Decide your meal planning style

Keep in mind that meal planning takes on different forms for different people. Decide how many meals you'll make each week, how many you'll eat out, and how many meals you'll rely on convenience foods for. This will be determined by your schedule and lifestyle; you are not required to cook every meal!

Different people have different ideas about meal planning. Some people make a grocery list based on the meals they expect to cook and eat over the week. Others prepare all of their meals for the week ahead of time and divide them out using meal prep containers, so they only have to cook a few times during the week. Others, on the other hand, have a combination of the two! Choose the meal-planning method that best suits your needs. Remember, the goal is to plan your meals for the week; you may prep as many or as few as you wish ahead of time. Use a few of the same base ingredients in numerous meals to save time. You may also buy pre-chopped vegetables or start with pre-cooked foods that you can dress up with some fresh vegetables. Cooking all of your meals ahead of time reduces the quality of a freshly prepared meal, so consider if the time savings is worth it.