#116: How to Build a Plug-and-Play Meal Plan System

This week, in our Meal Plan Like a Pro series, we're helping you build a repeatable system you can rely on. The best part about having a meal planning system is that it takes the decisions out of planning! 

In this episode, we discuss creating meal planning templates for easy drag-and-drop planning, "capsule" meal planning (and what it means), and how to plan around what you already have at home. These systems are going to help you save money, waste less food, and take a lot of brain drain out of meal planning!

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Transcript

template planning
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[00:00:00] I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello, welcome back to the Plan to Eat Podcast. Today, Riley and I are continuing our meal plan like a pro series. If you haven't listened to the last two episodes, go check those out. We talk about some more beginner meal planning tips, and then last time we talked about a little more advanced meal planning tips, and today we're talking about building your very own plug and play meal planning system.

Riley: This is one that I tried out this summer. To talk about this, and the different ways that you can create a plug and play system that works for your needs, your preferences, and, and honestly how you prefer to plan.

Roni: Yeah, basically just creating something that's repeatable so that you can take some of the decision fatigue out of meal planning and make it a little more automated if you're [00:01:00] not somebody who like loves planning. I think this, uh, plug and play idea that. Are gonna talk about today is something that can be really helpful.

Riley: Yes, because it does that exact thing you just said, which is it automates it, which when you automate things that you hate, it helps, honestly, sometimes for me, like let's get into meal planning templates, like with theme nights. Like, but for me, just having that like. Tiny bit of a suggestion. Gives me more ideas than like, I could literally cook any recipe in the whole world, any cuisine category, any type, any flavor profile, any country.

And so that's a lot, right? You can get overwhelmed by that. So if you have a template, it just gives me a direction to go in. Sometimes, like if I even ask my husband, I'm like, what kind of food do you wanna eat this week? And he's like, uh, we had pasta in a while. I'm like, cool. Pasta. So it just gives you something to go on.

Roni: Yeah, and so we've talked about this, I think. [00:02:00] Think in maybe both of the last two episodes talking about our meal planning, like a pro series. We've at least just mentioned it. But the idea is you create a template and you assign each night of the week or however many nights of the week you wanna plan with some sort of a theme.

And the themes can be, you know, our cute alliterations like Taco Tuesdays and salad sundaes.

Riley: Fishy Fridays.

Roni: Fridays, even though I don't eat very much fish, I just like a fishy Friday as an alliteration. And so it could be things like that. You could also choose different, different cuisines. So you could say like, Monday, we're gonna have Mexican food, Thursday we're gonna have Italian food, et cetera. So basically like whatever you wanna do.

I've seen things online where people are just like, tonight's a quick and easy night. Tonight's a new recipe night. Tonight's a family favorite. It's like literally whatever you wanna give the title for your themes. It's whatever you want. Yeah. I think we've

Riley: seen people who, yeah,[00:03:00] 

Roni: are we gonna say the same thing?

Do who do like a protein as their, as their theme? Yeah. I feel like we saw that in when we asked customers maybe for their meal planning tips.

Riley: I think so. I was gonna say that people use family members names

Roni: Oh yeah.

Riley: like daughter number one gets to, you know, fill in the. They picked dinner tonight and then the ni and you know, maybe the primary par, you know, the primary cook is cooking it, but you know, like that person picks that dinner, so then you kind of put it onto the one person.

Everyone has some buy-in.

Roni: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. So again, we're talking about some of the benefits of this are your decision fatigue is gone. You just, you know, can put your template onto your meal plan and then you can swap around recipes every day, every week, you know, based off of what your theme is.

So a. I think a good tip for this is that when you're deciding on your, on your theme nights, think about what like the rhythm of your week is. So it's like if you always know you have stuff on Wednesdays, then make Wednesday the quick and easy night. [00:04:00] Um, and again, you don't have to plan every single night of the week.

I think a lot of the time. When you see the theme nights, every single night of the week is given a different theme. But as we've talked about before, I don't plan every night of the week. You don't plan every night of the week. So I don't think that needs to be the case here. And in addition to that, you could also plan one of your themes to be leftovers.

Take out, go out to a restaurant like that could be your theme for the night.

Riley: Yeah, I made Wednesdays, wild Wednesdays and it was literally whatever you could find in the fridge. So if that meant you ate leftovers, great. If that meant you had a sandwich, 'cause that's what you wanted. Cool. You made a salad out of the vegetables that were there. It was just. Kind of a choose your own adventure situation, but we called it Wild Wednesday.

Roni: I like that. I feel like I'd be eating cereal a lot.

Riley: I mean, more power too. Yeah,

Roni: Not because I am, like I, I kind of like cereal.

Riley: I, yeah, I have no, I don't eat a lot of cereal, but I would eat probably breakfast for dinner. Like if I had, [00:05:00] if I had to just like nothing to go on, like that would be what I would just go with. Yeah, that's easy. I like that. So.

