Meal Planning Monday: Focusing Your Meals Around Ingredients You Already Have

It's time again for Meal Planning Monday, where I post the meals I have planned to prepare for the upcoming week.  As I mentioned here I will be sharing some meal planning tips as well.  With all the meal planning tips out there in the blogosphere and other websites these days, what I have to share is not new news by any means.  However, I find that writing it down is a good way for me to process and refine what I am learning about in relation to organization in creating a menu (among other things).  And, hey, if anybody else is able to glean a little tidbit of advice from my experiences, I would love that!  So, even if you're a pro at it already, I invite you to sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and take a 10 minute break to follow along in my journey through it all.

Today, I thought I'd talk a little about how I go about putting together a menu for the week.  Right now, I only really plan for dinners, as our breakfast is almost always cereal or oatmeal and lunch is sandwiches, leftovers or something pretty light.  This makes it easier on me, as I only have to plan for 3-4 meals each week.

1. I start off by looking through my pantry, refrigerator and freezer and see what I already have that I need to use up.  Like this week I had some frozen salmon, a pack of whole wheat tortillas, 1 1/2 sweet potatoes and 1/2 can of pumpkin puree left over.  Figure out what you already have and want to use up.

2. Once I figure out what I have already that I need to use, I try to plan my meals around those ingredients.  Since I already have the salmon and the tortillas, one meal I plan to make this week is grilled fish tacos.  To use up the rest of the pumpkin puree, I found a recipe for pumpkin-sage cream sauce that calls for exactly 1/2 can of pumpkin puree and it sounds like it would be delicious tossed with pasta.  I also happen to know that I already have sage on hand.  Planning your meals around what you already have saves you time and money!


3.  After jotting down some meal ideas for the week I choose which ones I will make and then write a list of the remaining ingredients to pick up at the grocery store in order to complete the meal.  For example, with grilled fish tacos, all I will need to buy are the fresh toppings.  The only ingredients I am lacking for the pumpkin-sage sauce is heavy cream and parmesan cheese.  Pretty simple!


Using the above steps, here is what my meal plan for this week looks like:

Monday:  Grilled Salmon Tacos w/Black Beans and Homemade Tortilla Chips
Tuesday:  Dinner at the BCM
Wednesday:  Dinner at Church
Thursday: Pasta w/Italian Sausage and Pumpkin-Sage Cream Sauce and Ceasar Salad
Friday: Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew
Saturday: Leftovers (I'll be out of town this weekend, so poor Zach will be left to fend for himself.)
Sunday: Leftovers or Eat Out