on meal-planning

12 Jul, 2026

How do you decide what to eat on every meal every day?

I've been thinking about this. I figure everyone has different answers. It also depends if you do this yourself or someone cooks for you every day. So what do you or they do? What is the system like? If you don't know, it's time to be curious. If they have any system or none at all.

I do the meal-planning in our home. I treat it as a chore the same as you would laundry. The act of meal-planning, for me, is sitting down, taking pen and paper, youtube pulled up on my phone, then I brainstorm on what meals we will have for the next 2 weeks and researching recipes. I do this before every Market Day, which is every 2 weeks and on a weekend. It is the day I will buy everything I need from the market in bulk, clean them all and store on the freezer, fridge or pantry.

What I buy at the Market will depend on what I put on my meal-planning note.

I made this sort of system for it for the following reasons:

• I will stress every day in the week if I don't
• I will also face my indecisiveness on said days (it can get ugly)
• Buying ingredients are also planned
• Cost-effective, as it lessens the amount of times we get take-out/dine outside

And more reasons, like how it will take more time to look up recipes on a whim and it will be done more than I should in the week because I want to do this and that. My end result is a note that is as simple as a list that says the day of the week and under that is a bullet point of what food must be prepared or cooked on that day.

meal components

We always have rice for every meal. So my meal-planning involves only thinking about what ulam or the English term for it, viand (which I think is a horrible translation, I will not elaborate) to have with it.

So we can eat basically anything we want with rice... So meal-planning is essentially thinking of what food to have with rice...

I let this work on our favor, since we already have a staple food we only need to think about the other half of the meal. If you have another cuisine, you may have to think of a staple food set or variety choices (pasta, sandwich, rice, and the like).

meal portioning

Eventually for our household we have accustomed to the optimal and most effective cooking-portions ratio of 1:4.

One instance of cooking must produce 4 portions at the least. 4 portions = 2 meals for 2 people. Since me and r don't have breakfast that much, this ratio only have me cooking once a day. For example:

1. On Monday morning, I will cook Chicken Adobo.
2. I will pack r's lunch box with the rice and servings of the adobo.
3. I will also have the adobo for lunch ~
4. By dinner, we will finish the rest of the dish.

I will repeat the process on the next day, or better yet, on better planning and on specific dishes with higher yield of portions, The Food Will Last for Another Meal (1:6) as long as we store and reheat it properly.

What all this implies is that for better planning, all dishes to be listed on the meal plan are considered with the following:

• How many portions will it yield?
• Is it appropriate for a packed lunch (for work)?
• How long will it take to cook?
• How long will prep time be?
  • Follow up: can anything be done on the previous day before the cook time?
• Are there any ingredients of the dish that are better bought fresh?

I don't think I've exhausted this list of guide questions. For sure, depending on the household and your needs, more considerations can be made. But if not thought of, if you let these details weigh you down on every instance you need to make a decision about what to eat, it will be a toll.

what about you

I ask this question because I understand that there are various approaches and methods to meal plan. Again, we have different circumstances.

There are people who may just cook and eat what they want at the moment that they start thinking about the next meal. There could be others who eat one single type of dish every day. There are also those who cook meals in batches on the weekends, freeze them then pop them in the microwave throughout the work week. I have friends who don't cook at all, and whose meals they choose from restaurants' or eateries' menus because it is the most practical for them¹

Of course, my mother, my father and their parents did not lay out their processes like this. In my parents' home, I know my mom thinks about our meal for the next day when she's on the bus going home and orders us to take the chicken out for tomorrow because she will marinate it before bed. My dad just basically stores all the dishes he wanna do in his head - as it all will just matter when he's at the market. Or sometimes he's at the market already and then that's where he'll decide what he'll cook for the following days.

A thousand words in and I also recognize that I may have put way too much thought on this actually simple, mental task. And it comes from a place of privilege, still! Because I do have the time to plan, research recipes, cook and write this - and as always it is a luxury to have that.

But I think it is important to realize that even if everyone do not lay out their process on meal-planning as this post - it is still being done.

The questions on every meal are still considered and more. It can be done by you, your spouse, or your caregiver and sometimes it goes unnoticed because it's definitely a mental load that can just casually camouflage and be invisible in every day life.

With that, I think meal-planning is worth discussing at least once. Shout out to the meal-planners <3

#2026 #food #reflection