Proper diet for the week. Balanced nutrition for the family: menu for the week

Hello, my darlings! Many of us view cooking as a time consuming and time consuming process. So how can you turn cooking into a quick and easy job that yields delicious results in the end?

Before, I didn’t even think about how to make a menu for a week for a family. And I didn’t like to plan anything at all. As it seemed later, very much in vain! After all, almost every day I had to puzzle over what to cook. Funny but the most frequently asked question, which I had to hear on the playground from mothers and part-time, this is - "What did you cook today?".

Thus, we adopted ideas from each other, only the time for the whole process was stretched, because it was necessary to go to the store to buy more ingredients for the dish, and so several times a week.

I decided to correct this situation, and now we have meals planned!

Key Benefits of Menu Planning

Making a meal plan for the week will take some time, of course, but the rewards are well worth it:

An economical menu for a week will save you money. The time for shopping trips is reduced, and travel expenses, unnecessary goods, such as "profitable" purchases on sales, sweets that children beg for along the way, and so on, are also reduced.

Food costs are significantly reduced, as you will try to use the products that are in stock for cooking. Even if there are very few of them, you can always come up with something and cook a dish from the leftovers.

A good menu improves health. When you have a prepared list of recipes for each day and enough products, you will no longer cook a quick meal from convenience foods for your beloved family. The presence of fruits, vegetables, eggs, cereals, meat, poultry, fish at home will make it easy and quick to cook something, lunch and dinner. Learn along the way perfect time for breakfast.

You are the perfect housewife. No one will ever accuse you of being a bad housewife if you feed your family tasty, healthy and varied without extra costs time and money. Children love their mother primarily for food, no one will deny this, having tasted mother's milk for the first time, the child notes for himself: "Mom is food."

A man, if he comes home after a hard day's work and smells the delicious smell of food, will never linger somewhere else for a long time. The smell of freshly cooked food at home, and the children are what pulls him like a magnet, provided that the children at this time are already getting ready for bed, and not rushing headlong through the rooms :)

Menu preparation

Step 1. If you have children, then first of all click and find out what a healthy menu for a child means.

Step 2 Collect recipes for dishes that your whole family loves, cooking each separately is not quite good decision. Only exceptional cases make it necessary to cook separate food, for example,.

Although from own experience I can say that with an allergy in a child, it is more convenient for the whole family to switch to the food that suits the baby, so as not to create temptations for him. In the end, most often it is temporary.

make a list regular meals which you already know well. If there is a desire, then of course add something new, but first cook the dish several times, and then add it to the list.

Step 3 Now decide what and on what day to cook. If you are preparing food for two meals, be sure to mark it accordingly, because you will need double the amount of ingredients. Record all meals in a table that you can create yourself or use computer programs.

Step 4 If your menu for the week does not have significant changes, then the list of products always remains approximately the same, so you only need to make it once. Sometimes you will make any additions to the list or cross out the excess, depending on the season of the year and the wishes of the household.

Buy twice a week:

• perishable
• Dairy products
• Some fruits and vegetables
• Berries
• Greenery

Do not deteriorate throughout the week:

• Cream
• Paprika
• Zucchini
• eggplant
• lettuce leaves
• Tomatoes
• cucumbers
• Lemons

Every two weeks I buy:

• Meat, fish, poultry (I freeze)
• cabbage
• pumpkin
• beets
• Carrot
• Potato
• Garlic
• Apples

Purchases for 1-2 months:

• Creamy and coconut
• Cereals ()
• Seeds/nuts/dried fruits
• Flour (with and without gluten)
• starch for baking
• Tomato
• , xylitol,
• natural salt
• Spaghetti/pasta (gluten-free and gluten-free)
• Legumes (lentils, beans, chickpeas, peas)
• Natural cocoa/coffee/tea
• Spices / dried herbs
• Unrefined oils: olive, sunflower (for salads and mayonnaise)

Step 5 Before you cook something, the products must be prepared. Take care of this in advance. In the evening, transfer the desired piece of meat or a bag of minced meat, fish to the refrigerator. And in the morning, let the product completely thaw at room temperature.

Legumes in without fail soak for a long time. Therefore, if you want to cook them, then soak them in the evening, and by dinner next day you can cook. An exception is lentils, they are small and do not require long soaking, sometimes it is enough just to rinse them.

I also soak the cereals in advance, so they become more useful for our tummies, and they also cook very quickly.

