Meal planning can help save you money because by planning out your meals for the week, you are more likely to just buy the ingredients you need for those meals. There are also ways to make your meal planning simpler and grocery list making easier. These tips will also help you save even more in your grocery budget.
Use the same ingredients for more than one meal
Whenever possible I like to use the same ingredient(s) for more than one meal. Sometimes it takes a little creativity, but it’s actually easier than it sounds.
Here are a few ideas:
- Cook a whole rotisserie style chicken dinner one night and use the leftover chicken in a chicken casserole another night. If you are really ambitious you can boil the chicken bones and make your own chicken broth.
- I have a teriyaki chicken recipe that uses pineapple juice. Purchasing just a can of pineapple juice is too expensive in my opinion. A can of pineapple chunks is a lot cheaper, so I save the drained juice from the canned pineapple for my teriyaki chicken recipe. I will then use the pineapple chunks in either a chicken stir fry or on BBQ Hawaiian Pizza.
- If you have any leftover ham, you can dice it up and use it in a ham and potato casserole or on a chef’s salad. Or you can buy packaged diced ham and use it in a couple different meals.
- Buy a jar of pesto sauce and you can use part of it for a pesto chicken pasta meal and on a different night you can use it as a spread in grilled ham and turkey sandwiches.
Recommended posts: Instant Pot Chicken Broth
Freeze extra ingredients
If you only need half a can or package of something for a recipe, don’t let the rest of it go to waste! You can freeze most perishable items to use at a later time.
Sometimes a recipe only calls for 1 cup of chicken broth. Since a can of chicken broth is 2 cups, I will put the extra broth in a ziplock freezer bag, write the amount on the bag, and put it in the freezer for the next time I need 1 cup of chicken broth.
My husband and I don’t drink milk, but I do use it in recipes. Before we had kids who drink milk on a regular basis, I would freeze milk. I would divide it up in freezer bags in one cup quantities. Then it was easy to take a bag out of the freezer as needed. The freezer does change the texture of milk a little bit. It becomes a little watery as it thaws out, but that does not affect its use in recipes. They still taste just fine if you use milk that was frozen.
Buy in bulk and freeze
When a 3 or 5 pound package of ground beef goes on sale, buy one or two packages, divide 1 pound each into ziplock freezer bags and put them in the freezer. Then it’s easier to just grab 1 pound out at a time as you need it. To make meal planning and prep even easier, you can also brown a pound or two before you put it in the freezer or make some into taco meat. Those will help make some quick and easy meals on busy nights.
Buy a big bag of chicken thighs or tenders and marinate them in your favorite sauce. Cook them up in the crockpot and then you have chicken ready to go for different meals all week. You can also marinate chicken in a few different bags and stick them in the freezer to pull out when you are ready to cook them.
Hopefully these ideas will get your creative juices flowing on how to use different ingredients and make your meal planning even easier.
For more tips on meal planning check out my Weekly Menu Planning post.
