Meal planning apps are lovely right up until the week they don’t fit your life. The reason is nearly always the same. They don’t know that Tuesday is late football, that one of you won’t touch fish, or that there’s half a bag of spinach in the fridge quietly going slimy.
A reusable prompt does know all that, because you told it once. Write it properly, keep it in your notes app, and paste it in each week with two or three lines changed.
The seven things worth including
- Who is eating, and on which nights. Include the evenings nobody is home.
- Hard rules: allergies, foods a child will genuinely refuse, anything you don’t eat.
- Your weeknight time budget, honestly. Twenty minutes is a different plan to forty.
- What’s already in the house that needs using up this week.
- Budget and where you shop, because Aldi and Waitrose produce different lists.
- Kit you actually own, and use. No point in a plan built around an air fryer you don’t have.
- What you’re happy to repeat. Most households are fine eating the same two dinners weekly.
What it looks like written out
Plan our dinners for Monday to Friday. Two adults, two children (7 and 11). No fish, no blue cheese, one child dislikes anything spicy. Monday and Thursday are 20 minutes maximum because of clubs, other nights up to 40. Need to use: half a bag of spinach, four carrots, a tin of chickpeas, leftover roast chicken. Shopping at Aldi, roughly forty pounds for the week. I have a hob, oven and slow cooker. We’re happy to repeat a pasta night. Give me the five dinners with rough cook times, then one shopping list grouped by supermarket aisle, and mark items I already have as “have it”.
That last instruction about aisles is the difference between a nice idea and a list you can actually shop from. Ask for the “have it” marks too, or you’ll end up with a fourth tin of chickpeas.
The follow-up that saves the week
Plans break on Wednesdays. Keep a second short prompt for that.
Thursday’s plan isn’t happening, we got home late and nobody wants to cook. Give me two options using only what’s on this week’s list, both under 15 minutes, no new shopping.
Because the original context is already in the chat, that reply comes back genuinely useful rather than generic.
Keep the template alive
Update it once a month, not every week. Tastes change, clubs change, budgets change. If a meal was a hit, add a line saying so, and if something flopped, say that too. Six weeks in, your prompt stops feeling like a template and starts feeling like it knows your kitchen.
One small warning. If you use a shared or work account, keep the family details light. Names of clubs and schools aren’t worth including, and the plan works fine with “kids’ club night” instead.
What’s the one dinner your household would happily eat every single week?