How to use OneNote for creating and sharing a meal plan

What is meal planning?

When deciding on what to eat for dinner, many people choose what to make that evening. With meal planning, you’ll plan what you want to eat for dinner each day of the week, so you won’t waste time wondering what to cook. Meal planning can help with time management, cooking balanced meals, and budgeting for the week.

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How to create a OneNote grocery list

• Take inventory before creating a grocery List. Before creating a grocery list, take inventory of what food and ingredients you have in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Check the expiration on any perishable foods and signs of spoilage such as foul odors, sliminess, or mold. Doing so helps to eliminate food waste and prevent contamination or illness, and will help you avoid purchasing items you already have.
• Be aware of any dietary restrictions. Note any dietary restrictions or food allergies in your household. Share your OneNote grocery list with your family members so that everyone can add to the list.
• Budget meals for the week. OneNote is compatible with Microsoft Excel so you can import your weekly food budget into a note alongside your grocery list. When crafting a budget, look online for any deals or coupons to help trim down costs. Then, save coupons as a PDF or picture to easily access discounts while checking out at the register. If you’re operating on a tight schedule, budget for carryout or a meal at a restaurant. If you’re unsure of how to budget for groceries, learn how much monthly groceries cost.
• Create a menu. Organize your menu into a table in OneNote by day of week and mealtime. To help save time and money, consider using leftovers from the previous night into a meal the next day. For example, the salmon you cook for Sunday dinner can be a great addition to salad for a quick Monday lunch.
• Add necessary ingredients to a to-do list. Use OneNote’s built in to-do-tags to list grocery items and filter items by category, assign grocery lists to shoppers, or organize them by meal. Grocery items added and removed on checklists are automatically synced across devices, so everyone only buys what they need.

How to meal prep for the week with OneNote

• Schedule planning, shopping, and cooking days. Review your schedule for the week and block time to meal plan, shop, and cook. Add an Outlook task to your planning notes to stay in sync with your calendar and share with your household and dinner guests.
• Lay out steps in recipes or processes. Make sure to list the necessary ingredients and the prep/cook time at the top of your recipes. This can help ensure you have enough time to make each meal. You can also break cooking tasks into multiple days – maybe it’s easier for you to roast your Brussels sprouts on Wednesday evening or marinate your salmon on Saturday.
• Keep your recipes organized. Create different notebooks in OneNote to house your recipes and categorize them by meal type, diet, cook time or cuisine. Upload family recipes or a page from a cookbook as a picture or PDF. You can also include links to recipes from your favorite chefs and cooking websites.

After preparing a meal, make sure to include any annotations in your recipe for the next rendition. If you forget to make a meal, set a reminder to freeze perishable foods like fish or meat before their expiration date.

Easy shareability and organization in OneNote allow everyone in the household to contribute to meal planning. Find more ways to use OneNote with our organization tips.