Roni: What? That could be one of your themes.

Riley: Yeah, it is. Um, so the cons to this kind of meal planning, which I kind of found this summer, is that it can get a little boring.

Roni: Hmm.

Riley: Unless you're really stretching the bounds of your theme nights, it can get a little boring. I'll tell you what mine were from this year. All right. So we had Sandwich Night, wild Wednesdays freezer night, which just meant I pulled something out of the freezer to make the meal around Fan Fancy Friday, which was, I actually put like, it was more than a 15 minute dinner.

It was, I really tried. Maybe it was a new recipe. And then Saturday was 15 minute dinner nights. So those really lived in juxtaposition. Um, uh, but it did, I mean, I did. Just find myself making a lot of the same things. And sandwich night, I got pretty creative on, you know, we were having French dips and Philly cheese steaks and like pesto Turkey sandwiches and grilled [00:06:00] cheese and like, there's a million sandwich options.

But I found myself straying away from it after a few weeks just because I kind of didn't like the confines of it. And also I was getting a little bored. So I kind of, I did like it for the season that I was in when I needed it, but it did get a little boring.

Roni: I could see how that would be the. If this is something that you're into, it might be a good idea to have a couple different template options, you know, and so instead of every single week, you're reusing the same template. Maybe it's like you switch things up and you have one that's based off of different cuisines and another that's based off of your fun alliterations or whatever.

As a plan to eat, user menus are a great way to make this possible. You can literally just create a menu that's includes a note on each night of the week that you wanna have your, your theme, your little template. So. You could do it for week by week. You could also create a full month of this. And then after your menu is made, it's just super easy to drag and drop it onto your planner.

And then you have all those notes on your [00:07:00] days of the week. So that way when you go to create your meal plan, you're like, oh yeah, we're gonna do a sandwich tonight and let's figure out what that sandwich is gonna be.

Riley: Yep. Menus really does make it super helpful. So if you are a plan to, uh, customer, you really should hop in there and test out menus if you never have. And then honestly, this entire. Higher episode today can be based around the feature of menus because you can create, just like we're about to talk about, which is more of like a capsule planning, You can literally just create menus that you re use over and over again, and that's your capsule. You know, like I just have three months worth of recipes planned and then I just rotate them through. Three months is a pretty quality amount of time actually to have, you know, pre-made menus.

Um, and then you wouldn't get bored of them because you just alternate them three, four times a year. But we, we can keep going with that. Menus is hugely helpful if you use plan to eat.

Roni: Absolutely. Yeah. So the, the, the second idea wanna talk about, as Riley mentioned, is this capsule meal planning. [00:08:00] Maybe you could also call it like a rotating recipe situation. Um, kind of think like a capsule wardrobe, if you've ever thought about that, where you basically limit the number of things that you are using.

So like, I think a capsule wardrobe, it's like. You only own like four pairs of pants and six shirts and all of those things like go together in like a mix and match sort of a thing. But it, the point of it is to reduce, again, the numbers of decision, number of decisions you're making. So you're like, cool, I'm gonna wear jeans and a black.

That's the, that's the outfit. Rather than being like, I have 17 different black shirts that I could wear. Which one am I gonna wear? That's great for some people, other people like simplicity because sometimes more options isn't always better. Sometimes it's, stress relieving to have fewer options.

Riley: So a couple of ways you could, there are a couple of ways you can do this with food meal planning and the cap. Soul wardrobe kind of mentality. [00:09:00] There. And we had a customer contact us and say that they liked the planning, this capsule planning idea, but there seemed to be two types, ingredient led and recipe led.

So let's talk through the pros and cons of a recipe led capsule. I keep wanting to say capsule wardrobe, capsule planning versus ingredient led capsule planning.

Roni: So when I think of ingredient led recipe led to me feels pretty self-explanatory, right? Like you have recipes. Ingredient led to me feels kind of like a. You're building a plate around specific ingredients. It's like you could think of the US government MyPlate situation. I was thinking about something like a Whole 30 where like you're working within the constraints of a specific diet, which like gives you like, here are your acceptable ingredients that you could eat.

Um, and like building a, a plate around that. Um, I don't, is that how you thought of it? Ri.

Riley: It's not, but the more you're [00:10:00] explaining it, the, that's way more simple than what I was thinking. So I was thinking that it was a bit more complicated to be an ingredient led capsule meal planning. Hmm, person. because I was imagining that you kinda like bought the same ingredients every week. Like we all, we always have chicken, pasta, rice, ground beef, and green beans.

I mean, obviously they'd be more than that. And then you created different recipes based on those things. So you have Asian stir fry, green beans with chicken and rice, and then you have. Italian green beans with some kind of pasta, like, so I was kind of thinking about it that way and thinking, wow, that feels really complicated.

