Weekly meal planning in 15 minutes

"What are we eating tonight?" is easier to answer once a week than every evening. A meal plan does not have to be strict. It is a short list of ideas that saves you a daily decision and a second trip to the shop.

Here is a routine that takes about fifteen minutes with Heated's meal planner.

1. Start with what you already have

Look in the fridge first. Half a bag of spinach and some cream? That is a pasta night. Planning around leftovers saves money and food, and it gives you the first meal of the week without any searching.

2. Pick a few anchor recipes

You don't need seven new dishes. Pick two or three recipes you know work, and add one new one to keep things interesting. A good mix for a weekday:

• one quick pan dish, like the gnocchi vegetable pan
• one big pot that lasts two days, like a slow-cooked bolognese
• one soup, like a creamy tomato soup

In the planner, tap a day and search for a recipe, or pick one from your cookbook. If a night is "leftovers" or "eating out", add a short note instead of a recipe so the day is still accounted for.

3. Set the portions

Each planned meal has its own portion count. Cooking a double batch of bolognese on Monday for Tuesday's lunch? Set the portions once and the ingredient amounts follow.

4. Send the week to your shopping list

This is where the planner pays off. Choose Add all ingredients, pick how many days ahead you want to shop for, and Heated adds everything to your shopping list. Before you confirm, untick what you already have at home.

Amounts for the same ingredient are merged, so two recipes with onions become one line on the list.

5. Stay flexible

Plans change. Drag a meal to another day, swap it for something else, or remove it. When you remove a meal, Heated can take its ingredients off the shopping list too.

Plan together

If you share Heated with your household, everyone sees the same plan and the same list, and changes appear in real time. The person who shops knows exactly what was planned, and the person who cooks knows what was bought.

Prefer to just ask? With Heated in ChatGPT or Claude you can say "plan dinners for this week from my cookbook" and let the assistant fill the planner for you.