning, they can.

Roni: So in plan to eat, you have your shopping list, and then we have Staples List, which is kind of like a. [00:09:00] I call it a static list that accompanies your shopping list. So you can add all of the things that you normally keep at home into your Staples list. And then it's really easy to just, bulk add those items to your shopping list.

If you're in the app, it has little check boxes and you can just check all the items that you wanna add to your shopping list. Then quickly add 'em over instead of manually typing in, like, we need laundry soap, I need face wash. You know, you can just put all those things in your Staples list and then it's super easy to just copy 'em to your shopping list.

Save you a lot of time when you're creating your shopping list. And also we'll help you remember some of the things that you buy frequently, that maybe you would forget if you weren't just. Keeping track of things as you run outta stuff. I find this is what happens to me with the Staples list, is I go to make my shopping list and I'm like, okay, let's check the Staples list.

And I'm like, oh yeah, I do need those things. And I just totally forgot that we ran out of them. I'm so glad they're in my Staples list.

Riley: [00:10:00] That's awesome. Something that you can add to your Staples list, but it is also a really helpful thing to double check on is like, think about snacks. Like if you're a family with children in school, think about what do they have in their lunches every day if you've packed them their lunch or what is something you eat every single afternoon, like, you know, maybe you're a little yogurt bowl in the afternoon kind of person and like.

Looking at those things and building those into your meal plan too, and. Planning to have enough raspberries for every day, or I'm thinking about the humongous bag of apples that I buy at Costco. Like that lasts me at the minimum 10 days. Like it lasts me for so long. Or apple sauce, like if you buy the four pack of apple sauce, that's only gonna last you a little while if you kid eats it one every day.

So like, you know, it's like I said, like it's gonna make your shopping list maybe a little bit more expensive, but because you're not going back to the store all the time for the random thing you need. You're just not gonna, I mean, have you ever gone into the grocery store and been like, well, I'm just gonna buy a four pack of applesauce [00:11:00] and then left.

Roni: I mean, I've said something like that, but it's never actually followed through on.

Riley: I just feel like it ends up being like a, whoa, while I'm here, like I'm not even thinking about impulsive purchases. I'm thinking, well, while I'm here, I should probably go ahead and grab this thing that I think we're running out of, or, wow, those cantaloupe looks so good. Or I guess that's impulsive. But mostly I'm like, well, while I'm here, I don't wanna have to come back in a couple of days.

Like, let me make sure I get this thing too, just in case. And then you just end up spending more money. So just like making sure you're stocking up on those other little things that you guys eat every day or week.

Roni: I think this is an area where. What I would categorize as girl math comes in where I'm like, I'm only buying one thing. This thing only costs like $4, so I'm gonna buy like three other things. And my grocery, my grocery shopping trip is still not gonna be very expensive. You know, not really thinking like I should just tack the, the total of this onto what [00:12:00] my normal grocery shopping trip would've been.

But instead, my brain just forgets about the regular grocery shopping

Riley: well this is something where I'm gonna plug, you need a budget would really come in handy

Roni: That's true,

Riley: you know then like you don't have the room. In your budget to buy the five other things so that then two 50 plus 50 plus 14 equal, you know, like, you know, you're not, all those little purchases are gonna accumulate in those categories.

Like all of them are gonna accumulate in your grocery category and then you pull in the budget.

Roni: So true. All right, I wanted to mention some quick storage hacks or ideas for your fresh produce, um, so that when you buy stuff and you're like, how do I make this last 10 days? You might not be making it last 10 days, but you can make it last a couple days longer. So I think things like when you get herbs at the, at the grocery store, whether it's like cilantro or parsley, basil, something like that, you can.

Like wrap them in d paper towels and put them in your refrigerator or even put 'em in like a [00:13:00] cup of shallow water in your refrigerator to just like having that little bit of extra, moisture in herbs specifically will help keep them fresh for a little bit longer. Storing your greens and your vegetables in the section of your refrigerator that has airflow.

So like my refrigerator has a section that says like. Fruit And another one that says vegetables. Sometimes they have like a little toggle where you can like open up the air vent or close the air vent. Um, for vegetables in particular, you want 'em to be able to circulate the air for the same reason that we talked about with when we were talking about Carol Ann's book.

Because they have, is it ethylene gas?