Purchased greens should also be soaked before cutting into a salad. You will see, in just an hour it will become like a living thing. I do the same with lettuce leaves, revived and juicy, they are eaten by the household in no time!

Step 6 Cook in such a way that perishable foods are cooked in the first days after their purchase. For example, if I buy broccoli or cauliflower, naturally I have recipes on the menu these days that call for those ingredients.

Do not rush to run to buy, if in the middle of the week you run out of many products, take a closer look at your old stocks, maybe you can cook something out of them.

Step 7 Mark for yourself the most convenient days for grocery shopping. It’s good if the husband is at home at the same time so that you don’t carry heavy bags and generally move from one store to another by car, and not by bus or taxi.

And let the fact that you do not have to buy products in large quantities every week please you. Buy long-term food in large quantities. Store them in right conditions, tightly closed and use as food for health!

In winter, people generally buy less and less, as many have supplies from the summer and stocks from the fall.

Start small...

Don't try to do all seven steps at once. Just schedule for next week seven main dishes that you will eat for lunch, perhaps for dinner. Make a promise to yourself to shop twice a week at most, and preferably even once. Buy at once all the ingredients needed to prepare the planned meals.

In the first half of the week, as I wrote above, cook something that can quickly deteriorate, in the middle of the week you can come up with something on the go, and a couple of days before the next grocery purchase, you will probably still have cereals, potatoes, carrots, onions , also meat or chicken, which can be cooked tasty soup.

And very important point, always, before you go to the store to buy products from the list, take a walk to your pantry, examine the contents of the shelves in the closet and. In these places, it is generally useful to periodically make an audit so that the products are not stale there in vain, and the storage is kept clean.

Making a menu for every day for the whole family is a sure step towards proper nutrition. A good habit allows you to think over the diet of households, to enrich it with the necessary vitamins as much as possible. Accounting for the necessary products also becomes effective prevention unnecessary expenses, funds are saved without compromising the quality of food. Plus, time costs are reduced, since many dishes are prepared for 2-3 days.

Day #1 – Monday

Family weekly home menu planning starts on Monday. On this and all subsequent days, four meals a day are supposed. If desired, you can exclude an afternoon snack from the list.

Buckwheat porridge - healthy breakfast giving energy in the morning. You can cook the product on water, on milk. Sweet tooth is allowed to add sugar.

Chicken soup is a lunch that is not burdensome for the stomach, thanks to which the functioning of the digestive tract is restored, immunity improves. Prepared with vermicelli (you can use homemade noodles).

The afternoon snack is limited to a vitamin salad, which is prepared with carrots and dried apricots. Optimum filling - vegetable oil.

Dinner depends on individual preferences. In sour cream, you can stew fish or chicken. Salad is prepared from any vegetables except potatoes.

To prepare a salad of dried apricots (snack), you need 2 handfuls of the main product, 3 carrots. Dressing is created using 1.5 tsp. vegetable oil, 1.5 tbsp. l. lemon juice, a little honey. Carrots and dried apricots are chopped, mixed with whipped lemon juice. The dish is seasoned with butter and honey.

Day #2 - Tuesday

How to make a menu for the week for the family on Tuesday? The program for Tuesday includes semi-finished products (sausages), which, if desired, can be abandoned in favor of a natural product.

The first meal includes scrambled eggs with sausages. An alternative for those on a diet is boiled eggs.

Lunch is limited to low-calorie squash soup, the recipe of which is offered below.

As a snack, there is a fruit salad; instead, you can offer fresh fruit to your home.

Vegetable mix, fish cakes- options for dinner. For the preparation of cutlets, pollock is optimal.

To create a puree soup in an economical menu for a week for a family, you need to enter ingredients such as potatoes (300 g), zucchini (700 g), carrots and onions (one at a time), sour cream (a third of a glass). Seasonings, herbs, garlic, vegetable oil are also needed, everything is added to taste. The oil is heated in a saucepan, chopped carrots and onions are fried in it. Water, peeled and finely chopped potatoes are added.

Ten minutes later, chopped zucchini (in the peel), salt to taste are laid out. Sour cream is added after 15 minutes, then the dish is boiled for another 3 minutes, cooled and mashed with a blender. final touch- adding greens.

