Plan your whole week of meals in one place.
Use Plan n Cook's weekly meal planner to organize breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for the next seven days. Add recipes to your week, move meals around as plans change, and see what you're cooking at a glance.
No account required to start planning.
Start with one meal or plan all seven days. Use the weekly planner below to add recipes to each day. You don't have to fill every space—plan the meals that matter to you and leave the rest open.
| Meal | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | |||||||
| Lunch | |||||||
| Dinner |
Create a free Plan n Cook account to save your weekly meal plan and generate a shopping list from the recipes you've chosen.
Save My Weekly PlanA useful weekly meal plan doesn't have to schedule every bite you'll eat for the next seven days. Start with the meals that are hardest to decide at the last minute. For many households, that's dinner.
Think about what's happening over the next seven days before choosing recipes. A busy Tuesday might call for something quick. A quieter Sunday may be a better opportunity for a meal that takes longer to prepare. Planning around your schedule is usually more useful than simply choosing seven recipes you like.
You can plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and additional meals. Plan the entire week or only the meals where having a decision made ahead of time will help.
Search or browse Plan n Cook recipes and add the ones you want to cook to your week. Mix quick meals with recipes that require more preparation and arrange them around your schedule.
Look at the complete seven-day plan. If two complicated dinners landed next to each other, move one. If you're going out Wednesday, leave Wednesday empty. If Sunday's dinner could provide Monday's lunch, plan accordingly. Your meal plan should fit your week—not the other way around.
You can build a weekly plan without creating an account. Create a free Plan n Cook account to save your plan and use your selected recipes to generate a shopping list.
Meal planning moves some of the decisions about what to eat from the busiest parts of the week to a time when you can actually think about them. Instead of deciding what's for dinner every afternoon, you already have a plan.
Weekly meal planning can help you:
You don't need a perfectly filled calendar for weekly meal planning to be useful. Even planning a handful of dinners can make the week easier.
Monday doesn't always go according to Monday's plan. That's why a weekly meal plan should be easy to change.
Move meals between days when schedules change. Leave days open when you're eating out. Plan only dinner if breakfast and lunch take care of themselves.
There is no requirement to fill every breakfast, lunch, and dinner slot. The goal isn't to create a perfect calendar. The goal is to know what you're going to cook when knowing ahead of time is useful.
A weekly calendar is more useful when the meals on it connect directly to the recipes you're going to cook. Plan n Cook lets you browse recipes and add them to your weekly plan so your schedule and recipes stay connected.
Instead of writing only:
Tuesday — Chicken
you can plan the actual chicken recipe you intend to make and keep its ingredients and instructions within reach.
Create a free Plan n Cook account to keep personal recipes in your recipe kitchen and use them when building your meal plans.
Once you've decided what you're cooking, grocery planning becomes much easier.
Your weekly meal plan answers: What are we eating?
Your shopping list answers: What do we need to buy?
Your weekly meal plan answers “What are we eating?” Your shopping list answers “What do we need to buy?” With a free Plan n Cook account, you can save your weekly meal plan and generate a shopping list using the recipes you've selected.
That creates a simple workflow:
Choose recipes → Plan the week → Generate your shopping list → Shop → Cook
Save My Plan & Create a Shopping ListIf planning 21 meals feels excessive, don't do it. Start with the meals that cause the most last-minute decisions. For many people, planning five to seven dinners provides most of the benefit of weekly meal planning without making the process complicated.
Plan quick meals for busy days and save recipes requiring more preparation for days when you'll actually have time to cook them.
A meal plan doesn't have to be rigid. Plans change, leftovers happen, and sometimes you simply don't want what you planned. Leaving an open meal can make your weekly plan more realistic.
When possible, consider recipes that can make use of some of the same ingredients. If one recipe calls for fresh herbs, vegetables, or another ingredient you won't use completely, another meal later in the week may help use the remainder.
Before generating your shopping list, look over the entire week one last time. Make sure the meals still fit your schedule and remove anything you no longer expect to cook.
Plan n Cook offers the same meal-planning tools through both experiences.
Use the Free Meal Planner when you want to explore the overall meal-planning tool and its features.
Use the Weekly Meal Planner when you're ready to focus specifically on organizing your next seven days.
Both use the same Plan n Cook planner—there isn't a separate weekly planning system or a second set of meal plans to manage.
A weekly meal planner is a tool for organizing the meals you expect to eat or cook over the next seven days. It can be as detailed as planning every breakfast, lunch, and dinner or as simple as deciding on several dinners for the coming week.
Yes. You can start planning your week for free without creating an account. A free Plan n Cook account lets you save your plan and use additional features such as generating a shopping list from the recipes you've selected.
No. Use as much or as little of the weekly planner as you need. You can plan seven full days, five weeknight dinners, a few lunches, or just the meals you want decided ahead of time.
Yes. Your weekly meal plan should be flexible enough to accommodate changes in your schedule.
Yes. Browse Plan n Cook recipes and add the meals you want to your weekly plan. With a free account, you can also keep your own recipes in your recipe kitchen.
Yes. After saving your meal plan to a free Plan n Cook account, you can generate a shopping list based on the recipes you've planned.
It uses the same Plan n Cook meal-planning system. The Weekly Meal Planner is designed specifically around planning a seven-day period, while the Free Meal Planner provides a broader introduction to Plan n Cook's meal-planning tools.
Take a few minutes now to decide what you're cooking later. Build your next seven days with Plan n Cook's free weekly meal planner. No account required to start.
Want to save your plan and turn your recipes into a shopping list?
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