How to meal plan when you only cook three nights a week

The reason most meal plans fail by Wednesday is that they were written for a different household: one that cooks every night, has an hour each evening and never gets a takeaway. If you cook three or four nights and eat leftovers, toast or something from the freezer on the others, plan that. The shop gets smaller, the waste disappears and the plan survives the week.

Cook three, eat six

Pick three dinners that double without fuss and make four portions of each. One portion for tonight, one for tomorrow’s lunch or the night you don’t cook. Dishes that sit in a pan or a pot are better than anything crispy: curries, chillies, pasta bakes, rice bowls and traybakes all reheat; anything battered or fried does not.

Chicken Satay with Rice25 min · 53 g protein · doubles wellBeef Burrito Bowls25 min · 48 g protein · box up the riceCreamy Tomato & Spinach Pasta20 min · 24 g protein · reheats in 3 minGochujang Sausage Penne22 min · 31 g protein · better next day

Give the other nights a name

The nights you are not cooking still need a plan, or they turn into a £25 delivery. “Leftovers” is a plan. “Eggs on toast” is a plan. “Friday is takeaway” is a plan, and it is cheaper when you have decided it in advance than when you cave at eight o’clock. Write them in. Then the shop only has to cover the three cooking nights, and it should look small.

Shop for the three, not the seven

This is where the saving is. A week shopped for seven dinners and cooked for three throws away the difference. Build the list from the three recipes only, scaled to the portions you are making, and buy nothing “just in case”. If you use Quickle, set it to three nights and the number of people, and it does the scaling, prices the week at your shop and fills the basket with exactly that. The total before you shop is the total at the till.

Keep a one-pan rescue in the freezer

The plan will still slip once a fortnight. A bag of frozen prawns, a jar of pesto and a packet of noodles or pasta turn into dinner in twelve minutes, cost about £5, and keep for months. Having it there is what stops a slipped night costing £25.

15-Minute Garlic Prawn Pasta15 min · 35 g protein · freezer prawnsGinger & Spring Onion Noodles13 min · 11 g protein · store-cupboardSpeedy Egg Fried Rice15 min · 26 g protein · leftover rice

Let the app do the boring part

Quickle asks how many nights you cook and for how many people, builds that many dinners to your budget, and puts the ingredients in your supermarket basket. Set it to three nights and see what a week really costs.

What a full week costs at each shop: Tesco · Aldi · Sainsbury's · Asda · Morrisons · All guides