Help! I'm New to Meal Planning.

Hey! I had the same problem recently! Recipes take trial and error...find a few that you like. Most websites will provide you with how many servings the recipe makes. You can google recipe convertors online and they'll figure out how much you need to use for a smaller/larger serving.

Start a bookmarks bar or a book of the recipes you like. (I started with like...3.) and go from there. Personally, I make the larger servings and eat the rest for lunches/quick dinners the rest of the week. I have a book on my kitchen counter with recipes pasted in it and on my grocery days, I decide which meals I/we'd like that week (I do the shopping and my fiance eats whatever I make). Usually I choose two...one from my recipe book and a new one.

Some of my go-to recipes are stuffed bell peppers (~160 cal per pepper), chili (202 cal per cup, 50 cal 1/4 c rice), spaghetti (107 cal per cup of sauce, 33 cal for 1/2 c of spaghetti squash), and turkey burgers (~200 cal per burger). If you want any of the recipes, shoot me a message! Let me know if you find anything good!

Hope that helps!

ETA: skinnytaste.com

What we do at my house is we make a menu for every 2 weeks. And then I only buy what we need to make those meals. Then we use left overs for lunches. I always know what we are going to have that day and my shopping is way more organized. I also love skinnytaste.com and pinterest. I keep all the recipes we have tried and like in a binder for easy reference and I try to make something new at least twice a month to keep me from getting to bored! Best of luck!

I find that most recipes I find are 4-6 servings. I take the time to sit down and figure out how much to cut down each ingredient to get it to 2-3 servings (so I won't have too many leftovers). Usually when I first cook the recipe I find that some adjustment is needed. Once I've figured it out, I plug it all into the MFP recipe box and now I have about 4 pages of recipe faves saved here in MFP all figured out to the perfect 2-3 servings with nutritional information.

I also bought a few recipe books that are specifically for "cooking for one or two" at a local used bookstore. These have been great. Even the "not so healthy recipes" I was able to tweak by changing up ingredients to healthier options (ie: using plain fat-free greek yogurt instead of creams or sour cream, making my own stocks instead of using high sodium broths, subbing beans for meat in some recipes, etc).

The MFP recipe calculator and box tool has been of great value on this site.

i have a similar situation - i was good at meal planning for one, but my fiance moved in two months ago, so i'm still getting the hang of meal planning for two people.

in general, i find that picking three or four recipes to make for dinner each week helps. the other nights can be used for leftovers. if a recipe makes a large amount of food, i will usually reduce the recipe or freeze the leftovers so i don't get sick of eating the same thing over and over.

i've found that eating breakfast, lunch, and snacks on my own and making dinner together works fairly well, especially if i can get my fiance to help with menu planning and cooking.

in terms of finding recipes, i love pinterest, www.skinnytaste.com, www.eatingwell.com, and Cooking Light. hope that helps!

At first it can be a little daunting, but once you get in the groove you will start to get a feel for how much you need and what to buy. I have regulars/staples I buy every single week (eggs, yogurt, lunch items, TONS of produce!) and then additional items I need for the recipes I have picked out, or cupboard items like tuna, canned tomato, broth that I'm running low on. By now I have a pretty big sample size of "go-to" recipes that I can make with whatever I have at home. It's really convenient to buy family-size packages of meats when they are on sale, spend an hour or so trimming it and dividing it, then throwing it in the freezer and knowing I can pull it out the night before and just throw a few things together when I get home from work and dinner is done.

Another habit I got into was trying a new produce item each week. I love fruits and veggies, but there were some I'd never prepared or eaten at home. There are so many types of greens, roots, fruits, etc. that can add excitement into a dish so you never get bored!

An awesome way to find new recipes is to search on cookinglight.com for whatever your main ingredient is. For example if pork loin chops are on sale and you want some ideas, just type in "pork" on their search bar. Usually they'll have slideshows with like 10-20 recipe options. pick what sounds best and get what you need for it!

Other blogs I frequent for recipes:

skinnytase
i don't go to the gym
oh she glows
the skinny fork


Good luck!