Riley: Yeah, they do let off a gas.

Roni: What, I don't remember what it might be ethylene. It might be something totally different than that. But they let, but they like let off a gas and that gas will make them ripen faster if it's like trapped in that container. You can always freeze things like your overripe bananas or your berries if they start to go bad.

And then those just become something for like a smoothie later. Or like you wanna [00:14:00] make cobbler or banana bread. And then you can just. Take those things out of your, uh, freezer to use for those things.

Riley: Another couple of things to keep in mind with that is like keeping. Like not cutting your vegetables or not cut, like I'm thinking about pineapples, cantal, LOEs, or melons, like keeping those just on your counter, not cut until you're actually ready to eat them, can kind of prolong the life of some of the things that you have that you've purchased.

Roni: yeah, for sure.

Riley: I.

Roni: Yeah. And then again, just using your freezer as what I would consider maybe like a pause button for any of the things. Like if you're getting, you know, halfway through the week and you're like, I don't know, this is starting to look a little iffy. Granted that you can't necessarily do that for lettuce, but as we learned with Carolyn's book, you can do for literally everything else.

You know, you can put stuff, you can chop stuff and freeze it. Um, you can put your bread in the freezer if you're not using your bread as quickly as you thought you were going to. Meat, dairy, cheese, all that stuff can go, uh, in the [00:15:00] freezer if you're feeling like you're not gonna get to it in time.

Riley: Another tip, to help you meal plan for just one in one grocery trip is to leave a wild card night, which we've kind of already touched on. This could be. You could do more than one wild card night because I'm thinking this includes like eating out or getting, or somebody inviting you over to their house for dinner or grabbing pizza.

'cause that's like, oh, it's just fun, right? Like getting pizza's just fun sometimes. Having those pantry meals or at my house, the most often way we use these wild card nights is. Because I, everything I've made had way more servings than I thought, and we have to eat the leftovers, and so it's like, well, everybody gets to kind of pick what they want, but it's our leftover night.

Roni: I usually plan like Thursdays as our as just like a standard leftover night in my meal plan because by the time Thursday comes around at least one of the three meals that I made earlier in the week, if not all three of them

Riley: Yeah. Yeah.

Roni: made leftovers. And whether it's just one serving [00:16:00] a leftover or multiple servings leftovers, we have enough food to be able to be like, we just need to eat what's in the refrigerator right now.

Riley: Yeah, it's my kids. This week I was gonna go make dinner and nobody was excited about it and I very rarely let people's, whims determine our dinner. But I also wasn't feeling it and I was like, okay, guys, like what do you, what do you guys want to eat? And so our pantry meal this past week was chicken and star soup.

And it was so good. I was really like, I wasn't planning it. It wasn't one that I kept on hand. I just happened to have the right pasta and I had some canned chicken that I used. I had a can of cream, of mushroom soup. I had some like leftover shredded carrots from the fridge, like it turned out. And I had like a, a thing of, uh, chicken broth.

I'm like, it came together so well. It was so unexpected. But like, that's the thing. Now we've got so many leftovers. 'cause I did not follow a recipe. I just started dumping stuff into the pot. But it came together in like 15 minutes. So there's my [00:17:00] plug for like a 15 minute dinner. If you're needing one.

Roni: I love it. So with all of these things related to creating an amazing meal plan and detailed shopping list. I think Plan to Eats your go-to for making sure that you have all your recipes in one place. You can have a really detailed, organized shopping list that you can go to the grocery store and feel confident that you're going to buy all the things that you need for the next 10 days.

And then you can also use, uh, the prep notes feature in plan to eat, which we. Recently updated, so that you can move the prep notes around and kind of create like a prep day in your week. So if you're somebody who likes to either just prep individual items, like you just like to have fresh veggies prepped so that you have like a after uh, school snack ready to go, or if you're more into like a batch cooking and having a single day for batch cooking in your week or your month, you can now like move your prep notes around and just create a prep day, which I think is really helpful.

Riley: Super helpful. Okay. This [00:18:00] section is one of my favorites, but it is, it's like the Tetris, it's the game part of meal planning that honestly can make this feel more fun because you're really having to strategize. So this is how to coordinate your recipes together to save money.

Roni: So I think it's really funny because you're like really excited about this and I have a feeling there are some people who are like, oh, this is my least favorite part of being planning.