Day #3 - Wednesday

A family weekly menu with recipes is also available for Wednesdays. Breakfast consists of savory porridge with raisins, you can have stewed vegetables and rice for lunch, meat cutlets with potato dressing are for dinner. For cutlets you need the following products:

• minced meat (0.8 kg);
• onion (2 pcs.);
• yolk (2 pcs.);
• White bread(200 g);
• milk (0.5 tbsp.);
• crackers (or flour).

Bread is soaked in milk, finely chopped and fried onion. Minced meat is mixed with these products. After high-quality mixing, egg yolks, salt and spices are added by eye. Cutlets are molded, rolled in flour or breadcrumbs, laid out in a pan with heated oil. It is necessary to fry until a golden crust appears, then a short stew over low heat follows.

Other days

The budget menu for the week for the family on the remaining days may repeat the above dishes or include new ones.

On Thursday, breakfast is worth a cottage cheese casserole, for lunch, cook a pie with cabbage (it is also offered for an afternoon snack). For dinner, you can fry mackerel and complement the dish with potatoes or pasta.

Friday breakfast includes dumplings, which can be dressed with any ingredients, eaten with sour cream. A healthy lunch is borscht or another soup. Fruit is served as a snack, beef chops with any side dish are served for dinner.

A sample weekly menu for a family on Saturday starts with an omelet for breakfast. Lunch consists of chicken salad (for example, Caesar), for an afternoon snack it is worth making pancakes, seasoning them with any filling. You can have dinner stewed cabbage and any meat.

Sunday breakfast is egg croutons, you can make them sweet or savory. For lunch, homemade hodgepodge is used. For an afternoon snack, a pie with any dressing is an excellent choice, dinner includes a salad and potato casserole.

The program is given only as an option, it can be modified, focusing on the tastes of the household. It is important to eat low-calorie foods, avoid fried, smoked, and highly salty foods, and avoid soda, chips, and other unhealthy snacks.

To supplement the menu of any day is fruit. Their number can be very significant. Or you can replace an afternoon snack, a late dinner or even breakfast. And adding to different dishes will make the taste more original.

The desire to improve the quality of life is a normal desire reasonable person. The first thing to start with is healthy eating based on a competent distribution of calories, taking into account compatibility and environmental safety products.

What is proper nutrition

Task proper nutrition is to:

• supply the human body with sufficient nutrients so that all vital systems work normally, a person remains cheerful and active;

Attention! Any strict restrictions(including starvation) lead to stress. You can arrange a fasting day once a week, but in no case exhaust yourself with hunger.

• the daily menu brought gastronomic joy and a feeling of satiety;
• energy balance was maintained (the correct ratio of calories consumed and expended is necessary - depending on whether you want to lose weight, gain weight or leave the weight parameter unchanged);
• slow down the aging process at the cellular level (healthy nutrition differs from the “usual” one in that benign and natural products become a priority - with a complete rejection of various synthetic substitutes);
• correct certain diseases (as an example, the exclusion of sugar against diabetes, the rejection of marinades and smoked meats against gastritis, a diet rich in calcium to strengthen bones, etc.).

Basic principles of healthy eating

Exist general principles that underlie proper nutrition, regardless of age, gender and type of human activity. Each of these principles contributes to the final positive result.

Meal frequency

Make a menu for a week in such a way that the body receives food daily in fractional parts, at least 3 times a day. The 5-day option is considered optimal;

Attention! With frequent intake of food into the stomach, digestion is adjusted to a sparing mode - the organs work without tension, easily coping with each next portion of the material.

Regularity

Let all the items on your menu be sold by the hour - at about the same time every day. And so the whole week. This approach adjusts the stomach for the timely release of digestive enzymes in the right amount.

Adequacy

Avoid overeating, but at the same time, don't starve yourself for "great goals." Plan your diet so that you never feel hungry. Good known fact: fasting people often begin to gain weight quickly after their weight loss diet is over;

Attention! A food-starved body is in a state of stress, so it automatically adjusts to create energy (and hence fat) reserves.

balance

There must be harmony in everything. Plan your weekly intake of fat, protein, carbohydrates, water, and salt. Do not try to "fulfill the plan" for the amount of food. Emphasis on uniformity and reasonable ratios of proteins / fats / carbohydrates (BJU).

Also, always remember the calories. It is not visible from the outside, but each product, when it enters the diet, is a supplier of a certain amount of calories. Their excess will lead to an increase in fat reserves. The disadvantage - to the depletion of the body.

