Weekly Meal Planner
Choose the first day of your week, then save each meal as you plan it.
When to Use It
Make room for meals across your real week.
How to Use
Choose the first date, add recipes and serving counts, then save meals.
How It Works
Each saved meal has its own date and portions. Ingredient totals combine the quantities for those saved portions.
Plan for busy evenings as well as good intentions
A useful weekly menu starts with your calendar, not seven ambitious dinners. Put the late shift, the evening out and the people eating each meal into the picture first. Then give the ingredients already in the kitchen a place in that week. A plan is easier to follow when it has room for the days that rarely go to plan.
Choose what belongs in this seven-day window
Set the first date, then save breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack where you need one. A blank slot is allowed. Select a recipe and the number of people for each meal; two people on Monday need not mean two people every other day.
Plan repeated ingredients as separate demands. Two breakfasts that each use four eggs need eight eggs altogether. The ingredient summary adds the scaled quantities across the selected week. It shows recipe requirements before inventory is deducted, which makes it useful for checking the plan itself.
Use automatic choices as a draft
Automatic planning considers usable recorded stock alongside variety, ingredient reuse, cooking time and cost tier. Apply dietary and allergen settings before generating. These are practical selection rules, not a nutritional assessment or a guarantee of the cheapest local shop.
Fill empty slots when you want to keep meals already chosen. Generate and replace is for a new draft. If the settings leave no eligible recipe for a required meal, broaden them and try again; the failed attempt should not leave a half-written week.
Keep the menu useful when the week changes
A saved meal can be replaced or moved to another date and slot. Moving into an occupied slot requires an explicit replacement choice, so a planned dinner is not silently lost. Copy the previous week into empty slots when a familiar rhythm is more helpful than starting over.
After changes, return to the grocery list and recalculate the relevant dates. A menu edit is not a trip to the shop or a withdrawal from inventory. Record actual cooking use against the batches you take from, then review what remains.
Take a clear version to the kitchen
Print week includes the saved meal names, serving counts and scaled ingredient summary. Check the browser preview and paper settings before printing, especially for a large plan or long ingredient names. Clear a whole week only when you intend to remove its saved slots; the confirmation applies to the selected seven-day window, not every week you have stored.
FAQ
Does planning a meal use up my stock?
No. Plans help calculate demand. Real stock changes when you record actual consumption, a confirmed discard or a received purchase.
Will copying last week overwrite meals I have already chosen?
The copy-into-empty-slots action preserves occupied destinations. Review the new week and change its dates, recipes or serving counts as needed.
Practical Examples
- Removing a Cancelled Friday Lunch
- Saving Breakfast and a Snack on the Same Day
- Updating Dinner When Two Guests Join
- Viewing a Plan From a Different First Day
- Planning the Same Recipe on Two Dates
- Clearing One Slot Without Clearing the Day
- Printing a Saved Week of Meals
- Saving Dinner Without Consuming Stock
- Correcting a Zero Serving Count
- Choosing a Recipe for a Snack Slot