5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Meal Planning in Food Network Kitchen
This all-new feature on the app helps you organize recipes, plan shopping lists and meal prep for the week.
If you’re anything like us, you know how it feels when a recipe catches your eye. It’s such a great feeling to stumble upon a dish that looks delicious, vibrant, and easy to make (or maybe it’s more of a project — we love those too!) But while it’s one thing to get inspired by recipes, and indulge in the urge to bookmark them, it’s another thing to plot out how to make them.
We at Food Network Kitchen don’t just want to tempt you with smart, tasty and fun recipes — we want to give you the tools to actually make them too. This is why we’re so excited to announce the app’s latest feature: Meal Planning. This new function will help plot out your week of cooking, offer advice on how to make all that cooking easier and help you shop in a snap.
Here’s how to get started:
Browse curated meal plans.
One of the roadblocks many of us experience while trying to meal plan is knowing where to begin — you know what you like, but need a little help realizing the power of your pantry or how to riff on the same ingredients throughout the week and not get bored. That is, of course, where we come in. Our editors comb through our catalog of recipes to build them into meal plan suggestions that will change the way you think about cooking each week. We highlight the solutions hidden in the recipes — like one-pan dishes that beget leftovers and how to find the variety in a big bag of grains.
Here are a few meal plans to get started with. Browse our entire collection here; we’re adding more weekly!
Get tips on how to prep for the week.
Sprinkled in the curated meal plans are tips for how to get the most out of the recipes. For instance, in the 30-Minute Meals for Two plan, you’ll learn how one large container of Greek yogurt can be stretched into multiple meals, and how a rotisserie chicken can be a flexible add-on to sandwiches, salads and grain bowls.
Build your own personalized meal plan.
Feeling inspired? Now it's time to build your own weekly meal plan. Add any (or all!) of the recipes from our curated meal plans to your own plan. Or, If something delicious catches your eye as you’re browsing through recipes on Food Network Kitchen, you can add it to your meal plan in one tap — just look for the meal planning icon at the top of the recipe.
Adjust your plan quickly and easily.
Once you’ve added a bunch of recipes to your meal plan, you can plan for the week by plotting out your cooking calendar. Hit the calendar icon on each recipe in your plan to choose the date and meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack) you want to assign it. Change your mind? That’s the power of digital — you can adjust the dates whenever you want in seconds.
Add the ingredients to your Shopping List in one tap.
Ready to put your plan into action? Food Network Kitchen can pull together your shopping list for you and makes it easy to order your groceries online. Tap "add to shopping list" from your meal plan and select which recipes' ingredients you want to add to your list. Then tap "view list" to review your shopping list and add or subtract groceries, and finally tap "shop items" to get connected to an online retailer in your area.