Attention! People who are actively involved in sports or receive large physical exercise, should not underestimate the amount of daily calorie intake.

According to scientists, the daily calorie requirement:

Only the most useful

The diet of proper nutrition should include only benign products. Excessive heat treatment is also undesirable. The closer the structure remains to the original, the better.

Write to yourself in a conspicuous place a set of elementary rules:

• reduce the amount of fried, smoked, pickled food;
• preference - stewed and boiled food, as well as steamed;
• Eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible every week, and if possible in raw form. After heat treatment fruits and vegetables lose the lion's share of nutrients.

Attention! The benefits of plant fiber are unprecedented as a natural colon cleanser. The body gets rid of toxins and carcinogens, which in today's ecology cannot be avoided.

How to make a healthy menu for the week

Start planning your menu for the week ahead of time. You probably have favorite dishes, but try not to repeat the same dish more than 1 time in 3 days. Invent new recipes to achieve variety.

To get started, choose any example from the list of recommended meals for one day, count calories. After that, go further, write down the diet for the whole week (then - for a month). Here are indicative meals to help you start your planning.

Breakfasts

Take any example from the list or modify it:

• buckwheat, millet, rice, oatmeal, wheat, barley porridge - cook the dish in low-fat milk or water, fill plant species oils;
• handful of nuts ( various varieties either singly or as mixtures).
• steamed dried fruits (no more than ½ of a standard bowl at a time);
• curdled milk, kefir, whey with berry juice - 1 cup;
• whole grain bread (110-135 g per meal);
• low-fat cheese 3-4 slices;
• a slice of salted fish;
• vegetable salad with fresh herbs;
• fruit salad;
• cottage cheese with low-fat sour cream;
• yogurt;
• omelette of 3 chicken or 5 quail eggs.

Attention! The diet should include items corresponding to the calorie table and the ratio of BJU.

Healthy food for breakfast

• fresh fruit - apple, pear, a couple of kiwi, citrus fruits (orange, tangerines, ½ pomelo), banana;
• dark chocolate - no more than 25 g;
• kefir or yogurt - 1 cup;

Attention! Add a spoonful of pureed fresh berries, homemade jam or honey to kefir or yogurt. This will add sweetness and diversify the assortment of dishes.

Dinners on your menu

Your diet will be quite varied if the following dishes appear on the lunch menu:

• pasta from durum wheat;
• low-fat cheese for dressing pasta;
• vegetarian pizza;
• vegetable cream soups (tomato, onion, vegetable), seasoned with rye bread croutons;
• lean meats ( chicken breast, turkey fillet, veal, lean beef);
• stewed vegetables (cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, onion, celery, beets);
• goulash from soy meat with the addition of low-fat sour cream and flour for gravy;
• fish boiled or baked in the oven;
• low-fat lasagna (as an example - mushroom, vegetable or mixed);
• vegetable soup with lean meat (shurpa);
• legumes stewed on water (lentils, beans, peas);
• salads from fresh vegetables;
• boiled seafood (squid, shrimp).

afternoon tea

Try to plan 5 meals a day throughout the week. The afternoon snack takes on part of the load from the upcoming dinner, thereby unloading the body and reducing the load on the digestive tract.

Interesting options:

• natural juice from vegetables, fruits or berries - 1 glass;
• a handful of steamed dried fruits;
• cottage cheese with jam;
• sweet yogurt;
• buckwheat, rye or rice bread 2-3 pieces;
• low-fat cottage cheese with fresh chopped herbs;
• some fruits (grapes, plums, apricots, peaches);
• nuts are not overcooked.

Dinners

It is desirable that the evening menu contains as little animal protein as possible. Preference for dishes such as:

• cottage cheese casseroles, cheesecakes;
• vegetable casseroles with low-fat cheese in the oven;
• salads from vegetables, it is possible with the addition of seafood;
• a little boiled chicken white meat or a piece of steam fish;
• easy omelette of 2 chicken eggs with vegetables;
• chopped fresh herbs;
• olives, olives;
• brown rice boiled or steamed;
• vegetable pancakes, sometimes with mushrooms;
• kefir, yogurt - 1 cup;
  a couple of slices of black bread.

Menu for one week for a girl

And here good example balanced nutrition for a week for girls and young women. This category is most concerned about their diet, since it most directly affects the state of appearance.

It is the girls who are concerned about cellulite (it does not threaten girls yet, older women no longer care, and men do not care at all). What should you eat all week in order to maintain both internal health and external beauty?