Riley: Well, I think that this is exactly why I said what I just said, which is like, this is the Tetris, this is the, like the planner in me, the like strategizer, like, the long-term thinker in me is like. Okay, this is the fun part. Like this is the part where we're like, okay, I bought red curry paste. I used it once.

Well, what else can I make with this red curry paste in the next two weeks? Because I don't want it living in my fridge for eternity. And like that to me is like, just like it's, I think I have to make it more fun and I have to look at it like a game. Otherwise [00:19:00] it would be terrible. I also like am a strategizer.

I do like to long-term think it's where a lot of my jobs kind of live. And so this just, it just, it's, yeah, I like it.

Roni: And I think that maybe it's something that gets a little easier as you become a more experienced meal planner. If you're not, number one, if you're not a very experienced cook, this can be a little more challenging because you might start to encounter some recipes that you're like, huh, no idea how to do that.

So again, we're talking a little more like advanced meal planning today. I think that some of the best items to try and coordinate in your meal plan are the most expensive, right? Like part of the part, part of the reason of coordinating your recipes is that you'll save money at the grocery store. So yeah, you wanna be able to use up all your cilantro by the end of the week, but cilantro is not very expensive.

It's like a dollar for a bundle. So if you end up throwing half of your cilantro away, in my opinion, that's like not that big of a deal. Now, the things that I really don't like throwing away are things like meat. I cooked and then we didn't use the second half of it [00:20:00] or spices. Because, you know, spices are actually pretty expensive when you think about like what you're getting per unit.

Like they're very expensive items and if you didn't know, spices don't last forever. They go, they have an expiration date and they'll go bad at a certain point. And I think for most spices it's like six months to a year. So you definitely don't wanna buy something to only use one time in one recipe.

That's a total waste of money.

Riley: If your goal is less food waste, regardless of the price of the item, because I mean, I felt a little paign of cringe when you said throw away half the cilantro. But how many of us do it? It dies in the fridge so fast. but looking at this and trying to either use, like I'm thinking like I just made guacamole with cilantro and I just made like a cilantro jalapeno ranch.

I used literally the rest of my bunch, and then it lives in that sauce way longer than that cilantro would've lived in my fridge.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: But you can use different meal prep methods or like cooking methods to help these things not feel like redundant. I know that that's a [00:21:00] big issue a lot of people have with meal planning.

Is that , I mean, I get into ruts too. I get it. It's hard, but like eating, okay, I'm gonna buy this head of lettuce and I'm gonna eat 300 bowls of salad. Okay. What can we do different? It's like, let's look at cabbage. It can be shredded into slaw. It can be cooked, it could be a topping on a taco.

It could be used in cabbage rolls or like crunch in a, in a salad. Like there's so many ways to use these different ingredients that you have access to in the world that just trying to come up with a different prep method to make it feel and taste very different.

Roni: Yeah. Or things like roasted veggies. So like say your part of your meal prep is like the beginning of the week, you roast an entire sheet pan of vegetables and then you know, the goal is to eat 'em in different like bowls or wraps or whatever. But by the, by a few days in you're like, oh, we're kind of tired of these roasted veggies.

Or maybe they're getting just like a little too limp and weird. Well, you can turn it into like roasted vegetable soup. That's delicious. And especially this time of year, like getting into fall, moving into fall, and having like a nice roasted [00:22:00] vegetable soup. That sounds really good. So like part of my advice here is to literally Google ways to use X and input your specific like item or ingredient if you're not sure other ways that you could use it, like maybe you've only ever used cabbage.

For a, for like making like a homemade slaw sort of a thing, and you have no idea how to make a cabbage roll or what a cabbage roll is or that, that was even a possibility. So. If there are ingredients that you're just like, I have no idea how else I would use this, or the idea of the cilantro, like maybe you bought it for guacamole and you didn't use it all, you didn't even think you could make your own ranch dressing, drink, ranch dressing and put it in there.

Uh, or you could make some sort of like cilantro based chimichurri or something, things that you maybe had never even thought about. I think that use the internet to all of your, uh, to all of its capabilities.

