Weekly meal planning doesn’t require a binder, a calendar full of recipes or a complicated spreadsheet! All you need are two sheets of paper to get you organised each week. Our weekly meal planner templates are free to download so that you can become a meal planning guru!
What is meal planning
Meal planning is simply asking “what’s for dinner?” once the whole week, instead of asking the question every night. If you prepare every meal at home, including lunch and breakfast, then it’s asking “what are we going to eat this week?” There are many advantages of meal planning and Bon App is here to help you enjoy all of those benefits without any of the hassle with our new meal plan every week!
Download our weekly meal planner templates
How to use the weekly meal planner templates
Simply download and print our weekly meal planner templates and then use these two sheets of paper for meal planning and your shopping list. I tend to meal plan for Bon App on a Sunday night and then go shopping on a Monday, and then I cook and photograph the recipes each weeknight. Meal planning on Sunday also gets me mentally prepared for the week ahead and gives me a sense of accomplishment that has to be rewarded with a Sunday night aperitif before dinner, of course!
- Start by taking stock: Ask yourself what you’ve cooked the last few weeks. Look in your fridge, freezer and cupboards and make note of anything that needs to be used up so that you can reduce food waste.
- Check what’s in season: you can use our seasonal food guide to check which fruit and vegetables are in season this month. And check out this post for the 6 great reasons to eat in season.
- Determine your social commitments: Look at your calendar and determine your plans and therefore your needs for dinners during the week. For example, we have invited friends over for dinner on Thursday next week and also have a social event on Saturday night, so I’ll note on the plan that Thursday is an entertaining meal and to skip Saturday.
- Choose your meals: You can start with very specific recipes or general ideas, like meatless Monday or fish Friday. Then fill in your meals for the week. Don’t forget to give yourself a night off from cooking or to include a meal that you’ve cooked before. Cooking something new 7 days a week is too much for anyone!
- Make your shopping list: transfer the ingredients from your recipes on to our shopping list template by category. This will make your shopping trip so much faster, I promise! Don’t forget to add anything else you need, like shower gel or loo rolls.
- Go shopping and enjoy cooking!
Of course, you can always simply follow the Bon App meal plans as we take all the hassle out of meal planning and you get to eat a delicious balanced meal plan every week.