Or like, kind of like primarily cooking from like a, maybe a very well stocked pantry, um, which can be a great way to meal plan, which we'll talk about more in a little bit. Like if you do have a really well stocked pantry, it can be really good, but it's also, [00:11:00] you're really leaning heavy on a lot of canned goods.

You are leaning heavy a lot, a lot of packaged things like things that have a very long or an expiration date a long time from now. Um, or potentially things like CSA, like you get a box of vegetables and like that is the con confines. Of what you are eating that week, which we've heard from a lot of people.

That meal planning from a CSA while wonderful because it's fresh and exciting. 'cause you never know what's gonna be in it can be a little tricky because then you have to pivot really quickly. Like, I thought I was gonna have an eggplant, but I only have spaghetti squash. What am I gonna do with this instead?

So I was thinking about it a little more complicated than you were, but I really like your idea of meal planning around something like Whole 30 because. Having like a, like I'm thinking about a taped list on the front of my fridge that just like gives me some direction. That does feel a little bit easier than just kind of like I only have these five things.

It's more like you've got 50 things you could choose from that you are allowed to eat.

Roni: I mean, it could [00:12:00] probably be either, I'm not totally sure when I tried to look up more. About this on the internet, I actually found the idea of capsule meal prep, which is literally our idea that you like make a big batch of like shredded chicken, pork, beef, and then you turn it into five different recipes during the week.

So we have a term for it now, which is called capsule meal prep. Uh, so I don't know exactly which option the ingredient led, uh, capsule. Meal planning refers to, but I, I am actually thinking, I'm not leaning towards one side or the other. Actually, I'm, I'm like, feel very squarely in the middle of like, it could be that it's based off of something like a, like a whole 30 where you have a list of specific things or I'm thinking about kind of, I think it was the idea that you mentioned very first, which is like.

You just create the exact same meal plan every single week, which could mean that you make the same recipes every week. Maybe you're somebody who doesn't care that much about it, [00:13:00] or then you're, like you said, you're then forced to try and think outside the box with your like 25 items that you normally buy.

Riley: This feels like something that's gonna be very specific person to person.

Roni: Oh, yeah.

Riley: Like, just because I think ingredient led feels complicated. Honestly, I probably do it more than I realize that I do it. But especially if you're someone who's following, we get these questions a lot. If you're, especially if you're someone following a very rigid, like nutritional approach, like Whole 30 or.

Uh, like an a IP protocol, or maybe you just have a lot of food allergies or you're trying something totally different for healing purposes, like. Uh, planning this way is really necessary because you really are working with, I can't just find some recipe on the internet. I have to work with what I know I can eat.

So the getting creative with that can probably be tricky, but also it's like at least you're starting with something you know you can eat. I know a lot of people when they first tackle a new diet [00:14:00] type, they get really overwhelmed with like the can't. Instead of the the can. Like, I, There's a, like the I can eat this versus the, I can't eat this. Um, I feel like starting with that ingredient list and being like, I can eat this is a much better approach than I can't eat anything anymore.

Roni: Yeah. However, I could also see that still feeling a little discouraging if you're like, cool, I can eat these 30 things, but what recipes do I make with them? If you're, if that's not, uh, your strong suit is being able to be creative or do that no recipe cooking situation, you know, that's kind of. That's kind of what this is a little bit too, is like that no recipe situation.

Because in that book didn't they have like a whole list of here's what you should, here's what we would stock our pantry with in order to make any of these no recipe recipes. So yeah, I guess that's kind of the idea. So then

Riley: a more expensive option too,

Roni: could be, yeah.

Riley: because you're buying a lot of things, not knowing what you're gonna [00:15:00] do with them, which then you run the risk of, will this go bad before I cook it? Um, what if I forget I have this, or you know, you buy. You buy some expensive ingredient and then it just gets pushed to the back of your pantry and you're like, oh, I really was gonna use that.

Roni: Yeah. Or like we talked about last time, buy like specialty items that you'd buy at the grocery store that you're like, I only need this for one recipe. How am I gonna use it in another stuff?

Riley: yeah, yeah. 

Roni: So then the other option is the recipe led capsule meal plan. I almost said wardrobe as well. Which is basically that you start with a smaller selection of recipes. So I talked about this with a Plan to Eat customer. Her name is Diana Rice on episode 86 of the podcast. And this is, she's the. Coach and she helps people like adopt this capsule style of meal plan through Plan to Eat. And so basically her idea is you only have like 30 recipes in your plan to eat account. So you start your plan to eat account, you import only like your 30 [00:16:00] favorite recipes, and then you mix and match those recipes a week to week.

