Introduction
Hello everyone! As you have known, I’m a housewife currently living in Tokyo. I cook every day, except on weekend since we usually eat out or only cook simple menu. One of my biggest problem before is planning the meal I have to prepare for the whole week. I used to start thinking what I’m going to cook the whole week in the supermarket, and it was really super ineffective. Sometimes there was a lot of leftover ingredients and become waste of money. That’s why I start to do some research in Youtube and buy myself a Japanese food recipe book. This recipe book gives me a great help during the meal planning time. I can choose which meal I want to cook. This week is my first week doing the weekly meal planning and hopefully I can share it in the blog every weeks.
The steps of my weekly meal planning
- Choose which recipe you want to cook for each day (5 days)
- Choose 1 main dish and 1 side dish, sometimes I add salad or soup
- Make a nice combination of the meats and fish, for example beef-chicken-fish-beef-chicken
- Try to have vegetables side dish every day for balanced diet
- Write down the ingredients and decide the shopping day
- After shopping you can write the price of each ingredients for your reference
Day 1 – Monday
Beef and Shimeji Stir-Fry
– Sliced Beef
– Shimeji Mushroom
– Seasonings: Soy Sauce, Mirin, Sake, Chili Powder, Garlic Powder
Sesame-Dressed Broccoli
– Broccoli
– Carrot (julienned)
– Seasonings: Salt, Ground White Sesame Seeds, Soy Sauce, Sugar
Salad
– Lettuce
– Shiso Wakame
– Roasted-sesame salad dressing
Day 2 – Tuesday
Curried Chicken and Eggs
– Boneless Chicken Thigh (cut into bite-size pieces)
– Onion (slices into wedges)
– Garlic
– Eggs (boiled & peeled)
– Seasonings: Salt, Curry Powder, Ketchup, Soy Sauce
Sesame-Dressed Broccoli
– Broccoli
– Carrot (julienned)
– Seasonings: Salt, Ground White Sesame Seeds, Soy Sauce, Sugar
Instant Miso Soup
– Instant Miso Soup Paste
Day 3 – Wednesday
Mini Hamburgs (Japanese style steak)
– Ground Beef
– Onion (minced)
– Egg (whisked)
– Panko Breadcrumbs
– Milk
– Seasonings: Salt, Pepper
Sauteed Spinach with Corn
– Spinach (Horenso)
– Canned Sweet Corn
– Carrot (Julienned)
– Butter
– Seasonings: Salt, Pepper
Day 4 – Thursday
Chicken with Teriyaki Sauce
– Boneless Chicken Thigh
– Seasonings: Salt, Soysauce, Mirin, Sugar
Sauteed Spinach with Corn
– Spinach (Horenso)
– Canned Sweet Corn
– Carrot (Julienned)
– Butter
– Seasonings: Salt, Pepper
Salad
– Lettuce
– Tomato
– Roasted-sesame salad dressing
Day 5 – Friday
Sesame-Miso Salmon
– Salmon (Fillet and cut into 2-3 pieces)
– Seasonings: Miso, Mirin, Ground White Sesame Seeds
Sauteed Sausages and Carrot
– Sausages
– Carrot (diced)
– Seasonings: Soysauce, Salt, Pepper
After I have decided the menu for the whole week, I started to write and compile the ingredients I need to buy. I usually go shopping on Sunday and Tuesday. I arranged which ingredients should be buy on Sunday and which on Tuesday. This week I used the combination of Beef – Chicken – Beef – Chicken – Fish.
I definitely love this new way of meal planning and hope to keep continue doing this. Watching a lot of cooking and meal preparation videos on Youtube are also helpful. My cooking style is the combination between Chinese Food x Indonesian Food x Japanese Food lol. Currently this is my favorite meal preparation channel in Youtube, check it out here (not endorsed). She is Japanese but she also put English subtitle in her videos. I learnt a lot from her channel.