Take the week off meal planning. Download this free meal plan to print, shop, and cook from. The work’s all done for you!
This free meal plan is well-rounded, including five main dishes, a bread, a salad, and a dessert. You can mix and match the dishes, adding your own favorites or using what’s already on hand so you can eat well and avoid food waste.
I love choosing meals to make each week, but sometimes the weeks get so full that it’s just not fun. You need it done and ready to go, no monkey business.
If that’s where you find yourself this week, have no fear. I’ve got you covered with an easy and delicious meal plan that leaves room for you to use up what’s on hand, shop your kitchen, and still take the simpler route when it comes to getting a meal on the table.
This free meal plan is built around a little formula. I chose five dinner themes to give this meal plan some variety without making it too complicated. This week’s plan features
- Mexican food
- pasta
- pizza
- soup
- and a meat and potatoes supper
I’ve also thrown in a delicious salad recipe, a fun baked good to fill the bread basket, and one of my very favorite desserts in the whole wide world, Lemon Meringue Pie.
With just five dinners included in this weekly free meal plan, you can have flexibility for the other two nights: enjoy leftovers, go out to eat, or just serve a simple sandwich bar.
Recipes
Here are the recipes included in this free meal plan. You’ll need to print each one out as well as the grocery list you’ll find below.
After that, you’re good to go. I’ve organized everything so you can take things easy. All of the recipes are kid-tested, FishMama-approved to be tasty and easy on the budget.
Shopping List
Note that you can check off the items on the shopping list that you already have and print it or send the link to yourself or another household member and let them do the shopping. The work’s all done for you in this free meal plan!
Notes
- You’ll need buttermilk for the biscuits, so make Homemade Ranch Dressing to go with the pizza and side salads. To avoid waste, you can freeze buttermilk that’s leftover.
- Learn How to Keep Cilantro Fresh so that what you buy will be good when you’re ready to make this week’s recipes.
- Leftover shredded beef as well as leftover chicken are delicious in salads, sandwiches, and wraps.
- Make your pizza into Mini Pizzas for a fun twist! Consider making a double batch; one for eating this week and another to tuck away for a future night.
- To make these dishes gluten free: serve the tacos in corn tortillas, make the pasta on gf noodles and the pizza on a gf pizza crust, make the biscuits with gf baking mix, and use a gf graham cracker-style crust for the pie crust.
Tell us what you think!
We love to hear your experiences with Good Cheap Eats. Click the STARS on the recipe card or leave a STARRED comment to let us know what you think of the recipe.
This post was originally published on March 5, 2013. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Tally Carter
Where did the full list of meal plans go? I live by these!
Jessica Fisher
Hi Tally! I’m in the middle of a transition that will help me continue providing great resources like the meal plans for my readers, but in a way that allows me to practically dedicate time + energy toward creating them (instead of back-burnering them in favor of other projects that actually help me get food on our table).
I’m re-working a lot of the resources to make them more helpful and useful, and I’ll be inviting readers to become customers so you can support my work at the same time I’m helping your family. But I’d love to make that available to you now, in a way that would help both you and me!
Would you be willing to join a Meal Planning insiders group and get (free) access to my previously-free resources for 3 months, in exchange for helpful feedback? It would take minimal time from you, but simply help me understand how I can serve my readers better.
If you’re interested, go ahead and fill out this form: https://goo.gl/forms/Mhe8hzaSO07UcSgY2
I’ll be in touch soon. Thanks!
Pat
You are killing me!!! :-))
Seriously thanks for next weeks menu! The pasta dish will need to be with chicken. My husband is deathly allergic to shrimp. I am going to skip the soup cuz I am hungry for potato soup.
Jessica Fisher
Glad you’re enjoying the meal plans!
AllieZirkle
I like this! Helps me focus!