Here are all the best meal planning ideas you need! These 28 day and weekly meal plans feature loads of healthy recipes to fit many diets.
What’s for dinner? What’s for lunch? We’ve got you covered. Hi, we’re Sonja and Alex. Here at A Couple Cooks, we’ve spent years honing our method for how to eat healthy meals every day, not just here and there. We wrote cookbook called Pretty Simple Cooking, and have devoted our careers to helping connect people to healthy recipes.
Need meal planning ideas? Here are our best meal plans to help you decide what to eat, every meal of the day! There are 28 day meal plans, which use our flexible method for integrating meal planning and meal prep into your life. Each 28 day meal plan has a downloadable meal planning calendar spreadsheet to help keep you organized. We also have a few 7 day meal plans to get your feet wet.
Meal planning ideas: best meal plans for your everyday
This monthly healthy meal plan is right for you if you eat a variety of foods, but want to eat healthier and eat more vegetables! It includes fresh and healthy fish, shellfish, vegetarian, and vegan recipes.
Recipe preview:
Quick Shrimp Couscous
Loaded Quinoa Tacos
Baked Salmon with Chimichurri
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
Here's a meal plan with all vegetarian recipes! They're filling and full of flavor, featuring plant-based protein, dairy, and eggs. They feature all the best fresh produce to provide a variety of nutrients.
Recipe preview:
Black Bean Tortilla Soup
Mediterranean Couscous Bowls
Tuscan Soup with White Beans
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
This monthly vegan meal plan features recipes that are 100% vegan, using no animal products. These recipes rely fully on plant-based protein to make satisfying, filling meals!
Recipe preview:
Thai Sweet Potatoes with Peanut Drizzle
Raw Falafel Buddha Bowls
Cauliflower and Tomato Coconut Curry
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
This monthly meal plan is for those who eat a pescatarian diet, including vegetarian, vegan, and seafood recipes! You'll find lots of lean proteins and a good portion of plant-based recipes.
Recipe preview:
Poke Bowl
Best Chickpea Burgers
Sheet Pan Shrimp Boil
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
Here's a monthly plant based diet meal plan that focuses on recipes only made of plants! This includes no meat or animal products. With lots of colorful veggies and plant-based proteins, it's a delicious and satisfying way to eat!
Recipe preview:
Cauliflower Tacos with Yum Yum Sauce
Easy Chickpea Curry
Teriyaki Vegetable Stir Fry
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
This monthly meal plan focuses on the Mediterranean diet: lots of fresh vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, and occasional dairy and seafood. It's a flexible and tasty way to eat healthy.
Recipe preview:
Salmon with Capers
Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo + Easy Arugula Salad
Nicoise Salad
*Includes meal planning calendar download!
Many readers have told us you love shopping at ALDI, so our latest offering is a meal plan just for that grocery story! Our 1-week ALDI meal plan provides a list of meal ideas for dinner, lunch and breakfast: all focused around ingredients you can find at your favorite grocery.
Recipe preview:
Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers
Salmon Poke Bowl
3-Bean Healthy Chili
Are you stuck with no meal planning ideas? We’re here to help! There are lots of meal plans to choose from here. But if that seems overwhelming (we get that!), here's what a sample week of recipes looks like! We picked 7 recipes for a week, and shared how to meal prep them.
Recipe preview:
Easy Sheet Pan Dinner
Epic 5 Minute Tacos
Mexican Pinwheels
How to meal plan
Before you start your meal planning, here are a few key pointers to keep in mind:
- Think ahead. The biggest tip we can give you: think ahead! Take a look at the week and plan it out before you start. Sunday seems to be a good day for many people, but of course customize it to your schedule.
- Review make ahead instructions. Most of the best meal plans above have make-ahead info. Think about ingredients you can prep on a weekend or the night before to speed up prep.
- Eating & re-purposing leftovers or pantry ingredients is key! Our top tip for how to meal plan: you don’t have to cook a new recipe every night. Alex and I make about 3 to 4 dinner recipes per week. Save leftovers from the recipes and turn them into your own creations. Or just make egg tacos or a quesadilla without a recipe.
- Focus on dinner; go for simple breakfasts & lunches. Our approach is to keep it super simple for breakfast and lunch ideas. Here at A Couple Cooks, we eat oatmeal almost every day. For lunches we do boring things like veggies and hummus, cheese and crackers, or nuts and dried fruit. Or, leftovers!
- Life is flexible, so meal planning ideas have to be creative. The recipes in these meal plans are just ideas. We don’t know if you’re cooking for 1 or 4, what diet you eat, what foods you like, how many nights you have time to cook, and how many leftovers you’ll have. So there’s no way for us to say exactly what to eat. Take these ideas and make them your own!
