Updated · WeeklyMealPlans kitchen
How to make a grocery list that saves money
A list saves money when it comes from a plan. A list of things you think you're out of, written in the parking lot, is how you end up back at the store on Wednesday. This order works:
- Plan your dinners first. Dinners need the most ingredients, so decide what you're cooking this week, even roughly, before you write anything. Pick recipes that share fresh ingredients, so a bunch of cilantro goes into two dinners instead of one dinner and the trash.
- Check the fridge, freezer and pantry. Note what needs using up and what you already have, so you don't come home with a third jar of cumin.
- Write down every ingredient, then combine. If two recipes each need half an onion, that's one onion. If three use garlic, that's one head.
- Add the regulars: coffee, milk, bread, fruit for lunches, and whatever else your household goes through every week.
- Put it in store order. Grouping items by aisle means one pass through the store.
- Write quantities. "Onions" gets you one. "3 onions" gets you through the week.
The list maker on this page handles step 5. As you add items, it files each one under its aisle, so chicken thighs go to Meat & poultry and frozen peas go to Frozen without any sorting on your part.
Basic grocery list: staples by aisle
This is a starting point for a household that cooks most dinners at home. You won't need all of it every week, so use it to check what's running low.
- Produce: onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, celery, lemons or limes, a head of lettuce or bagged greens, bananas, apples or other seasonal fruit, and two or three vegetables for the week's dinners
- Meat & poultry: chicken thighs or breasts, ground beef or turkey, and one more protein such as pork chops or sausage
- Seafood: salmon or white fish fillets, or a bag of frozen shrimp
- Dairy & eggs: eggs, milk, butter, plain yogurt, and a block of cheddar or parmesan
- Bakery: sandwich bread and tortillas
- Pantry & grains: rice, pasta, oats, flour, peanut butter, olive oil and a neutral cooking oil
- Cans & jars: diced or crushed tomatoes, beans, broth, tuna and tomato paste
- Spices: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, chili flakes and Italian seasoning
- Sauces & condiments: soy sauce, a vinegar, mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and hot sauce
- Frozen: peas, broccoli or mixed vegetables, and frozen fruit
Spices, oils and condiments last for months, so most weeks you'll only replace what ran out. Produce, dairy and the week's proteins are the parts that change.
A healthy grocery list
A healthy list isn't a different shopping trip. It's mostly the basic list with more room for vegetables, beans and whole grains:
- More produce, including leafy greens and a few vegetables you'll eat raw or roast
- Frozen vegetables and fruit, which keep for months and need no prep
- Canned or dried beans, lentils and chickpeas
- Whole grains such as brown rice, oats, whole-wheat pasta and farro
- Protein from eggs, plain Greek yogurt, fish, chicken and tofu
- Nuts, olive oil and avocados
- Fewer sugary drinks and packaged snacks
For a specific eating pattern, the meal plan pages have their own lists: see the Mediterranean diet grocery list or the keto grocery list.
Grocery list for a week: one example
Here's a week of five dinners for two: chicken fajitas, spaghetti with meat sauce, sheet-pan salmon with potatoes and green beans, black bean quesadillas, and vegetable fried rice with eggs. This is the whole list, assuming rice, oil, salt and pepper are already in the cupboard:
- Produce: 2 bell peppers, 2 onions, 1 head of garlic, 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes, 1 pound of green beans, 1 lime, 1 lemon, 1 bunch of cilantro, 1 bunch of scallions
- Meat & poultry: 1 pound of boneless chicken thighs, 1 pound of ground beef
- Seafood: 2 salmon fillets
- Dairy & eggs: 1 dozen eggs, an 8-ounce block of cheddar, a small tub of sour cream
- Bakery: 1 pack of flour tortillas
- Pantry & grains: 1 pound of spaghetti
- Cans & jars: a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, 1 can of black beans, 1 jar of salsa
- Spices: cumin and chili powder
- Sauces & condiments: soy sauce
- Frozen: 1 bag of peas and carrots
Tortillas, cilantro, sour cream and cheddar each go into both the fajitas and the quesadillas, and the garlic covers three dinners. That overlap keeps a five-dinner list to about two dozen items.
Printable list or phone list
Both work, and the better one depends on how you shop.
- A phone list is always with you, and checking items off as you go shows what's left at a glance. Copy or email it to whoever is doing the shopping.
- A printed list doesn't need a signal or a charged battery, and it's easy to hand to a partner or a teenager along with the car keys.
- A blank grocery list template on the fridge catches things as they run out during the week. Print the one on this page, which has a section for each aisle, and anyone in the house can write on it.
Plenty of households use both: the paper template on the fridge during the week, then a phone list on shopping day.
Let the planner write it
If writing the list is the chore you'd skip, the meal planner will do it from your dinners. Tell it your household, budget, time and what you won't eat, and it plans 5 to 7 dinners with one grocery list sorted by aisle, shared ingredients combined and anything already in your pantry checked off. Costs are estimates at typical US supermarket prices.