Riley: Yes. Yep. We almost always talk about this tip, and you guys have totally called us out on this, but if you make something like a [00:23:00] meat, like kinda like the roasted veggies, if you're making a meat or like a batch cooking something like the veggies or a big pot of pulled pork in the crock pot, it creates so much, it can really create so much variety in a single week if you're willing to get creative, you know,

we have a lot of tips coming up, just like with crossover use for different ingredients, but it just really does help you make it like less redundant if you make it, if you turn into something different.

Roni: And if part of your problem with cooking is. There's a lot of time involved cooking every single night. If you do something like having a big batch of shredded meat in the crockpot at the beginning of the week that you turn into other things, it reduces the amount of time that you're cooking every night substantially.

If all you have to do is like put together the other ingredients, you put your shredded, you know, heat up your shredded meat and put it into tacos, like that's a 15 minute dinner right there.

Riley: And we. Talked about this on a few, a few episodes ago. It might have been a lot longer than a few episodes ago, but instead of looking at it as [00:24:00] leftovers, looking at at it as meal prep, so cook once and use it two or three times. You roast chicken or you grill chicken on Monday. Then you have whatever you eat it with, and then you have grilled chicken salad on Wednesday, and then you have the leftovers of that in a wrap on for lunch the next day.

That's three meals and you only cooked it once.

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: if you are trying to take me to the grocery store, it might not be the right time to buy a ton of specialty items at the grocery store, but I think that we all still find that we have those, uh, specialty items that our families enjoy, you know? you can avoid them if you want to. But avoid them, especially if you're not gonna use them multiple times.

'cause this is not something that you wanna waste. 'cause a specialty item almost always costs more money. I'm thinking if you buy feta for a Greek salad, make sure you're also having some kind of Mediterranean chicken dish, or you're having that for lunch every day, or a roasted vegetables. You could put the feta on the roasted vegetables in a pita with some hummus.

Like you're kind of cha, it's like we've [00:25:00] been talking about this whole, this whole tip is just like making things a little bit more interesting and changing the way you're consuming them to keep your. Palate excited, shredding meat for a Mexican rice bowl. Like all that meat could become a quesadilla later.

It could also become like something like totally different, like a tostada or a sandwich. And that can really help when you're doing the crossover things, especially with expensive specialty items.

Roni: And then you could also pick. Things, if it's a specialty item, pick something that you know is a multipurpose ingredient. So if you have like a jar of pesto that you use for pasta, think about how else you could use that. Instead of just having a half a jar of pesto get moldy in your refrigerator, like, could you make pesto sandwiches?

Could you then like bake some chicken and put like pesto on it for your marinade? I think that when you do a little bit of that thinking ahead of time before you buy some of these specialty items, it's just the part that that makes it feel a lot more simple. So instead of halfway through the week, you're like, [00:26:00] why?

Why is my refrigerator like filling up with all of these things and we didn't have a plan for them?

Riley: Yeah. Idea for that is like Greek yogurt, like that can be your breakfast with fruits and granola or a snack. It could also be used as sour cream in tacos. It could also be used as the base of kind, some kind of sauce. You can also also whisk it into marinades for very tender chicken. Um, it, it gives some of that tang, like lemon juice gives, like Greek yogurt does, in a marinade.

And I've also, it's also been really good, with like, uh, Indian food. I feel like Indian food, they use Greek yogurt a lot in Indian food, so I think, okay, we're gonna have something super basic, like a granola bowl with yogurt and granola and fruit. And then we're gonna have Indian food and we're gonna use the one container of Greek yogurt that we bought for the week.

And you're using it in very different ways.

Roni: I love it. So the final, aspect of this that we wanna talk about is, is adapting your plan for sale items and seasonal [00:27:00] ingredients. So if these are things that are important to you, once again, if you're trying to save money, and that's the point of extending your meal plan, is to save money. You're gonna save money both by shopping, sales, and seasonal ingredients because there's a supply and demand situation that happens with seasonal ingredients, where seasonal produce usually is less expensive because there's a larger supply of it.

During that. Period of the year. So I think a lot of the times. The way that this can happen is that you're like adapting on the fly at the grocery store. I find this easier when you know the recipe Well, it's a recipe that's the kind of one of your like autopilot recipes. It's a family favorite.

