When it comes to meal planning, it’s so easy to buy a few ingredients you need for a recipe, use a little of it up and then let the rest go bad in the refrigerator.

Does that sound remotely familiar? Have you ever had good intentions of using up all the ingredients and you simply forgot, just to find that you’d pretty much thrown your money out the window?

Needless to say, it’s happened to me many times before, but a solid meal plan for how you’ll use up all the ingredients makes it a lot easier to use what you’ve bought and reap all the health benefits too.

Case in point, on Sunday I had in mind making a tray of pumpkin spice cupcakes.  I’m in my fall cooking and baking mode and I love that these cupcakes use a whole grain flour (spelt) and only agave nectar, no refined sugar. So I bought a can of pumpkin but I only needed about a cup. And given that this was a big can, I had a lot left.

But instead of just forgetting about it, I remembered a recipe I’ve made before for pumpkin soup that I whip up in my Vitamix blender. A quick check of the ingredients and I realized that I had everything I needed. So instead of letting the pumpkin sit in the refrigerator to go bad, albeit unintentionally, I quickly got into action to whip up a healthy soup that my husband and I can enjoy over the next several days.

The key to avoiding waste really begins with creating a meal plan that builds in all the ingredients you’ve bought in a week. I used up extra kale in a turkey meatloaf,  juiced leftover carrots and added spinach to smoothies.  A little foresight helps you save money and use up all the delicious and healthy ingredients you so carefully shopped for and chose.

What do you do to ensure that you use up all the ingredients you buy? How will you meal plan this week to get your money’s worth and keep you and your family healthy?

Filed under: Food Waste, Meal Planning, Saving Money.