It reduces the decision fatigue because you're not looking at a recipe book of 2000 recipes to try and decide what we're gonna eat and. But you're not ever really feeling like you're stuck in a rut because 30 recipes is enough to like create enough variety basically in the meal plan,

Riley: Well, and if you've been following along with this series, we've really never said like, plan seven nights of dinner every week. Right? Like we've never really said that. Like we've said, out of the next 10 days plan, seven nights, but we didn't say like, plan all 30 to 31 day, I guess 29 to 31 days of the month every month.

And so those 30 recipes are gonna last you longer. Than a month, which is really helpful. You, I, you're really not gonna get tired of them unless you just hit on that one that you love over and over and over again, which I would definitely be guilty of.

Roni: I have been guilty of that [00:17:00] too. You know that chicken meatball recipe that I found a couple years ago, we still eat it every once in a while, but when I first discovered it, we were eating it once a week. So yeah. And not that we like dislike it, but we just don't need to eat it as often anymore.

Riley: I mean, you and I have talked about this on the podcast too, which is that we get into Russ,

Roni: We do. We do. So I know Riley you have some, some ideas for how to make this happen in your account. I, or in your plan to eat account specifically. I personally like to use the queue for this type of planning. So I would say this is actually the style of planning that I do. I just don't have my entire plan E account set up this way because I didn't start my plan to eat account with this in mind.

So like I just import lots of recipes at random and I really struggle to delete recipes. I, I hold onto them even though I have like 2000 recipes in my account. There's no way I'm ever gonna make all of them. Um, but I always keep approximately like 20. Like I, you know, main [00:18:00] course recipes in my queue, and they're typically like our family favorite recipes.

And seasonally I rotate them out. So like in the winter there's a few more, like soups, roasts, those kinds of things In there. Summer, it's more like salads, uh, pasta salad, cold dishes, and that's, I, I, I basically only plan from my queue. So I kind of do this, it just looks different than maybe how somebody who like set up their whole plan to eat to count.

Would use it

Riley: Well, and I would, I just wanna say to all of the Plan to Eat customers who listen to our podcast, 'cause I'm guessing there's mostly Plan to Eat customers don't panic. That you have, if you're trying to adopt a new way of meal planning, don't panic that you only have, you know, she says only have 30 and you have 400.

'Cause like Roni said, there's different ways you can do this. You don't just have to delete everything you have and start from scratch, though. You can do that. Like Roni said, she uses the queue. I use my categories for [00:19:00] this, so I have a category in my account that is, family favorites and it, I just, if we like it, I add it there, so it's really helpful for me when I'm just, especially when I'm really stuck, I just go to that.

Category and I'm like, oh, we haven't had that in a while. We really like that. Let's pull. I know everyone likes it. It's just something we haven't made in a while. And then another feature that you may not know about is that you can collapse categories so that they are like closed. So you're not viewing 2000 or 400 or however many recipes you have all at the same time.

You can just look at one category and have that open. So if that's got 20 and it 30 in it, that's all you're looking at.

Roni: So because Plan to Eat has so many. Ways to be able to categorize your recipes. I feel like you could do this in multiple ways, so not just like a course, but you could use tags, you could use your main ingredients, you could use your cuisines. Basically, any of the ways that you can categorize your recipes, I feel like would make this really simple.

And then being able to just search within those things. [00:20:00] The more that you can make your search detailed, I think the easier it's, it is because it just shrinks your results and gives you a lot less things to choose from.

Riley: Yeah. I mean, my way of, of putting everything into a family favorites category is not gonna work for everybody because it is everything, right? Like I am not specifying breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or, you know, protein type or anything like that. It just is something that I started doing and then it just became a habit for me.

So I just like doing it like that. So, but it's not gonna be for everybody.

Roni: Yeah, 

All right, and finally we wanna talk about planning with food you already have on hand or at home. one thing that you can do related to this, I know that this is what I guess we would consider, like reverse meal planning, you know, um, so instead of choosing your recipes first and then purchasing the ingredients, you're looking at your ingredients first and then deciding recipes.

So one thing you can do is literally just make a list of what you have at home, what needs to be used up [00:21:00] soon, particularly things in your refrigerator. And then just get kind of creative. You could use this same theme night idea, to give you some guidance. So you could say like, what do I have that would be good in tacos?

Or, what's a good, what do we have that's a good pizza toppings? What do I have that works in like a pasta bake? 'cause I, I have a bunch of extra pasta, but like, what else do we do to make it interesting or. What lingering ingredients do we have that work with like an Asian dish or Indian food? And I would say just kinda use those ideas to guide you in this process.

I think the hardest part about this process of planning for food you already have at home is just having that, like I could cook any recipe in the entire world and I don't know what to do.

Riley: Yeah, everything you're saying makes me just wanna talk about anchor anchors. Um. Like if, if you're feeling overwhelmed with this style of meal planning, maybe because it's like a [00:22:00] crazy night and you're like, oh, we have to eat dinner. I forgot to plan. We don't have anything planned, and you're just like staring at a pantry or a fridge full of ingredients.