You've made it a lot of times. And so you have a feel for the end result already, right? Like you're. Starting with the end in mind, kind of, and then you're able to like reverse engineer, like, okay, it's not a big deal. If I substitute, um, ground beef for ground Turkey, I know it's like gonna come out basically to have the same effect at the end of the recipe.

However, if it's your first time making your recipe, I don't necessarily [00:28:00] recommend this, like adapting on the fly situation just simply because you don't know how a substitution could affect. At the end result of your recipe, unless you're like a super experienced cook and you're really good at like on the fly substitutions.

Riley: There are some examples of swaps that. You may not have thought of or just like maybe you never knew that they have a similar thing going on. You know, so spinach, you could swap that for kale or Swiss char or romaine sour cream to Greek yogurt. You could swap if you there. If your store's out of fresh herbs get dried herbs, you just use less when you're actually using, dried than fresh.

Um, think all that water content goes away and it shrinks. We got a lot out of a little. little out of a lot. So, avocado, if you have that, if you're using that as like a spread in something, you could use hummus instead. 'cause it kind of creates that similar texture. you know, like the recipe you're following may not be exactly the same, but knowing some of these swaps help you be more comfortable in making those swaps in the grocery [00:29:00] store.

And it, I mean, it does make you a better cook ultimately, I think, because it kinda gives you some like freedom and flexibility instead of feeling like, oh no, now I have to go to another store to find this thing. 'cause then that's more time wasted. Um, this will just allow you to make like a swap on the fly.

Roni: Awesome. And we are going to, I, I'm at least gonna try to attach, this little swap guide that ri made in the show notes of this episode. So if you want more information on ingredient swaps, I'm gonna include that in the show notes. I'm pretty sure I can include it in the show notes. If not, we'll link it in Instagram or something for you guys.

Another like alternative to this is that you could reverse meal plan, like what we would consider reverse meal planning, which is where you shop your sales and seasonal ingredients first, and then you go home and create your meal plan from your grocery hall. I again think this is easier if you're a little more advanced on the cooking and the meal planning side.

If you're somebody who really excels at that no recipe cooking idea where you can just kind of put some things together and it [00:30:00] works out well. And you don't necessarily need to follow a recipe.

Riley: Alternately you could make your meal plan while looking at a sale ad or like, or like Roni, you and I just went to the farmer's market and you went in like with a budget. You had an idea of what you wanted to make and you looked for those items. I find that there's a lot more waste when I reverse meal plan like you're talking about.

I find that I have a lot more waste that way 'cause I'm like, oh no, I never use the Swiss chard.

Roni: Right,

Riley: Because I, it was so pretty and it, I no needed to take it home with me and it never got used. So I think, so like a way that you can reverse meal plan but is like take your sale ad it's in your store app.

You might still get it at your house. Like I know Costco sends out those things. I think probably Sam's Club does too. These are the things that are going to be on sale. And then make your meal plan around that. Can be just another really helpful way to like do it in reverse, but do it based on sales.

Roni: Yeah, and if there aren't any [00:31:00] specific sale items that you're purchasing in your grocery list, you could think about buying. Your staples in bulk. So things like your rice, oats, beans, frozen vegetables. If you have room for those things in your refrigerator to buy them in bulk, you're definitely gonna be saving more money.

And then if you come to the end of your meal plan and you're like, oopsie, doy, we don't quite have a meal planned, but we have all of these staples items, we could definitely throw something together. It kind of like sets you up for that situation a little easier.

Riley: Absolutely. Our hope is that as you guys are listening to this meal plan, like a pro podcast series that you are. Improving in your meal planning, capabilities, but remember that it's about progress and not perfection because even Roni and I throw food in the garbage can because we didn't eat it. We come up with, we come up empty on nights and like, oh no, I don't have a meal plan.

What am I gonna do? Like, we are not perfect in our meal planning, even though we do this. A lot, and we talk about this [00:32:00] a lot. Um, we all have things that come up and make changes to our life 'cause that's how life works. So just kinda remembering that like the goal is progress and the goal is improving your skills.

But you're probably never gonna be perfect at it.

Roni: Yeah, and I think part of this goal too is that it doesn't mean that every single night of the week has to be like a from scratch meal. The point of meal planning and shopping less is literally just to reduce your stress and feel more prepared. It doesn't mean that you And save money. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you need to be like working for three hours every night in the kitchen.

