In the previous post, we went through some basic meal planning. To simplify the first post, we intentionally left open the critical idea of how this relates to portions. We will expand on that concept here and how portions impact our planning in terms of trade-offs between the budgets of time, cost, and calories we previously defined for ourselves.
Portions Vs Meals
In another post, we discussed the difference between portions and meals. We also discussed what a serving size is and isn’t. Since we know a serving size is something based on what others eat, we want to define a portion as the amount of something you eat based on your calorie budget. For example, you may order a pizza but may only eat two slices of an extra-large pie. Was that a portion or a serving of that pizza?
We are calling that out intentionally as we know there is confusion around the definitions of portions vs servings. This becomes a bit more problematic to talk about in multi-course meals where we have proteins, starches, and usually a vegetable as a main entree plus sides.
This gets more problematic because when building an a la carte meal, you will need portions that make up all three. When you take home leftovers from a restaurant, you may see all three as one portion of a meal. This portion thing begins to sound a little weird but, no worries, we will clear it up a bit later.
Portion Planning
To plan for a month of meals we need to extend the number of items we need to have on hand. Don’t worry, they don’t necessarily add to our work. Remember we can gain portions from simply cooking a little more or taking home leftovers from a restaurant. Before we get to that, let’s give ourselves a definition and again a little harmless math.
- Number of Diners per Meal (NDpM) which is, you guessed it, the number of people you need to feed.
- A complete Meal we define as a meal that approximates proteins, starches, and vegetables to approximate the USDA MyPlate standard.
Let’s also use the table and definitions we had in the previous post to work through our math.
Running Total of Meals Worksheet
Types of Meals | Number Of Meals Per Week | Running 4 Week Total Needed |
Made To Order | 5 | 20 |
Homemade One Dish | 6 | 24 |
Pre-made One Dish | 2 | 8 |
A La Carte | 2 | 8 |
Snack-style | 3 | 12 |
Restaurant | 3 | 12 |
Totals | 21 | 84 |
The Math
Let’s assume 4 diners for our NdpM. What we then have for the total number of portions we need to make or have on hand for four weeks is 4 x 84 or 336 individual portions correct? That is not exactly the right number as we had defined a complete meal as containing 3 items. This means our Made To Order, A La Carte, and Snack-style meals all may be constructed of individual items such as a portion of chicken, rice, and say roasted corn. The Made To Order may also be complete as is such as fried rice with pork and vegetables.

That leaves us with roughly a need for the following minimum and maximum items for a meal.
Min and Max Items per Meal Worksheet
Meal Type | Minimum Items | Maximum Items |
Made To Order | 1 | 3 |
Homemade One Dish | 1 | 1 |
Pre-made One Dish | 1 | 1 |
A La Carte | 3 | 3 |
Snack Style | 1 | 3 |
Putting this all together we would need a minimum and maximum number of meal portions, as shown below.
Combined Totals Worksheet
Meal Type | Number Per Week | Running Total Needed | Minimum Number of Portions | Maximum Number of Portions |
Made To Order | 5 | 20 | 20 | 60 |
Homemade One Dish | 6 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
Pre-made One Dish | 2 | 8 | 24 | 24 |
A La Carte | 2 | 8 | 8 | 24 |
Snack Style | 3 | 12 | 12 | 36 |
Totals | 21 | 84 | 88 | 168 |
When we multiply those totals by our NDpM of 4 you will notice that we get absurd numbers of between 352 and 672 portions of food to feed a group of 4 for a month. In our case, we are only two so we get between 176 to 336 portions of food.
They Are Real Numbers
They are real but not scary. Remember that is how much you need for 4 people for a month. We also need to realize that If you buy a 2lb bag of corn, depending on your and your diner’s calorie budgets, you may get eight 4-ounce portions of vegetables from it. When you cook a 3lb roast, after water loss, you may get ten 4-ounce portions from it. What happens if you throw in some mashed potatoes which are just as easy to create twelve 4-ounce portions?
What happens is that you have just covered a Made To Order meal that covers creating up to two complete meals for four plus extra portions left over to use for another meal. You just knocked out 20 portions in one meal. Wait, it gets better. What about pre-made or takeout? In each of these cases, you may end up with more food than can be eaten in one sitting. Those extra portions can be used to make meals later as well.
Well Duh!
We spent a lot of time telling you something you already knew….maybe? We all inherently do this type of planning from week to week but maybe not month to month. By being cognizant of how we can plan longer term, and reduce food making to portions we need rather than having not enough or too much.
As we started to cook at home more, we thought we needed a lot more than we did. We found ourselves cooking and storing too much. We arrived at thinking about portions over serving size or complete meals to help us plan. We also focused on a calorie budget to make sure our meals were appropriately sized. This began to save us time and money over the aggregate.
This is also a rolling plan meaning after a while, the meals you make help support the extra portions. This happens more naturally as you learn to think about the trade-offs of say doing individual items such as a roast vs a casserole. It also eventually leads to having a larger mix of items you want to eat at home which can reduce dependency on eating out.
Wrapping Up
In this post, we have discussed the nuances of planning with portions over just meals. At first glance the numbers are scary however they are simply numbers. Once you understand this is a month of food numbers aren’t that absurd.
Further with some lifestyle tweaks, we found we could quickly fill them with very little effort. They do give us an approach to managing our food, shopping, and eating out with a goal of efficiency and reduced waste. Lastly, this approach helps us keep an eye on our calorie budgets whether we want to slim down, maintain, or bulk up.