When you get into the nitty-gritty details, like how long to plan for at a time, whether use pen & paper or go digital, etc., there are numerous ways to plan meals.  But at the core, there are only two main methods for menu planning: recipe-first or ingredients-first.  Each method has different strengths.

Recipe-First Menu Planning

Recipe-first menu planning, as you probably gathered, starts with the recipes.  It’s pretty simple and straightforward: you list the recipes you plan to make, then make a grocery list based on those recipes.

The overall simplicity of this method is one of its major selling points.  It’s a great option for meal planning newbies, or for those who are short on planning time.  It’s also good for newbies to cooking, since you can easily start from the recipes you know you can cook.

This method has the potential to get pretty expensive, though.  Unless all the recipes in your repertoire are inherently inexpensive ones, the cost of ingredients can stack up quickly because this method doesn’t really incorporate expense as a major factor.  If money is tight but you have  time available, the second method might be a better option.

Ingredients-First Menu Planning

Ingredients-first menu planning works the other way around.  Instead of starting from your recipes and determining what ingredients you need to make them, you start with the ingredients available and then figure out what recipes make use of them.

There are a couple different spins on this.  The simpler of the two is to start with what’s on sale at the grocery store — particularly when it comes to major ingredients like meats — and choose recipes that rely on those ingredients.  Once you have your full recipe list built, you can just fill in any  gaps.

For example, if chicken legs are on sale this week, you might choose drumstick recipes.  But maybe in order to make all the recipes you’ve chosen, even after the sale items are accounted for, you need flour and vinegar.  So you add flour and vinegar to the shopping list.  You still save a lot of money this way, because at least you’re primarily using recipes that use the current lowest-cost main ingredients.

If you really want to “go pro” with this on the money-saving end, you look at what’s on sale this week (that you actually use) and simply stock your pantry (and freezer, etc.) based on what is on the best sales this week.  It will probably take about one to three months to have a fully-stocked pantry this way, so when you do this, you need to buy enough of the best sale items to last up to three months.

Then you plan your menus based on what’s in your pantry.

This is the method that saves the most money, because you buy almost all of your ingredients at their lowest costs.  But it’s a little harder to do, especially if you don’t have a large recipe repertoire yet, because you have to find recipes that “match up” to the current sales.

Keeping a master main dish list divided by meat (or other main ingredient) type can make it a bit easier, because it helps you more quickly identify which tried-and-true recipes use the ingredient you’re looking for from the sale.