Riley: Yeah, and we're never saying that, actually. I hope that when people hear us talk like, uh, the semi homemade approach, like maybe you like, it is more about having a plan from our perspective, and our hope for you is that you have a plan more than it is telling you how you need to eat.

Roni: Yep. Totally. And I think it's important to celebrate when you have these like little wins. Like if you're used to going to the grocery store multiple times a week and you finally get a week where you [00:33:00] only do one shopping trip because you, 'cause you made like an excellent meal plan, like. Give yourself a pat on the back because that's like, that's what you're going for and that was your goal.

So that's totally a success.

Riley: If you're working on meal building, your meal plan habits, and if you're with us in this and you are, your kids are going back to school, it's just fall. I feel like no matter who you are, the transition of this time of year feels like a transition and I don't know, it's 'cause summer just changes things for everybody and then when you get back to like fall, it feels like.

I think the school schedule of childhood has never left us in like summertime. We still feel these patterns even if we don't have kids in school. So if you are one of those people and you are in this transition and you're trying to get back on track with meal planning or learning this habit for the first time, you're not alone.

Come find us on Instagram or sharing tips and on how to stay consistent even when life is chaotic. Um, and those tips are coming mostly from Roni and I. So come find us.

Roni: Yep. So you can find us on Instagram at Plan to Eat [00:34:00] Official. It's also linked in the show notes so you can find us there and we would love to connect with you.

Riley: Are you ready for some dinner dilemmas? Roni,

Roni: I'm so ready. Let's do it.

Riley: I promise. Team. Team. I'm talking to you. My listeners. Our listeners. We did not plan this, okay? But today's first dinner dilemma is missing an ingredient needed to make the meal.

Roni: Amazing. It couldn't, it couldn't have been teed up better for us, I

Riley: couldn't have. I was shocked when I opened the doc.

Roni: Yeah. And this one doesn't have anybody that we can attribute this to. Uh, this one and the next one don't have anybody we can attribute it to. So when you're missing an ingredient to make a meal,

pull out your little substitutions list that Riley made for you because there might be something in there that you could easily substitute. Again, you can also Google these things if you're not familiar with a substitution for an item is if it's like the key ingredient for your recipe. I would say that this is a good [00:35:00] time to, this is why we build in the flexibility in our meal planning is like, maybe this is a night to swap it with a different recipe.

Or maybe you make your backup slash pantry meal instead and then you're able to, you know, go to the grocery store hopefully for just that one item the following day, so that you can actually get this meal made.

Riley: It is also potentially a time to. Get creative. Like I'm thinking, like, what is, I'm, I'm thinking of an example, like what is something missing from a meal that I absolutely can't make the meal without it protein like,

Roni: that's, I mean, that was where my mind went, was like I didn't buy the ground beef and we were making meatballs.

Riley: Yeah. Okay. Well, like what would you, what would you do instead? Like if you were at home, like what would you do? Let's give him an example.

Roni: Oh my gosh, I actually have no idea. I mean, we always have like multiple things of random ground meats in our freezer. So like as far as my [00:36:00] house goes, I would probably just choose a different ground meat and I would roll with it like that. But. I mean, you could, I I, you could try to figure out like a vegetarian meatball situation and make, make, like, do like lentils.

Lentils with like bread breadcrumbs or something like that. Like yeah. You could get real creative for sure.

Riley: Yeah. So it could just be an opportunity to kinda expand and say, okay, well I don't have the shrimp for the shrimp curry. We're gonna have chickpea curry. Just totally call an audible if you have that. I was just trying to put you on the spot, but I was also just trying to think what would I be missing?

Like obviously if I'm making quesadillas and I have no tortillas, like can't make a quesadilla,

Roni: Yeah. Then it just becomes, then it just becomes like eggs on top of vegetables or cheese or

Riley: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah.

, But this is that progress of a perfection thing and just like not getting so bent outta shape. Like, ah, you know what happens to all of us? We all forget to thaw something or forget to buy something. I mean, I've had a meal plan and a [00:37:00] shopping list perfectly made, and then I end up at home and I'm like, wait a minute, did I not pick up the onion?

Like, I know I needed that. Like, yeah.

Roni: totally. I, I, I do this in the grocery store where, particularly in the produce section, 'cause stuff is all kind of like close to each other, you know, and so I'll be in Plan to Eat and I'll like tap three things off of my. Off of my shopping list at one time, but then maybe only grab two of the things.

