Meal Prep Planner
Work out the portions, convert to raw weight, and decide the freezer split BEFORE you start cooking.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/meal-prep-portion-calculator
The week
- Week beginning
- People eating
- Meals per person per day
- Days covered
- TOTAL PORTIONS
- Portion size (cooked)
- TOTAL COOKED WEIGHT
- Fridge days
- FRIDGE PORTIONS
- FREEZER PORTIONS
Shopping - one row per component
| Component | Cooked per portion | Yield % | RAW to buy | Bought |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Total portions
- people x meals/day x days
- Total cooked weight
- portions x portion size
- Raw to buy
- cooked weight ÷ yield
- Yield
- cooked weight ÷ raw weight
- Yield below 100
- loses weight — buy MORE
- Yield above 100
- absorbs water — buy LESS
- Fridge portions
- people x meals/day x fridge days
- Freezer portions
- the rest — frozen on cooking day
Measure your own yields once
- Ingredient
- Raw weight
- Cooked weight
- YIELD %
- Date measured
- Ingredient
- Raw weight
- Cooked weight
- YIELD %
- Date measured
Cooking day
- Portion count multiplied by people AND meals AND days
- Raw weights used for shopping, not plate weights
- Yields measured in your own kitchen, not looked up
- Freezer portions decided before cooking, not midweek
- Freezer portions cooled and packed on the day they were cooked
- Containers counted and actually available
- Fridge space checked against the total volume
- Everything labelled with what it is and the date it was cooked
- Fridge-days figure taken from a food safety authority
It multiplies three ways
People times meals per day times days. Two people having one prepped lunch for five days is TEN portions, not five. The day count is what people anchor on, and the other two get folded in silently - which is how a meal prep session ends up half the size it needed to be.
Freezing stops the clock, it does not turn it back
A portion frozen after three days in the fridge comes out having already used most of its life. Decide the split before you cook, and freeze that share while it is fresh. This is the whole reason the freezer count is worked out up front rather than left as a midweek discovery.