How to make a weekly meal plan and grocery list

Why a written plan pays off

Most food that goes to waste at home was bought with good intentions and no plan for when it would be eaten. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food waste in the United States is estimated at 30 to 40 percent of the food supply. The figure comes from the USDA Economic Research Service, which put food loss at the retail and consumer levels at 31 percent in 2010, about 133 billion pounds of food worth roughly $161 billion.

The Environmental Protection Agency brings the number down to the kitchen table. On its page about preventing wasted food at home, the EPA says the average family of four spends almost $3,000 a year on food that does not get eaten, and that one-third of all food in the United States goes uneaten. Its first piece of advice is the one this guide is built on: making a list with weekly meals in mind saves money and time, because if you only buy what you expect to use, you are more likely to eat it all.

Start with the meals you will actually cook

Open the calendar before the cookbook. Mark the nights someone is away, the evenings that end late, and the days you already know you will eat out. The EPA recommends basing the shopping list on how many meals you will eat at home, and counting the nights you will eat out, use frozen precooked meals, or finish leftovers. A plan with five home dinners that all get cooked beats a plan with seven where two quietly rot.

Next, look in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry. The EPA suggests making a list each week of what needs to be used up and planning upcoming meals around it, so the half bag of spinach and the open jar of salsa get a night of their own instead of a trip to the bin.

Then choose recipes. The EPA's advice is to keep a running list of meals your household already enjoys, which makes choosing faster and the food more likely to be eaten. It helps to limit new recipes to one or two a week and draw the rest from that list. Recipes that share ingredients make the list shorter and the leftovers smaller: if Monday uses half a bunch of cilantro, Wednesday can use the other half.

Put the most perishable food early in the week

If you shop once, the order of the week matters. FoodSafety.gov, the federal food safety site, publishes a cold storage chart for a refrigerator held at 40 F (4 C) or below. It gives fresh chicken or turkey pieces 1 to 2 days, ground meat and ground poultry 1 to 2 days, fatty fish such as salmon 1 to 3 days, and shrimp 3 to 5 days. Fresh steaks, chops and roasts get 3 to 5 days, and raw eggs in the shell 3 to 5 weeks.

That chart turns into a simple running order. Fish and ground meat go on the first night or two after shopping. Chops and steaks can sit in the middle of the week. The end of the week belongs to meals built from the pantry and freezer, such as beans, pasta, rice, eggs and frozen vegetables, which do not depend on a countdown.

The freezer stretches the plan further. The same chart notes that food kept continuously at 0 F (-18 C) or below can be kept indefinitely, and that its freezer times are about quality only. If the chicken is for Friday, freeze it on shopping day and move it to the refrigerator ahead of time. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service says even a pound of ground meat or boneless chicken breasts needs a full day to thaw in the refrigerator, and that thawed ground meat, poultry and seafood stay good for another day or two before cooking.

Turn the recipes into one combined list

Write the grocery list from the recipes, not from memory. Go through each recipe in turn and give every ingredient one line. When a second recipe needs the same thing, add to that line instead of starting a new one. Garlic from five dinners should end up as one total, not five entries scattered down the page.

Add only like with like. Convert amounts to the same unit first, using standard equivalents such as those in the Institute of Child Nutrition's culinary measurement table: 3 teaspoons make a tablespoon and 16 tablespoons make a cup. By weight, 16 ounces make a pound, as listed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. So 1½ pounds of chicken thighs for one recipe and 8 ounces for another add up to 2 pounds. If a recipe makes more or fewer servings than you need, scale it before adding it to the list.

The EPA suggests including quantities on the list and noting how many meals each item is for, giving the example of salad greens marked as enough for two lunches. That note does real work in the store: it stops the reflex of grabbing the bigger bag. When the list is done, walk it past the cupboards and cross off what you already have.

Sort the list the way the store is laid out

A combined list is still slow to shop if it runs in recipe order. Regroup it by store section, such as produce, meat and seafood, dairy and eggs, bakery, frozen and pantry, and put the sections in the order you walk your usual store. You pass each aisle once, and missing items stand out because each section is short.

Keep an eye on deals while you shop. The EPA notes that buying in large quantities, such as buy-one-get-one-free offers, only saves money if you use the food before it spoils, and that bulk bins help most when you buy just the amount you need. Storage counts too: the EPA recommends the high-humidity drawer for vegetables that wilt, like leafy greens, and a cool, dry, dark, well-ventilated place for potatoes, onions and garlic.

Common meal planning mistakes

Planning every night. Leaving no gaps for evenings out or leftovers is the fastest way to waste the plan. Count the meals you will really cook, as the EPA suggests.

Shopping on Saturday for Friday's fish. With 1 to 3 days for fatty fish and 1 to 2 days for chicken pieces in the FoodSafety.gov chart, late-week fresh protein either goes in the freezer or gets bought later in the week.

Forgetting the leftovers' clock. The FoodSafety.gov chart gives cooked meat and poultry leftovers 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. If Saturday's roast is planned as Thursday's lunch, it belongs in the freezer, not the fridge.

Adding mismatched units. A cup plus 4 tablespoons is 1¼ cups, not five of anything. Doing that sum by hand across a whole week is where most lists go wrong, which is why a meal planner such as WeekPlate merges matching ingredients, converts their units and groups the totals by store section once the recipes are on the week.

Frequently asked questions