'cause somebody's like standing in the way of the third thing. I've totally done that. And then it's like gone from my brain that I needed the bell peppers or something.

Riley: Yes. Yep. Things get lost. Alright, next up is food again, guys, we did not plan this food that spoils before you make the meal.

Roni: So again, the things that we talked about in today's episode, uh, be smart about your planning. Try to plan these, these, foods that are tend towards spoilage earlier in your week. Um, so that, that, that way this isn't quite as much of an issue. And towards the end of your week plan things like frozen [00:38:00] vegetables, canned vegetables, just like Riley said, and also utilizing your freezer.

So when the stuff gets to the point where it's getting ready to spoil, just put it in the freezer. And then hopefully your recipe wasn't a salad. 'cause that makes it a lot harder to pull your vegetables outta the freezer and then use, but again, you could get creative and you could just be like, well, we're supposed to have a salad, but I had to freeze half of these vegetables, so we're gonna roast 'em instead and we're gonna do like a roasted hummus bowl or something.

Riley: Yeah, and you know, I, I think I, I kind of said, I say this a lot, but like this is just a little bit about being intentional. And so if you are someone who. Is often stretching that five day meal plan into 10 days. If you're doing that a lot and you're coming up with those wild card meals, or you're eating out, that's totally fine, but having your shot, your meal plan printed on your fridge might be really helpful for you because then you can [00:39:00] say, well, we are eating out tonight, but all of those vegetables I bought for that meal three nights ago are gonna go bad.

I need to do something with them. Now, and trying to prevent, kind of like looking out ahead and saying, okay, I already have that chicken thaw. Uh, I've had it thaw for a really long time. Or, you know, whatever. Like, think of a safe, the safe max. Like I've had that chicken thaw for 40 hours.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: It can't go back in the freezer.

So do we roast it? Do we throw it in the oven? Just let it cook, let it be used for something. But trying to kind of give yourself, like if you are someone who is stretching out your meal plan a little longer than your food can handle, maybe just printing out your meal plan and like highlighting things like, we better eat this or, or I better cook it.

Yeah.

Roni: That's a really good tip because also if something is at the point where you're like, this is. Either gonna like, we either need to like cook this tonight or it's gonna be spoiled. You can cook things and then freeze them after that too. So while you not, might not be able to put that thawed chicken back in the [00:40:00] freezer.

Once it's cooked, you can put it back in the freezer.

Riley: A hundred percent. Yep.

Roni: Yeah.

All right. Our third one today also, this doesn't have a name attached to it. Healthy eating for a family with veggies and real food. It's so much cheaper to buy craft dinner and process food than it is to purchase real food that is even grown locally.

I make a meal plan and I find I have to change my ideas as I'm shopping because I can't afford the healthy vegetables and real foods that I had planned. Please help. I would love ideas to get real food on the table for a family of six.

Riley: Yeah, the, I mean, this is a struggle, right? For a lot of people. Especially if you're really comfortable with those kinds of pre-made foods and like things that are done a lot, like a lot of it's done for you. Um, it can be really hard and feel like it's way more, way less expensive to, to do that. I think that the more comfortable you get with kinda expanding, like you might actually find that your budget is the same and you, I mean, this is.

Just like a really tactile [00:41:00] tip, but like maybe make a grocery list in an app, see what the total is, clear it, make another, or use two separate apps, make another one and just see what your price difference is. And I'm a big proponent of frozen vegetables and canned vegetables. Like, I mean, you listen to this whole episode, I said it multiple times.

And so kind of mixing together, like, I think we've talked about this before, but the semi-homemade kind of idea. You're using some things that are processed, some things that are made for you at the store and some things that are real food. I don't ever look at a can of green beans or a can of corn and think this isn't real food, you know?

And so just kinda like weaving those things in trying to like, make the colorful plate, you know, like the help a healthy, colorful plate, like, and like, you know, if your family really likes Kraft dinner, um, like Kraft Macaroni and cheese, eat that too. Have that as a side, but incorporate other things, other vegetables, fruits and things like that in the cost-effective way that fits your budget.

