Weekly meal planning for one.

Weekly meal planning for one can be ultra-efficient, versatile and fun. Ready to try something new, get incredibly organized, and see what you can do? If so, this system is for you!

O.f.O.'s free Seven Day Solo Meal Planner on Google Sheets helps busy singles mix & match fresh produce across recipes, manage freezer rotation, fortify the kitchen with fabulous preps, and collect recipes and meal plans along the way!

Easy as one, two, three.

Think of weekly meal planning for one (or two) as setting up a buffet in three categories:

Small "no frozen leftovers" recipes & repeats.
Full freezable recipes for fresh servings, plus intentional leftovers for freezer meals.
Single serving freezer meals from previous weeks.

O.f.O. style planning balances four-nine fresh recipes with a conservative rotation of homemade freezer meals/preps for a week's worth of tasty variety.

Welcome to Club Well Fed - Must be 21 to Enter.

Ovenia Forking Onederfull, meal planning maven, self sufficient solo chef.

Sitting down to three squares a day isn't for everyone, but aiming for 21 or more servings each week can be realistic for busy singles, thanks to the freezer.

Here's an example of how 21 servings can fit into three categories:

Section 1: 3-6 "no frozen leftovers" recipes for 10-16 fresh servings.
Section 2: 1-3 freezable recipes for 0-6 fresh servings, plus freezer meals.
Section 3: 2-5 freezer meals for 2-5 servings.

Those who prefer to dine just once or twice per day may simply scale down on section 1 servings.

Cooking for two?

It's easy to plan a higher serving count, like 42! The planner's servings counter individually auto-adds breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and sides/snacks.

Not into freezing?

That's cool. O.f.O.'s Mix & Match Scratch Pad can totally help with that too.

Mix and match fresh perishables across each week's menu, so nothing goes to waste.

O.f.O.'s sliding two-column Mix & Match Scratch Pad is a handy brainstorming tool for coordinating weekly recipe choices with shared perishables, like fresh produce.

Mixing and matching produce across recipes is easy.

In my experience, there's often not much too it, as many recipes simply don't include by-the-bunch perishables like celery. My advice on mixing and matching plenty of fresh produce? Make friends with your salad spinner, and embrace routine weekly salad prep. Experiment with homemade dressings and never go back to bottled. Salad is everything!

Weekly meal planning for one with the O.f.O. system:

Section 1: Choose 3-5 "no frozen leftovers" recipes to top the meal plan and prep list.

Balance small recipes with single-serve recipes & repeats.

Plan fresh whip-ups like salads, dips, pasta, or whatever pleases your palette.

Here's an example of 13 servings from five recipe choices:

Chicken/veggie-avocado sandwich with organic chips - 2 servings .
Chicken nachos with homemade guacamole and refried beans - 2 servings.
Egg dishes with bread/potatoes and fruit - 4 servings.
Spinach-arugula chicken bacon salad with walnuts, apples & homemade vinaigrette - 4 servings.
Grilled NY strip steak with sheet pan veggies and potatoes -1 serving.

Section 2: Choose 1-3 freezable recipes to prepare throughout the week.

Decide on recipes to either cook or assemble raw and freeze. Sauces, sides, snacks, and desserts count. Freeze in single servings.

Here are a few examples of freezable recipes for fresh servings and intentional leftovers:

Pot roast.
Spinach bacon Swiss mini quiche.
Raw chicken marinade (for grilling).
Chocolate chip cookies (or raw dough).

Section 3: Cook or reheat two-five single serving homemade freezer meals throughout the week.

Decide what to reach for, then reap the rewards of batch cooking for one and take it easy!

Consider which ingredients can be added to or matched with freezer meals, like heavy cream for loaded potato soup, sour cream for ground beef strogonoff, or salad with mini quiche. Then add items to the shopping list/make notes on the Mix & Match Scratch Pad.

Here are a few examples of individual freezer meals to reheat:

Shepard's pie.
Loaded potato soup.
Deep dish linguica pizza.
Spaghetti gravy & garlic bread.

Here are examples of homemade frozen treats to grab and defrost or enjoy frozen:

Banana berry smoothies in mason jars.
Muffins.
Brownies and most cookies.
Chocolate nut clusters.
Coffee and cream (ice tray) cubes.