Attention! Cellulite occurs due to a violation of lipid metabolism. Eat as little animal fat as possible. Against this background, drink 1.8-2.5 liters pure water per day.

Monday

• cocoa with sugar and milk - 1 cup;
• unsweetened cheesecakes or cottage cheese casserole;
• dried fruits - 1 handful.

Lunch:

• fresh berries (150-200 g) - raspberries, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, etc. at your discretion;
• whipped cream 100 g;
• black tea with honey - 1 cup.

• seafood soup with vegetables;
• boiled brown rice;
• a piece of fish, steamed or baked in foil;
• sweet corn 2-4 tbsp. l.;
• you can drink ½ glass of dry wine.

• oatmeal cookies or light bran biscuit;
• fruit juice (oranges, tangerines, kiwi, pineapple, etc.).

• vegetable salad;
• a piece of dietary meat cooked on the grill or in the oven (rabbit, turkey, chicken);
• tea from currant leaves with honey.

Tuesday

• milk porridge - millet or rice;
• Cup of coffee;
• bran bread;
• 2-4 slices of low-fat cheese.

Lunch:

• citrus juice;
• crackers or large-grain cookies;
• sweet curd or yogurt.

• thick borsch in meat broth;
• sour cream for dressing 1 tsp or st. the spoon;
• potatoes stewed with meat;
• Vegetable mix ( green pea with onions or olives with bell peppers);
• Rye bread;
• a glass of any tea.

• dried fruits with nuts;
• cocoa with low-fat milk (can be without sugar, as dried fruits will give enough sweetness).

• easy meat salad(vegetables, some white chicken meat boiled, chopped greens);
• green tea with honey.

Wednesday

• coffee or tea - 1 glass;
• fruit and curd casserole;
• buckwheat bread with jam.

Lunch:

• dried fruits;
• sweet curd.

• canned stewed meat;
• garnish of vegetables or legumes;
• green salad;
• Rye bread;
• tea or fruit juice.

• tomato juice;
• 1-2 crispy slices;
• 3-4 slices of cheese.

• a piece of steam fish;
• stewed cauliflower and cabbage with tomatoes;
• brown or red rice;
• melissa tea with oregano.

Thursday

• boiled buckwheat with mushrooms;
• cheese 3-4 slices;
• tea with milk;
• crackers.

Lunch:

• yogurt with a fat content of not more than 6-11%;
• fresh fruits (banana, pear or apple, kiwi or grapes);
• green tea.

• Rye bread;
• vegetable stew (green beans, beets, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, green peas, bell peppers, cabbage);
• a piece of turkey baked in foil;
• cocoa with low-fat milk and honey.

• compote from berries;
• light biscuit or oatmeal cookies.

• low-fat cottage cheese with herbs;
• a glass of cocoa or tea;
• a handful of dried fruits.

Friday

• oatmeal with milk;
• fruit salad (banana, apple, nuts, tangerine, kiwi);
• Cup of coffee;
• a handful of nuts.

Lunch:

• 20 g dark chocolate;
• green tea;
• yogurt.

• pea soup with chicken giblets;
• mashed potatoes;
• chicken or rabbit cutlet;
• greens, any vegetable salad;
• tomato juice.

• cheese 2-3 slices;
• dried fruits compote;
• crispy crackers 2-3 pcs.

• Steamed fish;
• vegetable stew;
• kefir or yogurt;
• black bread.

Saturday

• omelet with mushrooms;
• bran or black bread;
• sliced ​​fresh vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers);
• cocoa with milk or coffee with honey.

Lunch:

• sweet cottage cheese;
• fresh berries;
• kefir or yogurt.

• fish soup;
• boiled brown or red rice;
• fresh vegetable salad;

• biscuit or marshmallow (1 pc.);
• fresh fruit juice;
• oatmeal cookies 2-3 pcs.

• steam vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, etc.);
• boiled pasta made from durum flour;
• a piece of lean meat or light fish for a couple;
• green tea.

Sunday

• oatmeal, millet or barley groats, boiled in low-fat milk;
• fresh berries;
• kefir or yogurt;
• Cup of coffee.

Lunch:

• dark chocolate 20-25 g;
• crispy slices 2 pcs.;
• raw coarse bun;
• fruit juice.

• chicken soup;
• vegetables stewed with garlic;
• hard cheese 2-3 slices;
• tomato juice.

