Indian Meal Planning 101

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Meal planning 101 – Check out this essential guide to meal planning to learn all the tips that’ll take the stress out of making homecooked meals.

A collage of recipes and a text that reads The Meal Planning Guide - tips for meal planning success
Meal Planning 101

If you prefer eating homemade meals to frozen food, this meal prepping and planning guide is for you. Learn all the tips and tricks that’ll make cooking weeknight meals a breeze.   

For most folks who grew up in India eating leftovers was probably an alien concept because –  

  1. Labor being affordable in India meant most middle-class families would have maids who were available to cook or at least help with chopping vegetables daily. 
  2.  The hot weather made sure that we cooked only as much as needed for the day because food went rancid quickly in spite of refrigeration.   

When you are used to fresh homemade food, all hell breaks loose when you have to travel abroad for work or studies. There is no one to cook for you, you are pressed for time after having spent long hours at work, commuting, and not to mention kids’ extracurricular activities.  That makes eating fresh homemade every day a distant dream.   

Having gone through the same grind, I have some tips and tricks for you that’ll get you very close to eating fresh homemade food every day without having to wake up at the crack of dawn.   

What is meal planning?

Meal planning can mean different things to different people.

For instance, it could mean planning, shopping, prepping, and cooking all the meals over the weekend so that you just reheat and serve. The other way of doing it would be to plan, shop and prep over the weekend so that you can churn out fresh meals every day. I prefer the latter because I like the idea of eating fresh food every day.

Irrespective of which method you prefer, here are the steps to follow –

Step 1 – Meal planning 

Let’s begin with planning first.

Note – I have only discussed dinner options in this post to keep it less overwhelming. Start with one meal a day and once you got the meal planning process figured out for that meal it becomes a lot easier to rinse and repeat for other meals.

These are the steps I follow to meal plan for the week –   

  1. Create categories such as dals, biryanis, pulses, curries, side dishes, rice dishes, and one-pot meals. Add your family’s favorite recipes under each category. 
  2. Assign a theme for each day of the week. Use the categories above to pick a theme and then for each day, pick one recipe from that category. For example –    
  3. Load your meals into a meal planning software such as Prepear (affiliate link) and generate your grocery list or you can grab my 4-week meal plan. The other option is to use an Excel meal planning template and manually fill it in each week.
  4. Check the ingredients against your pantry and make your final shopping list. Here’s a helpful article that will guide you on different ways to efficiently track your pantry items and create a grocery list.

Tip 

  1. I like to meal plan once a month – it takes me less than 30 minutes using Prepear. Grab my 4-week meal plan from here.
  2. Grocery shop either late Friday evening or Saturday morning so that you have enough time for your next step – Meal prepping.

Step 2 – Meal prep 

There are several chores that you can do over the weekend to make weeknight cooking less time-consuming. Here are some of the things that I do over the weekend to plan for the week.

  • Chop vegetables and freeze them – There are plenty of times that we throw our veggies out because we were not able to use them before they start rotting away. Here are my 2 cents – chop and freeze them. Beans, cabbage, cauliflower, okra (bhindi), etc – most veggies freeze well and there is NO impact on the taste when you cook them. I use frozen veggies most of the time for side dishes such as beans poriyal, cabbage poriyal, bhindi do pyaza, etc.
  • Make curry sauce – This basic onion-tomato sauce is a life-saver. They store well for a week in the refrigerator (and freeze well too). It is a versatile sauce that you can use as a base for curries including Makhani gravies, chicken curries, and even dals. Here’s a detailed post on how to make and use curry sauce 
  • Chopped onions – When I am not using curry sauce, I keep a week’s worth of onions chopped in the refrigerator. While the onions are being fried, I use the time to cut tomatoes, mince ginger/garlic, etc. Also, it is a rumor that stored onions turn poisonous
  • Peeled Garlic – You can either buy store-bought peeled garlic (available in Costco or most grocery stores) or peel them over the weekend. 
  • Roti dough – Roti dough stays perfectly well in the refrigerator for a couple of days. You can always make extra dough and store it in the freezer. For detailed instructions on how to make the perfect roti dough and storage ideas read this post.
  • Homemade ginger garlic paste – I do not like the store-bought ginger garlic paste. You can make a big batch of homemade ginger garlic paste at home or (ginger paste and garlic paste separately) and refrigerate for a week. If you want to make a bigger batch that would last you a month you can do so by grinding ginger and garlic together and freezing it in an ice-cube tray. Remove the cubed paste and store it in the freezer in a Ziploc bag or a freezer-proof glass container for about a month.
  • Coriander chutney – Make coriander chutney over the weekend. It goes well with most breakfast and snack items and tastes great for a couple of days. If you are making large quantities, store it in the freezer and follow the same process as you would for storing homemade ginger garlic paste in the bullet point above.

Storage solutions – You can store your frozen veggies in a freezer-safe Ziploc but my preferred option are these glass containers – safe for you and the environment.

Equipment needed for meal prepping

Here’s a list of my preferred tools 

Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links which means if you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Tools

Devices

Want to take a peek into my kitchen? Here’s a list of all equipment and tools that I have in my kitchen. 

Note: You don’t need all of these tools but they do shorten your chopping and cooking time considerably.

Storage

  • You can store your frozen veggies in a freezer-safe Ziploc but my preferred option are these glass containers. They are safe for you and the environment.
  • Mason jars – These are perfect for overnight oats and chia pudding. 

New to Indian cooking?

This complete guide to Indian cooking will help you master Indian cuisine in no time. Just click on this link to get cooking! 


Helpful meal planning resources

  • How to stock your kitchen – Learn how to create a master grocery list, track your pantry items, and have a well-stocked kitchen so that you can cook delicious meals anytime you want!
  • How to meal plan – A detailed guide on how to start meal planning.
  • Meal themes – how to use them – Check out these 20+meal themes that’ll help you create delicious meals that your whole family will love.
  • How to meal prep Indian food – Meal prep is the secret behind stress-free weekday meals. Learn how to meal prep like a pro even if you are a beginner.
  • Pantry staples – Considering meal prepping? Make sure you have a few pantry staples always available in the kitchen so that you can meal prep whenever you have time.
  • 30+ tips for meal planning success – Review these easy-to-follow tips and strategies that will help you meal plan and prep like a pro.
  • Out of milk app – Learn how to use your phone to track your pantry items and create shopping lists by store.

Meal planning is supposed to take the stress out of cooking. It is okay if you cannot follow your plan to your T, don’t beat yourself about it. Plan a day where you don’t cook – either eat leftovers or get takeout.

Before I sign off, let me quickly mention the meal planning app I use – Prepear.

Meal planning app

Prepear is an app that allows you to easily organize your recipes, plan your meals, and create your grocery list.

While I have my recipes and meal plans on Prepear, you will also find 10,000+ recipe ideas from other bloggers. Meal planning has never been this easy.

Find out more at Prepear.com.

iPhone displaying the prepear app with text overlay

This post was originally published on January 19th, 2019, and was updated on April 03, 2020, with new information. 

Get dinner on the table faster!

Learn my meal planning + prepping secrets to make fresh Indian food without spending hours in the kitchen.

An overhead shot of Gujarathi kadhi along with rice, rotis and a side of lemon

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3 Comments

  1. Dear Anushree,

    Your website is absolutely amazing!
    Thank you for detailed effort on meal preparation.
    I have a question, how do I store veggies in zip lock or glass? Do I wash them, fry completely and then put it in air tight for up to a week?

    1. Glad to be of help, Tresa. Yes, that’s what I do – wash, dry and freeze it for a week or 2 to 3 days in a refrigerator.