So like that could be frozen. Frozen fruit too. Not just [00:42:00] fresh fruit, not just fresh vegetables, frozen vegetables, canned, canned fruits like I, those things. Those things work.

Roni: For sure. Yeah. I think that part of this that I would recommend is when you're picking out recipes, particularly ones that have a lot of fresh ingredients. I personally would go in and see what you could eliminate from the recipe. That doesn't really change the recipe. So I have, um, like a buffalo chicken salad that I make.

It's basically what my husband takes for lunch every single day of the week. And like the original recipe calls for fresh cilantro, fresh avocado, fresh romaine lettuce, fresh cabbage, red onion, like all of these things. And when I make it, I. Make it so I just like, literally make like romaine lettuce, maybe avocado.

He really likes vinegar things, so I'll put like banana peppers on the salad. Like I just change it. I, I adapt it so that [00:43:00] there's less items. So if you feel like, okay, well we're making this salad, but the salad has 17 ingredients. See how, see what things you can cut out that just might cut down on the cost of that individual recipe that you're probably not gonna miss. Particularly if you, if depending on where you live, things like and what season it is, things like avocados can get super expensive. So if the recipe doesn't like, absolutely need to have avocados in it, get rid of the avocados and, and find things that you could put in the salad. Like you could put shredded carrots instead.

Shred carrots are like super cost effective. So I think being a little bit, my recommendation in this would be to just be a little bit, more willing to edit your recipes and pick recipes that have fewer ingredients.

Riley: Yeah. I, I'm thinking that applies to things like ginger root, like you can buy the ginger root or you could buy. Like a squeeze jar. A squeeze pack of ginger that's pre-ground for you. And like it'll just last a lot longer in [00:44:00] your fridge. You know, think, uh, you could get fresh garlic or you could get garlic powder.

You can get onions or you can get onion powder. Like some of those swaps, like, I don't think that it's a problem, especially if you're trying to cut your budget back. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking like. Ahead of broccoli versus like frozen broccoli. It's, it's not an astronomical price difference, you know, especially if you're looking at trying to get things to last longer.

They live in your freezer, so,

Roni: Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully there were some tips in today's episode too that would help you save some money at the grocery store as well, because I know that. Of all of the things that we have seen, inflation with food is like one of the most extreme recently, so

Riley: absolutely. Yeah. She says I have to change my ideas as I'm shopping because I can't afford the vegetables and real foods that I had planned. So I think that your tip of saying, okay, well we don't have to have a red onion, we don't have to have these things. I also know I have olives that would be good on this salad.

I already have those olives, you know, things like that. Uh, but [00:45:00] also doing that thing where you, you don't have to have your groceries picked up just to use the app and make your shopping list. Like I know a lot of people who do it just to keep on budget, and then when they go in they shop like, okay, I need, like, I need, actually, I only need this much of that.

And like, so buying in bulk and saying, I only need a half a cup of oats for this recipe instead of the full blown container of oats. You know, those kinds of things can be really helpful too. Keep your weekly and monthly cost down.

Roni: Yeah. So I just wanna clarify what Riley was saying there. Is that like, oh, it's okay. Is that in plan to eat? You know, you can send your list to grocery delivery. There's a button right at the bottom that says Deliver groceries, and you don't necessarily need to use that for grocery delivery or pickup.

You could send your list to Walmart or to Kroger or to Tesco, wherever you live. And. You can see what your total in your shopping trip is going to be, and then you could look at like what, what things are extra expensive that maybe you'd need to nix from your list. Or you could look at different swaps and saying like, [00:46:00] oh, the brand, the not brand name item, the store brand of this one is way less expensive.

And so it can kind of help you curate your shopping list before you even go to the grocery store. You don't have to actually use the grocery delivery

Riley: Yep, that's exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks for clarifying.

Roni: Yeah. 

Riley: total, like just to get that running total is so helpful.

Roni: Yeah, I can't. And then you have a target to aim for when you're at the grocery store too, to be like, okay, I know I'm spending my things at $140.

So we're spending $140.

Riley: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Roni: All right. Well that wraps us up for this week. We will be back in two weeks talking more about how to meal plan like a pro.

And again, please find us on Instagram Plan to Eat official. We're gonna be sharing more tips and tricks on how to stay consistent with your meal planning. So thanks again for listening, and we'll talk to you soon. [00:47:00]