Less food waste, more money saved. Score!

7-9 min read

Have you ever thrown away so much food from your fridge because it all went bad?

I totally get it. When you bought groceries from the store, you did plan on eating all of it. You made a couple of dishes (they were delicious!) and after making each dish, you told yourself you’ll use the leftover ___________ [fill in the blank] in another dish. Unfortunately, you completely forgot about the leftover ingredients and they’re all moldy now. Oops!

Trust me, I’ve had plenty of those moments. You definitely start to cringe at the amount of food that you’ve wasted (and $$ from your paycheck, too!).

But say there’s a way to change that. Let’s strategize our meal plan so we know exactly what to use in recipes to prevent wasting food. It will take some planning ahead, but if you’re saving money and reducing food waste, isn’t it all worth it?

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The Smarty Femme Guide: 

How to Strategize Your Meal Plan to Reduce Food Waste & Save Money

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Step 1. Strategize Your Meal List

Step 1A: Think about what you want to eat next week.

You can think of it in terms of cuisines or specific things you want to eat.

For me, I was craving so many different cuisines. Being at home during quarantine makes me get the itch to travel and try different food. Since we can’t do that just yet, let’s just make the food!

I narrowed my list down and figured out what I’d want to eat. These were my picks: ground beef tacos with Mexican rice, spaghetti and meatballs, mapo tofu, Israeli cous cous and falafels, and Japanese curry. Yum!

Step 1B: Identify the main ingredients in each recipe.

From my list, these are the main ingredients for each recipe. You don’t need to list every ingredient out. Your ingredients may differ from my list since we’ll likely be using different recipes.

• SPAGHETTI:
  • Spaghetti noodles
  • Ground beef
  • Tomato paste
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions
• TACOS:
  • Taco shells
  • Ground beef
  • Cilantro
  • Onion
  • Jalapeños
  • Lime
  • Pico de Gallo: Tomatoes, onion, cilantro
  • Mexican rice: Brown rice, tomato paste, tomatoes, onion, cilantro
• COUS COUS + FALAFELS
  • Israeli cous cous (got mine from Trader Joe’s)
  • Onion
  • Cilantro
  • Cucumber
  • Falafels: Trader Joes Falafel mix. I’ve made these from scratch before, but this mix comes handy when you’re in a pinch.
• MAPO TOFU:
  • Tofu
  • Ground pork
  • Spicy mapo tofu sauce (I ended up using chili bean sauce since I couldn’t find the mapo tofu sauce at the store).
  • Green onions
• JAPANESE CURRY:
  • Curry Sauce Mix
  • Potatoes
  • Mushrooms
  • Carrots
  • Onion

Step 2: Identify Similar Ingredients Between Recipes

From your list, identify which meals have similar ingredients. 

Looking at my list above, I notice the following:

• Tacos and Spaghetti both uses ground beef 
• Spaghetti and Japanese Curry both uses mushrooms
• Spaghetti and Mexican Rice both uses tomato paste
• Spaghetti, Tacos, Pico de Gallo, Mexican rice, Cous cous, and Japanese Curry all use onions
• Tacos, Pico de Gallo, Mexican rice, Cous cous all use cilantro 
• Mapo tofu doesn’t share similar ingredients to other recipes. That is fine.

Step 3: Choose What Meal to Eat First

From your list, choose what you’d like to eat first.

To illustrate:

I prefer to eat Spaghetti & Meatballs first. 

The meal that uses the most similar ingredients with spaghetti is tacos (with the additional sides of Mexican rice and Pico de Gallo). I will put tacos on the list right after spaghetti & meatballs.

List 1:

• Monday: Spaghetti & Meatballs
• Tuesday: Tacos, Mexican rice, Pico de Gallo (#TacoTuesday)

Next, identify what meal uses similar ingredients to that of tacos. I see that cous cous / falafels uses similar ingredients, so I will list it right after tacos.

List 2:

• Monday: Spaghetti & Meatballs
• Tuesday: Tacos, Mexican rice, Pico de Gallo (#TacoTuesday)
• Wednesday: Cous cous and Falafels

You may prefer to eat meals that use less similar ingredients to each other. So, let’s insert a different meal in between any two meals above.

We still have Japanese Curry and Mapo Tofu as two meals that we haven’t put on the list. From Step 2, Japanese curry and Spaghetti both uses mushrooms in the recipes, so list the Japanese Curry right after Taco Tuesday.

List 3:

• Monday: Spaghetti & Meatballs
• Tuesday: Tacos, Mexican rice, Pico de Gallo (#TacoTuesday)
• Wednesday: Japanese Curry
• Thursday: Cous cous and Falafels

Where shall we place Mapo Tofu? Given that mapo tofu has no overlapping ingredients to that of other meals, let’s place it last on our list.

FINAL LIST:

• Monday: Spaghetti & Meatballs
• Tuesday: Tacos, Mexican rice, Pico de Gallo (#TacoTuesday)
• Wednesday: Japanese Curry
• Thursday: Cous cous and Falafels
• Friday: Mapo Tofu

Now you have an easy-to-follow meal plan schedule. Also, while these recipes use some similar ingredients, they taste very differently from one another!

And for the final step…

Step 4: Use the Ingredients and Prep Before the Next Recipe

From Step 2, you’ve identified which recipes use similar ingredients. It is also useful to know which leftover ingredients will be used for the next meals.

By doing so, you’ll save meal prep time (such as chopping onions in a batch), reduce food waste (by using leftover ingredients for other recipes), and ultimately save money (by reducing how much food you throw away).

The Smarty Femme Tips:

• While cooking Spaghetti & Meatballs on Monday, chop up more onions to use for Taco Tuesday, Japanese Curry on Wednesday, and Cous cous on Thursday. Store them in glass containers for ultimate freshness. #SaveTime
• Chop up more mushrooms for Wednesday’s dish: Japanese Curry. #SaveTime
• Use the leftover tomato paste and onions from Monday’s meal for Taco Tuesday dishes: Mexican rice and Pico de Gallo. #ReduceFoodWaste
• Chop up more cilantro on Tuesday to use for Thursday’s dish: Cous cous and falafels. #SaveTime
• Cook Japanese curry using already chopped onions and already chopped mushrooms. #ReduceFoodWaste
• Cook Cous cous and falafels using already chopped onions and cilantro #ReduceFoodWaste
• Cook Mapo Tofu – this is a standalone recipe. You’ll have to make this one from scratch!

By following The Smarty Femme’s meal plan strategy, you’ll save time, reduce food waste, and ultimately save money. By taking only 5-10 minutes of your time to strategize your meal plan, you’ll actually eat all food in your fridge and save money by not wasting food.

And, if you still have leftover veggies and meat at the end of the week, you can make an omelet for your weekend brunch. You can further reduce your food waste!

Let me know what you’re planning on making this week! Also, if you like what you’re reading, follow The Smarty Femme so you don’t miss a post. Click the Follow button on the top right-hand side (desktop) or bottom right-hand side (mobile).

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