{"id":259964,"date":"2025-12-31T14:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/259964\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T14:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:47:10","slug":"nathan-anthonys-simple-tips-for-meal-planning-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/259964\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Anthony’s simple tips for meal planning in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

If saving money and eating better are top of your to-do list for 2026, Nathan Anthony has you covered. The Northern Irish recipe writer and social media sensation is back with a new book, Bored Of Lunch: Meal Planner.<\/p>\n

Inspired by Nadia Hussain, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, and Irish chef Donal Skehan, Anthony grew up around “some amazing home cooks”, including his granny and auntie, who was a chef in New York.<\/p>\n

After “falling in love” with the air fryer and slow cooker at university, he started his Bored Of Lunch account during lockdown and has gone on to amass 2.7 million Instagram followers and six-times Sunday Times best-selling cookbooks.<\/p>\n

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\nNathan Anthony (Dan Jones\/PA)<\/p>\n

His latest is designed to help you organise your life, your menu and your bank balance. “A lot of people are finding the pinch at the moment with the cost of living crisis. Ingredients in Northern Ireland, the cost of them is absolutely insane at the minute,” says Anthony.<\/p>\n

His meal planner will, he hopes, give “people control over their weekly spend, in a journal format, where they can look at the recipes in the book, they can write how much they\u2019re spending, budget accordingly [and] plan their meals to save money”.<\/p>\n

Here are his top tips for planning your way to better meals, and a healthier bank balance too\u2026<\/p>\n

Organising your food shop saves time and freezer space<\/b><\/p>\n

“When you don\u2019t plan your food shop, you come home, like, \u2018I bought peas.\u2019 And there\u2019s already peas in the freezer. [You think] \u2018No, I have not been organised at all here\u2019,” says Anthony, knowing exactly how it feels. “It really does make a difference when you spend five minutes planning your food.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll save you cash too<\/b><\/p>\n

Even small amounts of forward planning can help keep you on track. “If there\u2019s five days and I\u2019m organised for two or three of them, then I\u2019ve made some type of win that week,” says Anthony. “Whereas if I don\u2019t make any plans, the week\u2019s just a bit of a free for all, and you end up spending so much money.”<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t shop with a rumbling tummy<\/b><\/p>\n

“The worst thing to do is shopping when you\u2019re hungry because you\u2019ll add so many things you don\u2019t need,” says Anthony, especially unhealthy foods. “You\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, look at those cookies, let\u2019s get them\u2019.”<\/p>\n

Planning helps with variety<\/b><\/p>\n

“Sitting down and saying, \u2018Let\u2019s do a spag bol on Monday, and then on Tuesday let\u2019s do a vindaloo, gives you so much variety. My mum probably won\u2019t mind me saying this, but she made bolognese every week. \u2018Thursday night, she\u2019s gonna make a bolognese again!\u2019” remembers Anthony. The book includes a 12-week meal planner though, and if you plan well, “your weeks should never look the same.”<\/p>\n

Portion out servings<\/b><\/p>\n

Only using three chicken breasts but bought four? Freeze the fourth. “I use resealable freezer bags you can put in the dishwasher [after use]. We\u2019re very big on recycling and not adding any waste, so adding your meat into little fridge and freezer bags is a massive, massive money saver.”<\/p>\n

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Be creative with batched meals<\/b><\/p>\n

No one wants to eat the same meal night after night. “I would make a bolognese and batch cook it in a way that the next day, I can turn it into chilli con carne, or maybe use it in sliders or fajitas. I try to use one dish, but give it a second life the next day to make it something a bit more special.”<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t bin leftovers<\/b><\/p>\n

Even scraps of leftovers can help zhuzh up another meal. “Yesterday I made a turkey and ham pie, and I\u2019ve used a bit of the turkey and ham for a risotto tonight,” says Anthony. “I just want to put in a bit of rice and a bit of lemon and make something different.”<\/p>\n

Embrace the \u2018rustle up\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

“I love a rustle up,” says Anthony, who is a big Celebrity MasterChef fan and particularly enjoys the \u2018Under the cloche\u2019 mystery ingredient challenge. “You lift that dish and see what\u2019s underneath it. You have a banana or a bit of salmon [to make something with]. I love a fridge raid; it\u2019s how I get inspired to write new recipes.” He adds: “Ready Steady Cook was one of my favourite shows as a child. I used to watch it with my granny.”<\/p>\n

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Set yourself a food budget<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Anthony\u2019s personal mission in 2026, to be “as strict as possible when it comes to planning and trying to stick to the food budget that I set every month.” “Sometimes you can say, \u2018Oh, we\u2019ll go out for one or two meals this month,\u2019 but sometimes it ends up being maybe three or four.\u2019” He\u2019s hoping to reduce those unexpected, often expensive, dinners out.<\/p>\n

Scrawl all over your cookbooks<\/b><\/p>\n

“I love seeing when people tag me in recipes they\u2019ve used where there\u2019s sauce splattered all over the pages, there\u2019s corners folded, it just shows a sign of love that the book is really being used,” says Anthony. “If it\u2019s sitting pristine on a shelf, not touched, it doesn\u2019t have the same character. Like, when I look at all of my granny\u2019s cookbooks, they\u2019re covered. There\u2019s flour on the inside, where she\u2019s spilled jam on it, there\u2019s little notes where she\u2019s changed maybe brown sugar to caster sugar. And I love that.”<\/p>\n

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Consider your own preferences<\/b><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to see a recipe as a set of unbreakable rules. “The recipes are how I cook, but they\u2019re very much up to your interpretation,” says Anthony. “If you don\u2019t want to use double cream, use cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche or a bit of soft cheese.”<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get too swept up in the \u2018new year, new you mentality\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s great to have new goals, but we should never beat ourselves up,” muses Anthony. “It\u2019s a mechanism to get people into the zone again, because from probably November onwards, people are like, \u2018Hell, it\u2019s Christmas, I\u2019ll just have the whole box of Ferrero Rocher\u2019 and we lose a bit of normality.”<\/p>\n

He continues: “I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a new year, new me, because it\u2019s not a new me. It\u2019s going back to the old me from before Christmas.”<\/p>\n

Bored Of Lunch: Meal Planner by Nathan Anthony is published by Ebury Press. Photography by Dan Jones. Available January 1.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If saving money and eating better are top of your to-do list for 2026, Nathan Anthony has you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-259964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115814731041854506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}