Pick one thing, okay, this chicken needs to be cooked. Let's eat this chicken. What will go with it? Or I've got lots of boxes of pasta. How do we end up with so many? Let's have something with pasta and just like pick something to start with. I think would be really helpful with this, and then build around it.

And then if, you know, if you pivot completely while you have, you know, digging through your things you have at home, maybe because you found like a, I don't know, I'm thinking of like those, like Kevin's brand sauce packets. Like I end up keeping those in my pantry. Like there's like a teriyaki one, there's like an orange sauce, like.

I'm just thinking like if I was going with pasta, but then I found that I might pivot fully and like, okay, I'm gonna make this, I've got this sauce. I don't have to come up with sauce, ingredients, I've got this. But just picking that one thing as your anchor can really help you feel less overwhelmed [00:23:00] with this process.

Roni: Yeah, that's a great tip.

Again, in plan to eat. An easy way to accomplish this, you know, planning with what you already have at home is on the website we have the with ingredients filter where you can type in all of the ingredients that you currently have or maybe just like the five ingredients that you really need to use up right now.

And then it's going to give you recipes that have those ingredients in there. And then it'll also tell you, you know, if you're lacking. Two ingredients, seven ingredients, whatever. So that way if you do then go to the grocery store, you know, like, oh, I only need a couple things to make this recipe happen.

So I think that that's super helpful 

Riley: Roni, you and I, you and I did this one time. Do you remember when we planned, like we literally only made meal plans around what we had on hand for a whole week because we were trying to spend as little at the grocery store as

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: So if you are someone who has a well stocked pantry. And you are trying to save money at the grocery store.

This is like the most brilliant way, I think, [00:24:00] to to plan, like to use up what you've got at home, like use up what you've already paid for. Those are not free groceries. You've already paid for them. And so using that with ingredients filter to say, okay, I've got these six things. I've got this recipe in my account.

I need to buy two things means you're gonna spend, like, I remember, I remember when we did this and we were spending like. 40 to $60 at the grocery store a week instead of like 140 at the grocery store per week. Um. So it can really make a big impact. I would say. This is another, um, really helpful way to like do like the FIFO method.

Like go and find what you already, the oldest in your pantry. Use that first. 'cause it was the first in first FIFO is first in, first out. Um, so use the food. You may be. Accidentally hoarding in your pantry because if you're like me, things just get pushed to the back and I so often have to go in and rearrange.

So the things that I bought first come to the front and the things that I bought last of the back. So it's just a really helpful way to meal plan with that and like with that method and it saves you a lot of [00:25:00] money.

Roni: This is a great tactic. If you are like end of the month.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: have like one week left, but you've already, you're really close to like blow in your grocery budget. You know? I think just getting really creative, which with what's in your cupboards, in your refrigerator, in your freezer, and doing that kind of idea of like, we're just gonna make recipes with the things that we have, and maybe they're not that interesting, maybe they're kind of boring.

But you know, I think we've all. Okay, number one, one of the things that I think we've all done is like gone on some diet and then you like buy some weird, like, I don't know, the thing that came to mind was like a keto cookie mix. Like that's not dinner, right? But like that idea, right? Like, oh, I bought this like keto pasta or something.

But then I did keto for like three days and I didn't continue to do it, but I still have this pasta in the back of the pantry. So like, I think that we all have done these things where we've like. , Went off the rails in the past and bought things [00:26:00] that then we had no plan for. And so when you're, when you're tightening up on the budget, now is the time to just figure out how to use these things.

And it might not be your most award-winning dinner, but it's okay. It's.

Riley: Yep. It's just food. Some nights it's just eating because you're hungry and eating 'cause it's di like you're eating to survive. You're not eating to like thrive.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: I mean, I feel like I had a friend one time tell me she made like a chicken parmesan, like chicken bake with like her kids' chicken dino nuggets

Roni: Nice.

Riley: because that's what she had.

I'm like, boom. You used it, right?

. So I went to visit my in-laws over the summer, and did this meal plan with what they already had on hand. I surprised them. They didn't know I was coming, which is not like super abnormal for us with them in particular. Um, but while I was there I wanted to prep them, some food to have in their freezer just with [00:27:00] some of the things that they have going on in their life.

They just needed some food pre-made. That they could just heat up between surgeries and rehabs and things like that, you know? And so just trying to make that season easier for them. So I, I went to their very well stocked pantry and just started looking at what they had. They also had, I'm trying to think about how much basil they had growing in their backyard, but let's go with like.

Like a kitchen island. Every inch of it was cover like so much basil, so, so much basil. So we made some homemade pesto. So we had tons of pesto. We had, I was looking at what they had and um, some spaghetti sauce, spaghetti noodles or uh, lasagna noodles. They had fri beans, enchilada sauce. And so with what they had, So I went through with what they had on hand and made a meal plan of things that I knew would freeze really well. So we ended up making enchiladas, lasagna, breakfast casserole, a rice chicken bake.