• a handful of nuts;
• fruit salad;
• whipped cream with jam or berry syrup;

• stewed fish;
• fresh vegetables in the form of a salad or sliced;
• brown rice or pasta made from coarse flour;
• herbal tea (mint, oregano, thyme).

No matter how carefully composed your menu may be, remember to additional measures health promotion: good sleep, physical activity, positive thinking. As for the nutrition system, you need to monitor its effectiveness, control weight and other vital signs. If you feel better, then you are moving in the right direction.

You may also be interested

We offer our own menu option for a week for a family with economy recipes in this article, so that during a crisis and a difficult life situation I could eat tasty and nutritious food. There comes a time in every family when you need to tighten your belts a bit. Don't worry, everything will pass. In the meantime, you need to arm yourself with an economical menu and start implementing it.

sweet leftovers

Before compiling the main menu for the days of the week, I want to pay attention to the leftovers. It happens that kefir or milk sours, for example. In a normal situation, such a product is poured out, but you can cook excellent pancakes or pancakes from sour milk products.

Zucchini is another simple and cheap ingredient that can be stored for a long time. You can also make pancakes from zucchini, and even pies. During the period of savings, you should take a closer look at dough products and rehabilitate them for yourself again. As for vegetables, it is worth buying only the most affordable ones (they are also very healthy): potatoes, cabbage, beets, radishes, onions and garlic.

Economy menu for a week for a family of 3 with recipes

Monday

Lunch: Chicken soup with vermicelli or rice. It is extremely easy to prepare, and at the same time, it turns out a tasty and nutritious product. You can also bake potatoes as a bite to the soup so that satiety is complete.

Lunch: Salad with carrots and raisins, dressed with honey.

Lunch: The same chicken soup. This time you can bake beets to it.
Afternoon snack: Roll with lemon.

Dinner: Fish meatballs, delicious and vitamin salad.

Wednesday

Breakfast: You can cook the usual oatmeal with milk. It activates digestion and energizes for the whole day.

Afternoon snack: The same lemon roll left over from Tuesday.

Dinner: Fish meatballs and vinaigrette. Dinner is also repeated, but, as a rule, these dishes are enough for a family of three for just two days.

Thursday

Breakfast: Eggs must be in the diet, so you can cook an omelette with onions.

Lunch: Continues to eat pea soup with new portion garlic croutons.
Afternoon snack: Fritters. You can cook on kefir or yogurt, and serve with jam.

Dinner: Stew cabbage with rice and minced meat. You can also make a salad of carrots with garlic, season with vegetable oil.

Friday

Breakfast: Again, you can serve pancakes with sour cream.

Lunch: It is worth preparing a soup with tomato paste, to which add noodles.

Afternoon snack: You can safely make a cocktail with a banana, to which you add ginger and cinnamon. Such an afternoon snack is not only delicious, it also strengthens the immune system.

Dinner: Cabbage will remain from Thursday.

Saturday

Breakfast: On the day off, breakfast should be more hearty and enjoyable. Therefore, you can cook cheesecakes with apples. Moreover, cook them in such quantity that there is still left for an afternoon snack.

Lunch: Tomato soup from yesterday, which should have enough vermicelli.

Afternoon snack: cheesecakes.

Dinner: Chicken cutlets with potatoes. Make cabbage salad with prunes.

Sunday

Breakfast: Millet porridge with pieces of pumpkin. Excellent nutritious breakfast, which contains a lot of vitamins. And this porridge pleases with its bright appearance.

Lunch: Russian pickle.

Afternoon snack: Any fresh fruit. It can be apples, bananas or oranges.

Dinner: chicken cutlets with rice, beetroot salad and canned peas.

How to compare costs

By the way, this is such a great economy menu for a week for a family of 2 with recipes. If some recipes are not in the article, then they can be found on the pages of our website. Just use the search form. Especially for you, we have collected economical delicious meals, for the preparation of which there are step-by-step photos.

Important! total amount on the check will be more than spent on food for one week. After all, many products on the menu are bought immediately in the package and are simply not eaten for a week. For example, rice, vermicelli.

Nutritionists advise, regardless of the season, be sure to include fresh vegetable salad in your diet. Moreover, you do not need to buy expensive vegetables. It is enough to use seasonal products. In summer and autumn, it’s understandable, but in winter it’s cabbage, radish, beets and carrots. You can’t even imagine how many interesting things you can cook from ordinary, affordable and cheap products!

