Weekly meal plan: 28 cheap and healthy ideas

With just a few cheap and easy recipes, meal planning will save you both time and money. Prepare breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the week ahead with our easy to follow meal plan!

Meal prep is basically preparing food in advance (shocker!) for the next few days or week ahead. Planning exactly what you're going to eat and when can feel like a bit of a chore, which is why we've done the hard work for you.

The average student spends £116 a month on groceries and an extra £49 on takeaways and eating out (that's £165 on food in total), which comes to around £1,980 for 12 months.

We've done the maths, and if you follow our cheap meal prep plan, you could end up saving £100s a year. A day's worth of meals (that's breakfast, lunch, dinner AND snacks) comes in at just £2.97!

We've also added free downloadable shopping lists below to get you started on all the recipes.

Healthy weekly meal prep

Seven different recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner PLUS snacks might seem like a lot at first glance. But the good news is: we've come up with 28 different recipes so you aren't eating porridge day in and day out. The prices listed* are how much one recipe costs for one person per portion.

Feel free to pick and mix if some look more tempting than others!

Breakfast meal plan ideas

Day	Meal	Cost
Monday	Porridge	£0.28
Tuesday	Cornflakes	£0.15
Wednesday	Weetabix	£0.16
Thursday	Toast	£0.13
Friday	Yoghurt	£0.12
Saturday	Eggs	£0.34
Sunday	Pancakes	£0.21

Total cost

Weekly: £1.39
28 days: £5.56

Lunch meal plan ideas

Day	Meal	Cost
Monday	Bean salad	£0.40
Tuesday	Bacon and egg pasta	£0.60
Wednesday	Cheese and onion rosti	£0.53
Thursday	Chickpea and chorizo couscous	£1.21
Friday	Sausage and bean casserole	£0.84
Saturday	Italian soup	£0.56
Sunday	Chilli con carne	£0.75

Total cost

Weekly: £4.89
28 days: £19.56

Dinner meal plan ideas

Day	Meal	Cost
Monday	Pulled pork	£1.32
Tuesday	Bolognese	£0.77
Wednesday	Enchiladas	£1.80
Thursday	Pea and mint spaghetti	£0.69
Friday	Chicken with roasted vegetables traybake	£1.70
Saturday	Cod with pesto, vegetables and herb potatoes	£1.50
Sunday	Stir fry	£1.18

Total cost

Weekly: £9.59
28 days: £38.36

Healthy snack ideas

Day	Meal	Cost
Monday	Omelette muffins with vegetables	£0.49
Tuesday	Cheese and crackers	£0.19
Wednesday	Homemade hummus and carrot sticks	£0.21
Thursday	Yoghurt and granola	£0.28
Friday	Popcorn	£0.17
Saturday	Avocado on toast with egg	£0.52
Sunday	Celery and cream cheese	£0.17

Total cost

Weekly: £2.03
28 days: £8.12

Shopping list for meal plan

If you do think that our student meal plan might sound like one for you, we've created a shopping list using all the recipes above that should last you a month.

We based our calculations on a range of supermarkets' prices*. As you can't generally buy just 25p's worth of porridge, we bought enough ingredients for four servings per recipe to last the month.

Things to have in your kitchen cupboard

Cupboard essentials	Quantity	Cost
Balsamic vinegar	250ml	£1.10
Breadcrumbs	175g	£0.85
Butter	250g	£1.99
Instant coffee	100g	£0.85
Cumin	41g	£0.70
Dried basil	15g	£0.85
Flour	1.5kg	£0.58
Ground coriander	36g	£1.00
Olive oil	250ml	£1.90
Paprika	52g	£1.05
Pepper	104g	£1.25
Salt	750g	£0.30
Stock cube beef flavour	120g	£0.60
Stock cube vegetable flavour	120g	£0.60
Sugar	1kg	£0.69
Tea bags	200g (80 bags)	£0.65
Tomato puree	142g (1 tin)	£0.35
Worcester sauce	150ml	£1.00
Fish sauce	200ml	£1.75
Total		£18.06

