Planner
Weekly meal planner and grocery checklist
This is for anyone who wants a simple written plan for the week without an account or an app. Type what you intend to eat, add the ingredients you need to buy, and tick items off in the shop. Your plan and list are saved in this browser on this device, and the page prints cleanly for the fridge.
Nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data removes the plan, so print it if you want a copy.
Before you decide
A plan only works if it fits your actual week. Mark one night as leftovers and one as a flex night before you fill in the rest, and write only three or four real recipes. Leaving blanks is fine.
A simple method that works with this page
- Look at the week first. Note the nights you will be out, tired or short of time, and write a quick meal or leftovers in those slots.
- Pick three or four dinners. Choose recipes that share ingredients, such as one roasted tray of vegetables used in a pasta, a grain bowl and an omelette.
- Cook once, eat twice. Plan for a larger batch of one dinner and put the leftovers in a lunch slot.
- Shop from the plan. Check the fridge and the cupboard before you add an item, so you do not buy a third jar of the same thing.
- Review on the weekend. Note what you did not cook and why, and plan less next week if the answer is time.
How the tool behaves
The grocery list ignores blank entries and duplicates (so rice and Rice count as one item), trims each entry to 80 characters and keeps up to 200 items. The counter shows how many of the seven dinner boxes have text in them. There is no calculation beyond that, and no nutrition, calorie or budget estimate, because those depend on the household and the recipes and cannot be guessed safely. Food-safety rules still apply to what you plan: leftovers should be refrigerated within two hours and eaten within 3 to 4 days, as the safe temperature and storage guide explains.
Limits
Because the data lives only in this browser, it will not sync to a phone or another computer. Private browsing windows may not keep it. If you cook for someone with an allergy or a medical diet, plan around their needs and check labels, and ask a doctor or registered dietitian for personal dietary advice. This page is a note-taking aid and general information, not advice.
Where this comes from
The method follows the planning approach described in the meal-planning guides on this site, and the leftover timing comes from the US Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service guidance on leftovers. We have not tested the planner with households. The list behaviour was checked by running the code against sample inputs.