Weekly or monthly menu planning has a number of advantages and is very popular with many housewives. In order to think over and draw up a menu for a week, or even three, it will, of course, take more time than when planning a menu for tomorrow. But then again, if we take into account only one day. In fact, planning a menu for the week ahead will be more economical than planning for every next day. In addition, once you have decided on the plan for preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners, you will do everything much faster and more confidently.

When planning your weekly or monthly menu, consider the season as well as upcoming holidays. Include in the menu as much as possible large quantity dishes from seasonal products that are generally available and cheap compared to prices for them in other seasons. Take into account the fact that on the eve of the holidays the prices of some foodstuffs tend to rise, so if possible, buy such products in advance, when there is still no hype. For example, young potatoes are quite expensive for a certain time after their appearance on the markets, but after one or two weeks the price for it decreases. Before Easter, the cost of eggs may increase, and before the New Year - chocolate and champagne, in America, for example, cranberries on the eve of Thanksgiving cost twice as much as 2-3 weeks before ... Therefore, be far-sighted, consider the nuances inherent in the place where you are live. And yet, when you have a clear shopping plan, you can easily resist the many temptations that await you in the supermarket, which means you can save a significant amount of money.

You can plan a long-term menu in different ways. You can plan based on available stocks (as in the previous method), only buying the missing products if necessary, or you can plan so that you will have to buy all the products for the menu at once on your next trip to the supermarket. Each case has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Inventory Based Menu Planning (On a Budget)

Let's imagine a situation where for some reason you can't go out for a wholesale purchase of products, or your budget for a week is very limited, for example, it is about 500 rubles. How in such conditions to make a decent menu for the whole week? Very simple. The first step is to look at all your stocks, check the contents of the freezer and refrigerator, mark perishable foods and start planning your menu based on them. It would be nice to immediately sort (in mind or on paper) all products into categories - for example, squirrels, vegetables, fruits, starches. Let's say that among the proteins we have lentils, white beans, canned salmon, canned minced sausage, 1 kg of ground beef, frozen chicken. Vegetables include onions, carrots, potatoes, canned corn, tomatoes, green peas, and tomato paste. From fruits - apples, canned pineapples and peaches, apple and grapefruit juices. Starches include spaghetti, rice, oatmeal, corn grits, and flour. Now, starting from what you already have at hand, make a menu. Supplement the menu with only those dishes that will fit into the allotted budget, buy only the essentials - eggs, milk, bread, possibly cheese, fish.

Below is an example of such a menu - tailored to the products available.

It is better to start planning a menu with protein products. Lentils and rice make delicious burritos, white beans make a wonderful soup with potatoes. Simply baked beans are also delicious, only they need to be prepared in advance, for example, the day before. Meals for dinner can be prepared in double volume - the leftovers can go to lunch the next day (as, for example, on Thursday). In general, try to anticipate in advance what you can use tomorrow from today's leftover dishes. For example, leftover chicken cooked on Monday night can be used to make chicken soup with canned corn on Tuesday afternoon. Since baked beans require quite a long cooking time, use them to save energy - along with beans, bake biscuits, a pie or homemade cookies on a different level of the oven. Desserts and fresh homemade pastries always please the household and to maintain Have a good mood it should appear several times a week. From tomato paste, you can make delicious and healthy tomato juice, which can also diversify breakfasts. Note that in the above menu, breakfasts mainly consist of cereals, rice, muesli. But here you can add such inexpensive dishes as omelettes! Always looking available options, they are actually not so few as it might seem at first glance. By planning the menu in advance, we are always able to make sure that limited funds are evenly distributed throughout the week. And we can also make sure that the menu is as nutritious and delicious as possible.

Menu planning with a free budget

As we have already said, do not get carried away with new dishes. They need to be introduced gradually, and always surrounded by familiar family dishes. It will be enough to have 2-3 new dishes in one week, but let the rest be from the main and additional lists favorite dishes.

The focus of this approach to menu planning should be given to the predominance of healthy and useful products, for example, include in daily breakfasts freshly squeezed Orange juice, more often offer households a variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, dairy and sour-milk products, etc. You can start cooking for the whole tomorrow day from today's evening - boil beans, bake meat, prepare vegetables for salads (peel, boil), etc. Lunches may be partially leftovers from dinners, and breakfasts may consist of very fast food.