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27 Printable Weekly Meal Planner Templates for 2020

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Making meal planning a habit can fast track your journey to better health.

A research study published in The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity shows that meal planning has a host of benefits. These include:

In addition to these benefits, having a meal plan can help your household save up to a few thousand dollars annually.

In a previous post, we discussed the best meal planning apps that you can use to make your life easier. We've also looked at the different meal delivery kit services such as HelloFresh.

Today, we are featuring 27 printable, weekly, meal planner template ideas to inspire and assist you in your meal planning.

If you’re new to meal plans, you might want to check out the useful tips in the post How to Make a Meal Plan for the Week, to get you started.

Now let’s check out those templates!

Best Printable Weekly Meal Planner Templates

1. Printable Meal Planner Floral Style Template

via On Planners

If you’re using meal planners to enhance your productivity at home, then you might want to print out this floral-style planner. It features pastel-colored pages.

When downloading or printing, there are eight paper sizes to choose from. You can also select the start day of your planner (usually Sunday). In addition to the meal-planning pages, there are also printable pages dedicated to your grocery list, freezer and pantry inventories, favorite meals, and a customizable planner cover.

2. Weekly Meal Prep Clipboard Design

via Thirty Handmade Days

This meal planner contains ample space for writing your shopping list, in addition to the meals you plan for the week. It is very convenient because you can see what you will need at a glance.

When you’re planning meals for your whole family, it is a good idea to have a shared calendar where you can coordinate everyone’s schedule. This ensures that everyone gets a hot meal when they’re eating at home.

You might want to check out this review of the best family calendar apps you can use for organizing your family’s schedule.

3. Teal-Themed Meal Planner

via The Cottage Market

This teal-themed planner features space for important notes about the meals you’re planning for each day of the week.

If you’re new to meal planning, the entire process can feel overwhelming. However, remembering three basic things will help make it more doable:

4. Kitchn Weekly Meal Plan

via Kitchn

Having a meal plan can help you keep track of the perishables in your pantry, ensuring that you use them up before they go bad. This template has space for a pantry inventory of what ingredients or supplies you need to use up, as well as a make-ahead list.

With this type of planning, nothing goes to waste. Furthermore, with a make-ahead plan, you know how to channel your energy and resources when it comes to preparing meals. You can rest easy knowing that the things you need to get done can be reviewed at a glance.

5. Minimalist Meal Plan

via Shining Mom

Many people like to keep things simple, and this meal planning template reflects that preference. It features a black-and-white motif and is quite straightforward as a planner, providing columns where you can write down the meals you want to prepare for each day.

6. Systematic Meal Planner

via Scratch To Basics

In contrast to the minimalist meal plan, this template is itself an entire system of meal planning. In addition to spaces you can fill in with the kinds of food you intend to prepare for all the days of the week, there is also generous space for brainstorming your ideas regarding the entire week’s menu.

This is quite useful, especially if there is an important event that week, such as a birthday party. The space reserved for brainstorming ensures that you remember minute details.

You will also find that the grocery list is grouped into categories. Lastly, there is space to remind you in case you need to prepare something beforehand.

7. Weekly Family Dinner Schedule

via Scratch To Basics

This dinner planner has assigned columns for the planned menu, who will be cooking it, and who will be assisting.

Research studies show that chores are good for children’s personal development. With this planner, you can teach valuable life skills to your children and instill in them family values that you want to pass on to them.

Usually, older kids can be assigned to cook dinner, while the younger ones will be the assistants. However, you can also boost a younger child’s confidence by assigning them to be the cook, letting them do easy-to-prepare meals for the whole family.

8. Elimination Diet Weekly Meal and Snack Plan

via Word Templates Online

Some meal plans help keep track of the food you eat, especially if you need to identify triggers for illnesses or allergies. This is one example. You can immediately spot a trigger food in case there are flare-ups of a medical condition by simply looking at the meal plan.

This template is in MSWord and is editable.

9. Black-and-White Menu Plan

via Fab N’ Free

If you’re into black-and-white themes or you want to save on printer ink, this meal plan template does the job. The template contains spaces for the days of the week, plus an untitled column that you can use as a grocery list, pantry inventory, or space for personal reminders.

10. Cook This

via Scrimpalicious

This template is loaded with information about all the food you plan to cook for the whole week. It has a column for number of portions/servings, ingredients to buy with boxes you can tick before each type of ingredient (this saves you the effort of filling in the blanks), and a very detailed section for the date. There is also a very apt quote at the bottom of the page: “The first thing to cook up is a plan.”

11. Handsketched Meal Planner

via Future Girl

If you intend to use a meal planner, it is best to choose a template that accommodates your lifestyle. For some people, that means customizing their planners when they cannot find a suitable template. This planner is an example of that. It has no dates, so there is some flexibility within your planned menu for the week.

12. Colorful Weekly Meal Plan

via Family Fresh Meals

For those of you who love color, this planner might be what you’re looking for. It features splashes of pastel to add a fun design concept to the meals that you are planning.

13. Green-Themed Weekly Meal Plan Template

via Live Craft Eat

Green is a very relaxing color, and this template is a sample of an elegant green-themed meal planner. It has columns for each day of the week, with spaces for writing down the food you plan to prepare.