[00:28:00] And breakfast sandwiches. Uh, I think there was one other thing, but it's not coming to mind. We ended up making them like 44 servings of food to go in their freezer, and I only spent like $35 at the grocery store to make those meals because everything else they had on hand. But it was, I was like, I was personally, I do this right, like I do this at my own house.

I talk about this. On this podcast, I talk about this with people in my world, and I was still very surprised that we got that much food out of their pantry, outta their pantry stock and like with just that little purchase at the grocery store. But I was really impressed with it. And it just really shows you how much money you can save if you go through and actually use what you've already purchased and build a meal plan plan around that.

I try to do this like once a week, or sorry once a month at my house where I'm like, let's meal plan around what we already have. And it really just helps that budget. Like even it's just one [00:29:00] week out of the month. It really does kind of relieve your budget a little bit. Yeah.

Roni: an element of this where I'm thinking this would actually be easier to do at somebody else's house than at my own right, because I basically have. A, a little bit of like a mental inventory of the things that I have in my pantry and, but I'm thinking I could go to somebody else's house and be like, oh, look at all these things that they have and like, you know, really spin up some recipes.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah, it, you definitely do look at somebody else's pantry with different eyes than you look at your own. So you're right, it probably is easier, but maybe that is an idea. 'cause we're always telling people to have meal planning friends where they say, Hey, I don't know what to eat for dinner. Tell me like, what's something you had, maybe that is where you like, go to somebody else's house and you're like, could you just tell me what you see that I could make out of this?

Or send somebody a picture. Hey, here's what I see, here's what I have. Tell me what I can make with it. That'd be kind of fun.

Roni: that would be

Riley: It's a game. 

Roni: I think there's an element to this that I wanted to mention, which is that if you feel like you're somebody [00:30:00] who is consistently having too many things left over at your house, like in your pantry, in your cupboards, I think it's a good idea. It's something that we talk about a lot, which is to shop at home first before you go to the grocery store.

So, you know, make your grocery list and Plan to Eat and then go around your kitchen, fridge, cupboards, all the things and check off the things you already have so that you're not double buying stuff that you already own. Always is this is gonna save you money and it's just going to help make sure that, you know, by the end of the month, you're not like, wow, we really do need to go through the cupboards because we have a bunch of extra stuff.

Riley: Yeah, absolutely

I tend to have a very well stocked pantry for many reasons. One of them is because I live a long way from town, and so those like. Pantry, staple meals. I keep like a few of them because if what we have for dinner doesn't sound good to anybody, we pivot or, but like, we're not pivoting by going to get takeout because we live too far from town for that.

But also sometimes if I plan [00:31:00] meals that don't get eaten, those ingredients go into the pantry. Right? Because they, they, they just, that's where they lived before. I didn't cook 'em, you know. And so I end up with a bunch of extras. Occasionally it's because I buy things that were like on soup, like a super sale, like, you know, buy four cans for a dollar or whatever.

Or if I bought canned goods at Costco, I very rarely do that because I don't need that many of anything. Um, but if I do, because maybe something was on sale that we do eat, I'll end up with it. But, so then my pantry ends up getting. Full. You know, like am I mean, do you think that I'm like the only one, or do you think other people end up with pantries like that?

Like what do you think

Roni: I bet a lot of people do, just simply for exactly what you said, like something goes on sale and you know, maybe you only need one can of black beans, but the sale is to, like you said, buy four cans of black beans. I have a feeling I am this way, and so I think other people are this way. I have a really hard time [00:32:00] not doing the sale option,

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: I would think that that probably happens to a lot of other people.

Riley: that is the marketing tactic that they want you to buy the thing. Right I just know that for a long time, if it's okay that I share this, like you have a very, you had a very minimal pantry like. Your sphere, your pantry space was very minimal. So like I know that when we've talked about this in the past, like this was not something that you did quite as much as I did, and so I'm just curious, like, I'm just curious about what other people's experiences are.

Roni: I'm gonna say most people, if they have the room in their kitchen, they probably have more food than they use.

I'm currently adjusting my, I feel like I'm currently adjusting myself to being like, oh, it's okay to buy the thing, that it's okay to buy the sale thing and buy the, all of the things that are on sale, or to like keep a couple frozen pizzas around or whatever, because we actually have the space for it now compared to what we used to,

Riley: Yeah. That's great. 

Roni: But also I think that if you're somebody who like lives in Manhattan, in like a shoebox apartment, [00:33:00] you probably don't, you probably don't have space for extra things. You've got got your condiments and that's it.