Build and maintain a rotating storehouse of single serving freezer meals & preps:

Track frozen meals & preps in the planner's freezer tracker.
Once a good variety of frozen meals, sides and snacks are in play, section 2 can safely be skipped without disrupting routine weekly rotation.
Should freezer space begin to crowd, simply slow down on intentional leftovers.
For busy singles who love to cook ahead for longer term storage, vacuum sealing is the way to go! Vacuum sealing can also help protect fridge and pantry preps.

Master personal kitchen-time management.

Section check-off washi

Consolidate tasks in the Tasklist Builder, then check off prep-ahead tasks, finishing-touch tasks, and single serving repeats as recipes are completed.
Confirm each week's plan & list completion, ingredient sourcing, tasklist completion, and section 1 & 2 completions with stickers and washi on the Kitchen Time Tracker.
Log prep sessions in the Kitchen Time Tracker for an auto-adding overview of time spent in the kitchen throughout the week.

Code fast and flexible recipes with O.f.O.'s free digital washi.

Fresh & Fast washi

FRESH & FAST washi:

Buy time by planning a few fresh, fast low prep section 1 whip-ups like charcuterie, sandwiches, yogurt bowls, or egg dishes, so it's easy to fuel up without a fuss while tasking toward recurring weekly workflow targets.

Back Burner washi

BACK BURNER washi:

Open up flexibility by planning a few recipes made from slow perishing/freezable ingredients, so there's no pressure to prep in order to avoid waste. Including BACK BURNER recipes like egg dishes, potato dishes, baked goods, or grilled steak is a smart strategy for busy singles with unsteady schedules.

Pack To Go washi

PACK TO GO washi:

Remember to put your freezable lunchbox into the freezer and get mason jar smoothies ready for a road trip with PACK TO GO washi.

Code recipe title fields with washi to confirm a fast, flexible meal plan.

Make custom stickers with images.

All kinds of images may be inserted over text to be stored, sized, and moved about the planner. Hand written recipe cards, digital recipe cards, and memorable images of fun in the kitchen can playfully punch-up each week's plans.

Digital recipe stickers are the best!

Space saving digital stickers couldn't be easier to copy, move and scale for reference during planning, shopping and cooking.

Turn cooking and baking charts into sticker art.

Measurement conversions, substitution suggestions, cooking time & temp. recommendations, and more can be made into cute custom reference stickers.

Support human creativity.

Treat yourself to cute custom stickers from an artist's shop.

A note about O.f.O.'s free Sheets layout.

O.f.O.'s refillable Sheets layout was styled for efficient weekly meal planning, not tedious data entry. The Ingredient Inventory Gallery-Notepad area replaces line item inventory entry, so there are no self generating shopping lists to edit. However, the planner is set up to do some pretty cool stuff...

In addition to auto-adding shopping list cost fields, O.f.O.'s Recipe Cost Calculator and Bulk Inventory Cost Calculator can be used to track spending on a ridiculously detailed level.

Built in auto-calculation and data migration for meals, macros, minutes and money gives planning power a huge boost while alleviating error.

But most digital planners are built on notetaking apps as opposed to spreadsheets for a couple of good reasons. Aside from the ability to write and draw freely with a pen, lasso and move content around, and other fun stuff, the text grabbing capability of notetaking apps (and word processors) can't be beat! Why settle for doing line item entry when even hand written words can be stored as searchable text with just a click?

O.f.O.'s Google Sheets layout does include a searchable, easy to sort recipe keeper, but I strongly recommend building a box with a notetaking app or word processing app.

Start building a digital recipe box with a free (or cheap) note taking app or word processor. It's easy!

Keeping a stand-alone digital recipe box safeguards your collection without tying it to a planner.

Whether you choose to go with a fabulous free app like Apple Notes, Google Keep, or Google Docs, or an affordable favorite like Goodnotes, you can't go wrong.

Create fun, functional stickers from digital recipe cards by quickly capturing images from your collection.

Prepare for convenient, pleasant planning with paper & digital planners, stickers & recipe keepers.

O.f.O.'s free digital planner is all one needs to get started and keep going strong, but hybrid paper-digital planning and recipe collecting can make kitchen life even nicer.

For paper planner lovers like me, O.f.O.'s undated notebook layout comes with fun, functional stickers and space for doodling delicious ideas; plus pouches and pockets for holding pens, recipe cards, receipts, cash & bank cards, and more.

I recommend hybrid paper-digital recipe collecting for everyone. It's so nice to have recipe cards within reach in the kitchen!

Three, two, one and done!

The flexibility to choose between a selection of yummy homemade options according to mood, schedule and energy level makes eating well easier. Here's to making delicious decisions, and savoring each day!