How to Turn a Weekly Meal Plan Into a Grocery List

Once you've planned the week's dinners, the grocery list is mostly already decided. You just have to get it out of the recipes and onto one list. Here's how to do that by hand, and how to skip the manual work.

Step 1: Plan the dinners first

Make the list from the plan, not the other way round. Decide what you're eating each day before you start writing ingredients down. Otherwise you end up buying for dinners that never happen. If you're still stuck on the deciding part, start with how to stop deciding dinner every day.

Step 2: List each dinner's ingredients

Go through the plan day by day and write down every ingredient with its quantity. Skip leftover nights, since you're not cooking anything new.

This step is much faster if your recipes are written down with the quantities you actually use. See how to build a family recipe library.

Step 3: Combine the duplicates

Onions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday become one line: three onions. Combining duplicates is what turns a pile of recipe lists into a grocery list you can shop from.

Be careful with units. "200 g cheese" and "1 cup cheese" don't add up neatly, so keep them on separate lines or convert one.

Step 4: Cross off what you already have

Check the fridge and the cupboards before you go. Pantry staples like oil, salt and spices are usually already there, so take them off the list.

Step 5: Add the things that aren't dinner

Milk, coffee, dish soap, lunch for the kids. Add the non-dinner items to the same list, so you only make one trip.

Step 6: Keep one shared list

If more than one person shops, keep one list you can both see, so nobody buys the same thing twice and either of you can pick it up on the way home.

Doing it automatically

In Dinnerbord, the grocery list is built from the week's plan for you. Press Regenerate and the ingredients from every agreed dinner are added up into one list. The same ingredient in the same unit is combined, and leftover days are skipped. Add one-off items like dish soap by hand. They're kept when you regenerate after changing the plan. Tick items off as you shop, and the rest of your household sees the same list.

You can try it in the free planner: plan a week, open the grocery list, and copy it to wherever you keep your shopping list. No account needed. The grocery list guide covers the details.