12 or More Power Meals for Around $50 a Week and 15 Minutes a Night!

The following One Week Menu and Shopping List is an example of how planning ahead can help the Single Person save money, time and eat well! The menu should yield around 12 Power Meals and the shopping list should cost only around $50 for an entire week!

Though it is a well known fact that cooking at home can save families money, many single people feel that the cost of cooking for one is around the same as dining out. This is not true! A single person spends, around $10 a meal eating out and with careful menu planning you can save around half that.

As many know, another pitfall of eating out is that you don’t always know exactly what’s going into your food. There can be extra amounts of sugar, salt, fat or anything else you may want to monitor. When you cook at home, you know exactly how much of everything is going into your food.

Some Singles don’t have the time or desire to spend the time, they feel it takes to cook for themselves every night. Either they don’t enjoy cooking or without the motivation of others to feed, are less inclined to make the effort for their own behalf. The following One Week Menu has been designed with time saving in mind. If you spend approximately 1 hour cooking and preparing on Sunday, every other day of the week will take you no more than 15 minutes of preparation time. Save all of your leftovers in airtight containers in the refrigerator or freezer to be used for meals later in the week.

One Week of Power Meals

1) Chicken (or steak), mashed potatoes, green beans (2 or more meals)

2) Pasta salad (2 or more meals)

-Whole wheat pasta, broccoli, tomatoes, parmesan cheese, chicken, Italian dressing

3) Chicken (or steak) burritos (1 meal)

- black beans, low fat cheese, salsa and low fat sour cream

4) Shepard’s Pie (2 or more meals)

-ground turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes

5) Chicken(or steak) stir fry w/ rice (2 or more meals)

- Mushrooms, broccoli, rice, chicken

6) Pasta w/ ground turkey and broccoli (2 or more meals)

-Pasta sauce, mushrooms, broccoli, whole wheat pasta

7) South Western Chicken & Black Bean Soup (2 or more meals)

-Chicken broth, black beans, corn, salsa, tortilla chips

Shopping List

6 chicken breasts (or 4 chicken breasts and 2 small lean steaks)

1.25 lb low fat ground turkey or beef

Potatoes

Brown Rice

Green beans

Broccoli

Mushrooms

Pasta sauce

Black Beans

Canned corn

Whole Grain Tortillas

Low Fat Cheese

Salsa

Low Fat Sour cream

Low Sodium Chicken broth

Tomatoes

Parmesan cheese

Light Italian dressing

Sunday (should take about 1 hour total)

-Cook chicken and/or steak, green beans, broccoli, potatoes, rice, pasta.

-Assemble Pasta Salad

-Save everything you don’t eat for dinner in airtight containers in refrigerator or freezer (if you won’t use it within a few days)

Be Better!