I'll serve half of it with the egg rolls meal. I can grab my Instant Pot and make a double batch of white rice in no time. Instead of making two separate batches of rice for each of those meals, I chose to make the egg roll meal with white rice first. We're having white rice with egg rolls and Mexican rice with the taco lasagna. If you look at the list above, you can see we're eating rice twice for the week. Then I'll figure out the best day to have that meal. This includes what I'll need to use from my inventory, what I'll need to buy from the store, and what I'll need to do for the meal (such as making rice, baking bread, and roasting veggies). HOW TO ASSIGN A MEAL TO A DAYĪs I'm meal planning, I write down everything I have and will need for each meal. It's great because you can put in the items you have and it'll bring up recipes using those exact ingredients. I also like to turn to (or Google) when I'm left with random items that I'm not quite sure how to put together. I have it organized by meat and meal type. It's where I keep ALL of the recipes I've made that my family loves. When that happens, I look in my recipe binder. Sometimes, I'm left with random ingredients I know could go together but don't necessarily know how. I know that I'll be able to make spinach-stuffed shells for dinner one night without having to try too hard! #Winning Some meals come together really easily! Looking at my list above, I see that I have sausage, spinach, pasta shells, and lots of cheese. The first place that I start is by looking at which proteins I have. EATING ON A BUDGET AND CHOOSING YOUR MEALS Pro Tip: has some great resources for making substitutions or modifications to recipes! Google is always a great resource, too. Instead, find a substitution for it using items that you have at home! This can sound scary, but it's really not that bad as long as you use my tips! Don't run to the store because you've run out of something that you typically use in a recipe. My next step to meal planning for my large family and eating on a budget is to plan meals for the week based off what I have and need to use. Always keep the items that are open or will be expiring soon where you can see them and easily grab them. Once I get to the pantry, I pay special attention to open items that need to be used up first (like open bags of chips, bread crumbs, pancake mix, you get the idea)! Pantry organization is key to meal planning and eating on a budget. I may have a freezer (or seven) and use them to the best of their abilities! So I'll make sure I'm rotating through my food in there and using up items before they go bad. When I get to the freezer, I look for leftovers that need to be eaten or bulky items that are taking up space. (I obviously can use other items in the fridge as well, but I make sure to notate what needs to be used up for the week.) I'll write down what I have that's either about to expire or is in a partial container that's taking up too much space. I like to grab a notebook and my favorite erasable pens, then go to town. The fridge is the first place you should look and include in your meals for the week because it's the food that will go bad the quickest. It can take a while to do the initial inventory of all your food, but it goes much smoother once that's done - as long as you update it every week! Keep in mind, you don't have to inventory your kitchen staples, since those are items you probably always have on hand. The first step when I'm meal planning is to inventory my fridge, freezer, and pantry and see what absolutely needs to be used up before it goes bad. It's really quite simple to meal plan and keep a low grocery budget! Follow these easy steps and you'll be on your way in no time! INVENTORY YOUR FOOD You can find more info on that in THIS post. Quick disclaimer: Having a budget of $25/week isn't the “norm” over here, just something that we do during Shelftember! I usually recommend $100/person/month, starting at $300. Follow how I meal plan for my family of 10 and you'll be a pro in no time! See, that wasn't so bad! Meal planning and eating on a budget sounds like a daunting task, but it's really not so terrible once you get in the habit of doing it weekly.
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