All these are great ideas. I have to agree with posters before me – it takes time to build up your personal recipe collection. You’ll find that a few tried and tested will make it into your arsenal and you will use them again and again. You’ll also find that whenever you move or change stores you’ll have to start over again building new things you like based on what’s available, but don’t worry! After a few years you’ll have a good handful of recipes and not have to worry about thinking too hard.

The recipe book is a great idea – its definitely something I did when I first moved out of home and started cooking for two. While pinterest is great inspiration and pretty to look at, the fact they drag recipes from all over means you risk finding recipes that are incomplete or too complex – try foodie magazines instead! In the UK Good Food or Olive magazine are great and I’m sure there are some US alternatives. You can copy up recipes into your book or simply tear out the pages you love. Another problem with pinterest is while its fun pinning how often do you look back over your pins? In a recipe book you have it all there and get to browse your book whenever you’re in the kitchen for a little reminder of what you love. Your local library will most probably have recipe books in the reference section that you can get out and browse at your leisure without having to buy expensive copies.

I’ll also say, not sure if this has been mentioned, to look at cooking classes? This is something I tried especially when I moved abroad to help learn local recipes – for me this was asian cooking made simple based on what was available. I think we had one of those recipes once a week for at least a year after I started those classes!

Always try to plan your meals in advance – it helps with making your shopping list and also takes the last minute panic out of your evenings when deciding what to cook. Also, don’t worry about making too much – again this is something that takes time and leftover can always be used for tomorrows lunches or frozen for a later date. Also if its all too overwhelming in the beginning, try to theme your nights – when I first moved out once a week we would have new recipe night or childhood dish nights! It took some of the pressure off of the meals being perfect all the time.

And if all else fail - ask the people of myfitness pal! They seem to have an abundance of good recipes to share

x

The Hungry Girl blog has a lot of relatively healthy recipes for one or two people. They are often knock offs of calorie bombs from fast food, but much healthier. They tend to be very easy to make and don't take much time to prepare. It's worth checking out.

My tips:

1) Since you're on Pinterest, organize it in a way that functions for you. For example, I've split up food across 6 boards: soups and salads, healthy mains, vegetarian apps and sides, veggie mains, savory (aka calorific), and sweet. Having the vegetarian stuff separated out was relevant because my boyfriend was vegetarian, and I'd need to cook for him the weeks he wasn't traveling. It made finding the right recipes quick and easy. For you, you might have healthy appetizers, mains, and sides separated out, with a couple of other boards for splurge foods.

2) When you're actually meal planning, you should start with your main course. If it's a filling meal like lasagna, you don't need a side, but if it's just a piece of chicken, you'll know you want some asparagus to go with it.

3) Recipes that make four servings are your best friend. That means two servings for dinner, and two servings for lunch the next day. It also means padding... If your husband's still hungry, he can have another serving at dinner and then eat out or make a sandwich the next day. 6 to 8 servings work well if you guys don't get sick of the same thing and you don't want to cook every single night, or if your husband eats way more than you do.

4) Keep (cheap) snacks around that are healthy but that won't go bad quickly. Apples will last about a week; peanut butter will last forever (or a day, depending if you can stop once you get started. I can't!). If a meal proves to not be filling enough, there's something good for you on hand.

It gets a lot easier the more you do it. Good luck!

My you lot are very organised!

I take a very different approach.....

I do a huge shop as little as often of eg tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice, pizza base, canned beans. Cheese. I also buy a whole load of different meat and fish and cram it in my freezer. So there is always something to make up the base of a dinner...but nothing that is never going to get used eventually, a lot of it is straightforward cooking stuff eg chicken breast, sausages, fish pie mix.

Once a week I get a vegetable box delivered. It comes with milk and yoghurt too. That is the fresh stuff.

So you might have worked out I hate shopping!

And then I just have fun putting things together. Using recipe ideas or just regular meals get cooked many times.
It works really well for me.

If this approach would suit you happy to share a typical mega shopping list!