The weeks that go sideways are the ones nobody planned on Sunday. This plan is the counter: one grocery run, one Sunday hour, four dinners with their real clocks next to them.

The hour packs the lunches for Monday through Thursday. The dinners run from a 15-minute skillet to a 50-minute oven night.

Cook them in the order given and:

  • The most perishable things get used first.
  • The fastest recipe lands on the busiest night.
  • The pantry pot is there to move if the week changes.

Why you'll love this

  • 22 plates from one basket, about $2.40 a plate.
  • Every night's clock is honest, from 15 minutes to the hour.
  • The fastest dinner sits on Wednesday, where evenings are shortest.
  • If plans collapse, the Thursday pot moves to next week whole.

The menu

Sunday: Mediterranean lunch meal prep

60 minutes (25 in the oven, 35 yours), ~$3.50/lunch, 4 lunches.

It goes first because it feeds Monday to Thursday, and Thursday is the fourth day, the edge of the window for the cooked chicken. The hour is scheduled minute by minute on the page.

Monday: Oven-baked chicken thighs that actually crisp

50 minutes (10 prep, 40 in the oven), ~$1.90/serving, serves 4.

The bone-in thighs are the most perishable thing left in the basket after Sunday's chicken, so they cook the day after the shop. Eight thighs is the recipe's four servings; whatever is left reheats on a rack, or the cold meat folds into a skillet, both on the page.

Tuesday: Sheet-pan sausage and vegetables, staged so nothing turns to mush

45 minutes (10 prep, 35 in the oven), ~$2.40/serving, serves 4.

The smoked sausage would keep for weeks; the peppers and zucchini would not, and they are firmest early in the week. Same 425°F oven as Monday, so the habit carries over.

Wednesday: 15-minute garlic butter shrimp

15 minutes (8 prep, a minute for the pan, 6 in the pan), ~$3.30/serving, serves 4.

The fast one sits mid-week, where the evenings are shortest. The shrimp come from a frozen bag that moves to the fridge Tuesday night, so nothing here needs to be fresh on the day.

Thursday: One-pot pasta e fagioli in 35 minutes

35 minutes (10 prep, 25 cook), ~$1.40/serving, serves 6.

The flex night. Everything in it is cans, a soffritto and small pasta, so if plans change it moves to next week without waste, and the bunch of parsley Sunday bought ends here.

The grocery list

Three of the dinners serve four and the pasta serves six, so this list makes 18 dinner plates and 4 lunches: 22 plates from one basket.

  • Proteins and dairy: 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 3 lb, for Monday), 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs (for Sunday; two cuts of the same thigh, do not swap one for the other), 14 oz smoked sausage (kielbasa or andouille), 1½ lb raw peeled shrimp in a frozen bag (31/40 or 16/20; the timing table on the shrimp page covers both), butter (4 tbsp), 2 oz feta, ¾ cup plain Greek yogurt, grated parmesan to serve (optional). Optional: 4 oz diced pancetta for the pasta, which adds about 50 cents a serving.
  • Produce: 1½ lb small potatoes, 5 medium carrots (one bag: 3 for Tuesday's pan, 2 for Thursday's pot), 2 celery stalks, 1 yellow onion, 2 red onions, 4 bell peppers, 2 medium zucchini, 1 cucumber, 2 Roma tomatoes, 3 lemons (a fourth if Tuesday's pan gets lemon instead of vinegar), 1 head garlic, 1 bunch parsley.
  • Pantry: pearl couscous (1 cup / 6 oz), ditalini or another small pasta (1¼ cups / 150 g), 1 can chickpeas (15 oz), 2 cans cannellini beans (15 oz each), 1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz), tomato paste (2 tbsp), vegetable broth (4 cups), olive oil (about ¾ cup across the week), 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, salt, black pepper, flaky salt (optional), smoked paprika, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried thyme, dried rosemary, red pepper flakes.

What Sunday buys, Thursday finishes. The list is shorter than five separate lists because the recipes share their produce, and the order of the week is built around using each shared thing up:

  • Bell peppers, red onion and zucchini: half go on Sunday's lunch pan, half on Tuesday's sausage pan. Both pans cut them to the same sizes and add the zucchini late for the same reason, so buy them together and cut them the same way twice.
  • Parsley: one bunch covers the lunch prep on Sunday, the shrimp on Wednesday and the pot on Thursday, with a handful for Tuesday's pan if you like. Sunday opens it, Thursday finishes it.
  • Lemons: Sunday takes two (zest, juice, and a half kept for the day-3 lunch), Wednesday takes one for the shrimp. Tuesday's pan can take a half in place of the vinegar.
  • Carrots: one bag, split between Tuesday's pan (½-inch coins) and Thursday's soffritto (small dice).
  • Garlic: one head is enough. A clove into Sunday's yogurt sauce, five into Wednesday's butter, four into Thursday's pot; Monday and Tuesday use garlic powder.
  • Oregano and smoked paprika: the oregano runs through Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday; the paprika through Monday and Tuesday. One jar of each does the week.

Already have most of the pantry row? The basket comes to roughly $53 for the four dinners and four lunches, the sum of the five recipes' own costs, about $2.40 a plate across the 22 plates. The two lines that move the number are the shrimp and the lunch chicken; each recipe page says what its cheaper version costs.

How to run the week

Shop once, on Saturday or Sunday morning.

Sunday: the hour

The lunch prep runs on its own minute-by-minute schedule, and by minute 60 four containers are in the fridge.

Put the shrimp bag in the freezer; everything else in the list is either fresh for the first two nights or keeps all week.

Monday: the oven night

Dry the thighs, rack, 425°F, 40 minutes, and while they bake nothing else needs your hands.

Cook all eight; the recipe's storage note covers the rest (fridge 4 days, reheat on a rack so the skin comes back).

Tuesday: the same oven, one pan

Cut everything to the sizes on the page before the pan goes in, then it is three trips to the oven (minute 0, 15, 25) and out at 35.

Tuesday night, before bed, move the shrimp bag from the freezer to a plate in the fridge; it needs 8 to 12 hours.

Wednesday: the 15-minute dinner

Pat the thawed shrimp very dry, hot pan, one layer, pull at the C.

If you forgot to move the bag, the cold-water bowl takes 15 to 20 minutes and the page times it.

Thursday: the flex night

The pasta e fagioli comes from the pantry in 35 minutes, and it is the last lunch day.

  • If Thursday falls apart, the pot moves to next week whole: the cans, pasta and dried herbs keep, and the carrots and celery keep well in the crisper.
  • Thursday's lunch is the one to eat, not the one to push to Friday.

If four dinners is one too many this week, the easy week, plan #1 is the same shape with three dinners and no Sunday hour, and any night here swaps into it.

Print this page and the list goes to the store with you. Decide the week once and let the clocks do the rest.