There is also a column for a grocery list, with ample space for writing down the stuff you need to buy for the week.

14. Violet-Themed Weekly Meal Plan Template

via Live Craft Eat

Here’s another template with a color theme. This time, it’s in violet. Its standout feature is food-type trackers for each day.

The concept behind this food-type tracker is that the person preparing the meals will tick off one of the dots for every dish prepared for the day, which should ideally contain the food types listed, such as grain products, vegetables and fruits, and meat. It also features a three-columned shopping list for better efficiency.

15. On the Royal Table Template

via Queen of Free

In some households, family members only have a chance to get together during dinner. For these families, it would be impractical to plan three meals per day for the entire week. Yet it is still possible to do meal planning, as this template demonstrates. The planner simply focuses on dinner menu plans. Of course, there are spaces provided for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, too, just in case you’ll be preparing any of these meals within the week. Furthermore, there is a two-column shopping list for your convenience.

16. Meal Plan and Grocery Checklist

via Munch Munch Yum!

In this meal planning template, the grocery list is featured prominently. It is categorized into “produce” and “non-produce,” with a system for listing the grocery items you need and their quantity.

The designers of this template have a suggestion for how to use their planner:

17. Editable Excel Meal Planner

via Vertex42

This seven-day meal plan features a categorical listing according to meal types. Spaces are provided for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks. Spaces are also provided for notes and a grocery list.

18. Produce Header Meal Planner

via Printables And Inspirations

If you are feeling overwhelmed with meal planning, this template might help you see the lighter side of things. This planner comes with a fun produce header and colorful tabs for each day of the week.

Here are some additional suggestions to make meal planning a fun process:

19. Lunchbox Planner

via The Road To Loving My Thermo Mixer

Sometimes, planning a healthy school lunch for the kids can be a challenge. This planner helps make things easier. There are spaces for snacks and lunches.

Meal planning their school lunches ensures that your kids are eating healthy even when they are away from home.

20. Easter Weekly Meal Plan

via Carrie Elle

This charming template’s design is ideal for meal planning during the Easter season.

Meal planning is ideal for the holiday season. It helps keep things organized at a time when things can become hectic.

For example, when relatives come over for a holiday meal, you can use your meal plan to keep track of food preferences and dietary restrictions. This way, you can prepare meals that everyone can enjoy, creating happy memories and ensuring that no food goes to waste.

21. Post-Bariatric Surgery Meal Planning Template

via DFW Bariatric Institute

A meal planner is quite helpful for people who need to monitor their food intake for medical reasons. They may be suffering or recovering from illnesses, or need to limit their food intake after surgery.

This template is an example of a meal planner for those who have undergone bariatric surgery. The template is downloadable and editable, and helps users make the best purchasing decisions while shopping for ingredients.

22. Healthy Weekly Meal Plan

via The Nourishing Home

This is another fun meal planner with a fruit-and-vegetable header and a colorful layout. This template is available for download as a PDF and features a reminder for “make ahead” tasks for the next day.

23. Weight Loss Goal Meal Planner

via New Life Body Sculpting

We’ve previously mentioned the benefits of meal planning in relation to health conditions, but meal planners are also great tools for helping with your fitness goals. In this case, this meal planner is designed to support your weight loss goals.

24. Be a Master Meal Planner

via MyFitnessPal

For something to become a habit, it must be done consistently. This goes for meal planning, too. You can only be a master at meal planning and reap the benefits from it if you do it regularly.

With this template, you can have home-cooked meals every day of the week. This will benefit you in at least two ways: You become healthier as you avoid fast food (which is devoid of nutrients) and you save money.

25. Meal Plan with Water and Mood Trackers

via On Planners

This template features a black-and-white color scheme. There is a water tracker to ensure that you are properly hydrated throughout the day and a mood tracker to help keep track of your emotional health for the week.

26. Accountability Weekly Meal Plan

via 8Fit

This template works in tandem with the 8Fit app to provide you with a meal plan that’s tailored to your dietary preferences and health goals. The app supplies the information of what you are to eat for the week, and you can choose to write this down on a printed meal planner.

There is a box you can tick to indicate you’ve actually prepared and consumed the meal suggested by the app.

27. Weekly Menu Plan

via Money In Your Tea

This meal plan allows you to see at a glance two weeks’ worth of meals you will prepare. Moreover, it has spaces reserved for activities you want to take note of for the week.

Make It Reusable

Rather than printing a new copy of your meal planner every week or so, one way you can cut printing costs and become more environment friendly is to make your planner reusable.

You can choose to print a single page and laminate it, or place it inside a clear file folder. Then you can use a whiteboard marker to write the dishes you plan to prepare for the week. Once the week is done, you can simply erase the content and write a fresh plan.

Final Thoughts on Printable Weekly Meal Planner Templates

Meal planning is a good habit you may want to start practicing in your household. You can actually feel the benefits of doing it through improved health and the amount you save every year.

Do you have a favorite weekly meal planner template from among the ones featured today? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

If you need more in-depth information about meal planning, this post can help get you started.

If you’re looking for more templates to improve your planning skills, here are some free weekly planner templates to try.

Finally, in addition to printable templates, you might want to use an app or a website to help plan your meals. Visit this post to check out 11 of the best meal planning apps and websites currently available.