Riley: Yeah, you're, you're right, which is a very different life than I live because I can't walk to a market, which just sounds very fun if you ask me. But

Roni: All right. Should we move on to some dinner dilemmas?

Riley: let's do it.

Roni: All right.

All right. So I wouldn't necessarily say this is a dinner dilemma, but I know we, we do wanna address this. Scott says, the price of the. I guess that could be kind of a dinner dilemma. So Plan to Eat is $49 for a year. It's 5 95 monthly if you wanna subscribe monthly. And you know, we charge for our app simply because we do have a team of people who work on it to update it and make it better.

We're consistently adding features and fixing bugs, and in order to make all of those things possible, like we kind of have to have revenue coming in.

Riley: We [00:34:00] are a customer driven, like we're not investor driven, like we are customer driven. So like we. Actually respond to your emails. A real person. It responds to your emails. When you email us if you have ideas or feedback, we really do take that into consideration. And this is something in private, it's like a little bit lesser known, but if you download a free app, you are actually the product.

They are selling your data. You become how they make money. Um, with our app, we do not sell data, and so we do charge for the app because we, like Roni said, we have people who are running it, who are creating it, developing it, maintaining it, talking to you as a customer. And so we aren't selling data and so we charge the app because that's how we make money.

Roni: Yeah, the end.

Riley: Yeah. And if you break down $49, if you divide that by 12, it's only $4 and 8 cents per month. So it's pretty inexpensive. I mean, it's less than the coffee that I bought at a drive through coffee place the other day.[00:35:00] 

Roni: Yeah, and really I think that when we talk about like our statistics of. When you use plan to eat to create your meal plan, you know, average cost savings is like 23% at a grocery trip. So just in like one grocery trip trip, you could potentially save the cost of your annual

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: subscription to Plan to Eat, because a lot of times you're saving $50 really easily just by shopping smart, shopping with a plan, making sure you're buying things that actually go with recipes.

So. think that it's, it's really hard because everything is a subscription nowadays, and we totally recognize that there is subscription fatigue, but unlike streaming services or games or whatever that you might have a subscription to, something like Plan to eat actually can help get you back money. You know, there is a, there is a eventual cost savings there that I think, uh, some is sometimes overlooked.[00:36:00] 

Riley: Uh, and I don't know if this is an appropriate time to mention this or not, but we also have an amazing referral program. So if you share Plan to Eat with friends, they save money and you make money. And you can also earn back the, the subscription fee crazy fast

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: just by sharing it with a few friends. Yeah, it's something that really helps you.

Roni: That's a great point.

Riley: So it can save you money and make you money in a lot of ways.

Roni: There you go. I'll make sure I link more to more info about the referral program in the show notes if you guys need more info.

Riley: Awesome. Alright, the next one is from Amy. Planning meals that are high in protein and fiber and also healthy and delicious bonus points if things can be prepped or made in advance on the weekend tall order. I know she added that or this person added that.

Roni: Well, I don't know that I have any, uh, specific recipes off the top of my head that are high protein, high fiber. I think that my number one suggestion when you're struggling with what recipes to [00:37:00] plan is to like find some favorite bloggers, find some favorite content creators on Instagram who make these kinds of recipes that you can quickly save and then add to your meal plan in plan to eat, because.

I just think that's the easiest. I just think that's the easiest thing I would, I wouldn't say that this is not how I eat. However, I don't know that I feel qualified to just like rattle off recipes off the top of my head that meet these requirements.

Riley: Yeah. It would probably be really helpful to, honestly, this is probably a really helpful way to like go start with ingredients. This is that ingredient capsule. So making a list of foods that are high in protein and then a list of foods that are high in fiber, and then just incorporating those into your meal plan.

So. I mean, like we could both rattle off things that are high in protein, but Greek yogurt, eggs, uh, you know, like meat, proteins, lentils. Those are things like, you know, those are all things that are high in protein. Fiber would also [00:38:00] be lentils, kiwi, avocados, chia seeds, beans and legumes. A lot of vegetables are high in fiber.

Go ahead.

Roni: Oh, I was gonna say like oats and grains, high in fiber. Mm-hmm.

Riley: potatoes are really high in fiber. And so like, and you asked if they could be made or prepped in, in advance, a lot of high fiber vegetables, I think root vegetables, uh, white potatoes, red potato, uh, sweet potatoes. Those are things that are, that hold up super well all week.

If you were to prep a big batch of that on the weekend, cauliflower, like those things roast and the hold up super well all week. And then the same thing, we've talked about this quite a bit on the podcast, but prepping a lot of protein in advance. You know, like grilling a bunch of things like on a Saturday or Sunday and then having them all week is a super helpful thing to get.

And then this kind of accomplishes both tasks.

Roni: Doing that capsule meal prep.