Monthly shopping list

Item	Quantity	Cost
Avocado	2	£1.50
Baby potatoes	1kg	£0.71
Bacon	500g	£0.85
Beef mince	2 x 500g	£3.58
Black beans	400g	£0.60
Bread	800g	£0.39
Broccoli	1	£0.68
Cannellini beans	1.2kg (3 x 400g)	£1.80
Carrots	4	£0.20
Celery	1	£0.43
Cheddar cheese	400g	£2.55
Cherry tomatoes	2 x 250g	£1.10
Chicken breast	2 x 650g	£8.40
Chickpeas	1.2k (3 x 400g)	£1.80
Chilli powder	50g	£0.90
Chopped tomatoes	2kg (5 x 400g)	£1.40
Chorizo sausage	225g	£2.50
Cod	520g	£2.50
Cornflakes	500g	£0.60
Courgettes	3	£1.15
Couscous	500g	£0.90
Crackers	300g	£0.40
Cream cheese	200g	£0.85
Curry paste	200g	£1.70
Dark soy sauce	150ml	£0.65
Eggs	1 x 30 & 1 x 6	£3.90
Egg noodles	300g	£0.87
Fresh mint	30g	£0.47
Frozen peas	1kg	£1.10
Frozen spinach	850g	£1.40
Frozen vegetable mix	1kg	£0.79
Garlic	2 bulbs	£0.40
Grana padano	175g	£1.79
Granola	1kg	£1.75
Green pesto	190g	£1.10
Kidney beans	400g	£0.33
Lemon	1	£0.30
Lettuce	1	£0.58
Low-fat yoghurt	3 x 500g	£1.35
Mayonnaise	500ml	£0.85
Milk	8 pints	£3.10
Mushrooms	300g	£0.90
Mustard powder	57g	£1.50
Onions	12	£1.44
Orange juice	3 x 1L	£1.95
Passata	500g	£0.39
Penne pasta	2 x 500g	£0.70
Peppers	12 (2 x 600g)	£2.32
Popcorn	6 bags	£1.00
Pork shoulder	1kg	£4.08
Porridge	1kg	£0.70
Potatoes	900g	£0.75
Red onions	1kg	£0.75
Rice	1kg	£0.45
Sausages	8	£1.85
Spaghetti	3 x 500g	£0.69
Spring onions	100g	£0.49
Stir fry vegetables	2 x 570g	£2.26
Sweet potatoes	1kg	£0.99
Wheat biscuits cereal	432g	£0.77
Wraps	pack of 8	£0.85
Total per day		£2.97
Total		£83.05

Note: Certain items will have to be bought in bulk and may cost more than our rough estimations for each recipe.

Download student meal plan shopping list

We've created a Google Doc checklist that contains all the items on this page. You can download it, edit the list and then print it off to have with you when you go to the supermarket.

Click the button below where you can find the link within our 'useful tools' page.

Important: Please read the steps at the top of the document on how to download the file.

Free editable shopping lists

 

How to do a weekly meal plan on a budget

Here's how to do a cheap and healthy meal plan without it taking up your whole weekend:

1. Start with one meal a day

   Planning three meals a day for seven days a week can seem like a huge task if you've never done meal prep before. Starting small and prepping one meal a day for yourself is the way to go.

   Lunch is probably the best one to start with as you're most likely to eat it at uni. Even though uni canteens and cafes are generally cheaper than Pret, you still end up spending around a fiver every day. May we remind you of our bean salad recipe that costs 40p per serving?

   You can make a different dish for every lunchtime the night before. However, we'd suggest you either make enough of what you had for dinner to use for lunch the next day, or make a really big portion to last you a few days. Then feel free to add in breakfast, dinner and snacks as you go along.

2. Set aside time to do meal prep

   The easiest way to work meal prep into your very busy schedule of uni, coursework, socialising and extracurriculars, is to set aside one day a week or a month to do all of your meal prep cooking. Getting organised is key.

   Remember, the freezer is your friend. If you wanted to do lunches for a whole month, for example, you could make five portions (seven if you want to include the weekend) of four different dishes on a Sunday afternoon and freeze everything. That way you can alternate your lunches so you don't end up eating the same dish for a week.

3. Choose quick and easy recipes for your meal plan

   Choose a bunch of yummy recipes that you love AND are easy to make. Going back to our lunch example, that's only four recipes. It'll make your meal prep much easier and you won't spend hours on end figuring out what to munch on for the next week.

4. Make meal planning fun

   If you enjoy cooking, spending an afternoon in the kitchen won't be a problem. But even if you don't, there are ways to make meal prep a more enjoyable activity. Put on some tunes or have a Netflix series on in the background (don't get distracted and cut yourself when you're chopping veg!).

   You could also meal prep with one of your housemates if your kitchen is big enough. Cooking together is a great bonding activity and having a gossip while cutting cucumbers will make time fly. If your housemate fancies joining in on the money-saving, you could each choose a couple of recipes and split the end result. Four hands work a lot quicker than two!

And while we're on the subject of life admin, here are some of the best apps for students to help get you organised.

* Prices were correct at the time of writing (using Tesco.com, Sainsburys.co.uk and Asda.com prices as guidelines).