<aside> ⚠️ This meal template uses a servings-based approach to meal planning, as opposed to a time-constrained approach. A servings-based approach to meal planning makes it easier to buy groceries, and helps minimize food waste.
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🗓 When you use timeframes to organize our batches of meals, you may organize your meals around one or two week increments, for example. For some people this may work great, but for others a time-based approach may be too inflexible.
🍱 Using serving sizes to organize batches of meals lets you focus on the number of servings you'd like to cook within a given batch. This servings-based approach is especially useful if you have a non-traditional meal schedule, e.g. if you're intermittent fasting.
If you're new to Notion, make sure you've created a new free or paid account first. This template is compatible with free workspaces and paid workspaces alike. Once you have an account, navigate to this template and click the 'Duplicate' button on the top right of the page.
PS: I use Dark Mode in Notion, so the rest of my screenshots will reflect that!
First, decide on the number of servings you want to cook in your first batch. Once you know, go to the 'Batches' page and click on the dropdown arrow next to the blue 'New' button. Click on 'Batch Template.' This will create a new page for a batch based on a template that contains everything you need to get started.
The link to the 'Batches' page is included at the end of this tutorial.
This template comes with 45 recipes that range between vegan, vegetarian, and meat meals. I've included a few breakfast recipes, and a handful of snack recipes, but the vast majority of these recipes are for lunch and dinner. Many of these are ideal for bulk meal prep as well.
Click within the 'Meals' field to start browsing available recipes. Click on the plus sign that appears when you hover over a recipe to add it to your current batch. As you add recipes to your batch, the ingredients and number of servings will automatically be updated in the batch's 'Ingredients' and 'Servings' fields.
Remember to set the status of your new batch to 'Current'. This status is what the Grocery List relies upon to tell you what your grocery list looks like for the batch in question. This template comes with three self-explanatory statuses, 'Current', 'Past', and 'Upcoming'. When you mark a batch as 'Current',
Navigate from the Batches page to the Grocery List page. If your batch statuses are up to date, then the list of the ingredients you'll need for this batch should be listed under the 'Current Batches' column of the Grocery List kanban board, and all your past batches should be listed under the 'Past Batches' column. You can also plan for upcoming grocery lists with the 'Upcoming Batch' status.
I order my groceries online, so I usually just go down this list and add the items to my shopping cart. One of the downsides to this system is that there doesn't seem to be an easy way to can't export this shopping list. This may be more of a problem for you if you physically go to the grocery store, because you won't be able to check items off in this view in Notion.