Riley: Yeah. But then also thinking something, you know, thinking like, okay, well we've had chicken and sweet potatoes this [00:39:00] week, but what else? Like, you know, I'm thinking like a, like a taco bowl with guacamole on it because avocados are super high in fiber. And then like some kind of ground meat that could be chicken Turkey.

Or beef, any protein would go great on that and then maybe on a cauliflower rice, like all those things are things that you can hold up in your fridge all week and just like make for yourself.

Roni: That's a great tip. I like it. Okay. D says. I have a toddler and a baby, so I only get to meal prep in about 10 minute chunks. Sometimes the naps will align so it can get a bit more time, but it's not a given. My husband and I are trying to focus on healthy and inexpensive meals that can be prepped quickly, and then frozen dinnertime is ideally around 5:30 PM and the hour before that is usually crazy, so it's very helpful if a prepped dinner can just be put in the oven or is already in the crockpot.

I'm having trouble finding freezer meals that are healthy, quick, and budget friendly, which also taste good and not all of them taste alike. [00:40:00] Then once I found those recipes, I'm struggling with how to actually get them all prepped and frozen with very, very limited time. We appreciate any advice. I

Riley: I just wanna give her a hug.

Roni: feel like you've been here Riley.

Riley: Oh, I am her. I added, I'm just kidding. I didn't add this. Yeah. Okay. This is, this is a lot to take in. But it's actually not a, like, I would say it's actually like less complicated to solve this problem. One of the ways. One of my immediate ideas, and I know that the hour before dinner is crazy, but just doubling your recipe and freezing half of whatever you made that day.

It's gonna add up really quickly, like, I do this, so I know for sure that it is very little extra work and it really does add up. Like I suddenly end up with four or five dishes in my freezer, without doing anything extra. And honestly, it's not very expensive extra either. Like, um, maybe it's an [00:41:00] extra pack of pasta or an, you know, like an extra cup of rice.

And then just, you know, like I'm thinking like I often freeze chicken teriyaki with a lot of, and you can make that with frozen vegetables, which is inexpensive. So that's just an idea. Chicken teriyaki, some kind of enchilada, like I freeze a lot. And if you are, if you know, if like the. The health concern, like if you're like, I don't know what your preferences are when it comes to health and nutrition, so it's hard for me to speak to that.

'cause you just said healthy, quick and budget friendly and healthy is very different for every person. But I am gluten free and so one of the ways that I make enchiladas, is with the Siete almond flour tortillas. And it's just like really good and it freezes really well. You know, I don't know if you're like, I don't know if flour tortillas, corn tortilla, I don't know what your health preferences are, so it's hard to speak to that another thing that you could potentially do is on a weekend, um, spend some time. If you have an hour, now, I know life's [00:42:00] crazy and you probably don't have an hour, but if you have reinforcements on a weekend, um, one of the things that you can do is put all the ingredients for a crockpot meal into one Ziploc bag.

And then that way, either you put them in your fridge to be used during the week or you put them in your freezer to be used later. And I would include whatever goes into your crockpot, like, if you're making. Soup, put all the soup ingredients. If you're making a pork roast, put all the pork roast ingredients, like, just freeze the whole thing and then dump it into your crockpot.

And then it's like, just, it's, that can be done for sure in 10 minutes in the morning, maybe even before your kids get up. 

Roni: I think that there's actually like a whole section of the internet

Riley: Mm-hmm. There

Roni: funny, whole section of the internet around what's called dump dinners, which is this idea that Riley just mentioned. I hate that terminology, but it kind of sounds gross, but that's exactly what these are, is that you can prep them in so little time.

I bet you could prep five of [00:43:00] these dump dinners in your 10 minute chunk.

Riley: Mm-hmm.

Roni: They're, they're really simple because, because also the part of it is it is meant to be inexpensive 'cause you're buying your things more in bulk and then you're separating it into five different dinners. You know, four of them go into the freezer and then one of them's the one you're gonna make tomorrow in your crockpot or something like that.

Riley: Yeah. What is the name of that blogger that used budget bites? Budget

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: And so all of her meals are broken down by like how much every ingredient costs. And she's got a ton of under $10 dinners, one pot meal, slow cooker things. So just to specifically speak to the budget aspect and honestly, a ton of her stuff is super healthy.

So I would recommend budget Bites to you also as a website to find a lot of eng, a lot of meals, a lot of meal options, at a really great price.

Roni: Yeah, that's a great tip. All right, well, I think that wraps us up for today. In two weeks, we will be back, um, tackling another topic in our meal plan like a pro series. [00:44:00] So hope you tune into that. And if you wanna support the Plan to Eat podcast, the best way to do that is to share an episode with a friend or a family member.

The more people that listen to the podcast, the more we get boosted into the podcast algorithms and they decide that they like us.

Riley: It sounds crazy, but it's how it works.

Roni: how it works. Thanks again for listening, and we will talk to you again in two weeks.