In an attempt to save time and money, and just be more organized overall, I put myself up to a little challenge: Come up with a full week of dinners using 20 ingredients or less! It took some time and serious planning to put together dinner recipes that either have very few ingredients or share ingredients, but I'm hoping the time spent will pay off as I can use this meal plan over and over again. I've seen similar ideas before, which included a shopping list, as well as a few (or 15) "staple" ingredients already found in your pantry. I'm sorry, but Hungarian smoked paprika and coconut water are not staples in my house and can never be found in my pantry, which meant more to buy. How does that help me?? There are a couple of pantry items included in my meal plan, but they really are staples that I always have on hand, like flour, or ketchup. You use so little flour and ketchup this week, you could even ask a friend or neighbor if you can bum some if you don't need flour or ketchup for anything else. I wanted to share this meal plan because I know there are so many busy families out there who might also benefit from an easy weekly meal plan. You'll find the recipes and shopping list for 7 dinners, and pictures if I remembered to take one. These recipes are meant to feed a family of 4, but the recipes can easily be double or halved depending on your needs. Please note: My efforts to include the menu, shopping list, and recipes all on one easy printable page has resulted in some very bare bones directions for the recipes. You should be able to figure it out, but if not please comment and I'll clarify :)
You can find a link to the easy weekly meal planner HERE
So, here are my indredients for this weeks meals: (bet you can't tell where I shopped!) This week's meal plan includes 19 ingredients. In case you are interested, I spent about $35 on these ingredients without crazy couponing or anything. I also did not have to buy the beef, as we buy ours from the local butcher in massive amounts at a time. I think that with the beef included, you should easily be able to buy the ingredients for under $50. As you can see, I'm totally fine with, and strongly recommend, generic brands, as they make no difference in the recipes.
And, here is this week's menu:
Mexi-Pasta
Easy Hamburger Stroganoff
Cheeseburger Meatloaf
BLT Wraps
Bacon Mac & Cheese
Crock Pot Italian Chicken
BBQ Chicken Wraps
Below, you will see some pictures of this weeks yummy dinners. Well, the ones I remembered to take a picture of anyway.
BLT Wraps
BBQ Chicken Wraps
Mexi-Pasta
Bacon Mac & Cheese
Creamy Crockpot Italian Chicken
In case you missed the link for the meal plan, here it is again:
MEAL PLAN. I hope that you find this meal plan helpful. For side dishes, you are on your own! A nice green salad and some french bread will go nicely with many of these meals. I really enjoyed this challenge, and am already looking forward to my next 20 ingredient or less challenge. I realize there's probably too much pasta this week. But hey, it's cheap, versatile, and I kind of love it. I'm hoping to cut back on the pasta for next time :) Stay tuned!
