A free, flexible 7-day meal plan designed to save you time and money. This plan features easy dinners, slow cooker favourites and quick pasta recipes. All ingredients are available at Aldi so you can shop in one place and keep costs low by relying on a small selection of common, versatile items.
Aldi Budget Meal Plan
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Table of Contents
Why Aldi
Aldi stocks the essentials you need to prepare straightforward, healthy meals. The decision to focus this site on Aldi stems from personal experience: shopping across several stores took too much time and inflated the weekly bill. By concentrating purchases at one store and applying a chef’s approach developed over a decade, it’s easy to create varied, flavourful meals without the stress or cost.
Shopping at Aldi has reduced both my grocery time and my spending, and the recipes I’ve been sharing have been popular with family and readers alike. Meal planning was a frequent request, so I pulled together plans that use Aldi ingredients to make weeknight cooking simpler and cheaper.
About the Aldi budget meal plan
These plans are packed with easy dinners and simple recipes, typically including 2–3 vegetarian options each week. If you prefer meat every night, you can easily add your chosen animal protein to most dishes. Each meal plan also includes practical meal-prep tips and suggestions for using leftovers to reduce waste and save money.
Mindful eating helps both your wallet and the planet, but it doesn’t mean sacrificing flavour or variety. The meal plans aim to keep meals interesting, healthy and achievable for busy households.
The Details
Every free Aldi meal plan comes with links to the recipes used in that week’s menu, plus a printable grocery list and a printable menu plan. Even if you don’t use all the recipes, the plan provides inspiration for other dinner ideas and helps you shop more efficiently.
If you’re new to Aldi, your first visit may take longer as you learn the layout and the special offers in the middle aisles. A simple approach is to shop the perimeter first—fresh produce, meat and dairy—then work your way through the centre aisles for pantry items and Aldi Finds.
Pantry Staples
Below is a quick list of pantry staples and fresh favourites I commonly keep on hand. The printable shopping list assumes you already have basics like oil, salt and pepper, so those are not included.
- Olive oil
- Brown rice
- White rice or basmati
- Tinned beans (black beans, kidney beans, chickpeas)
- Soy sauce (light and dark)
- Small flour tortillas (use for wraps or homemade tortilla chips)
- Coconut oil (Aldi often prices this competitively; useful for cooking and skincare)
- Tinned tomatoes or passata
- Peanut butter (Aldi’s smooth version is excellent value)
- Fresh vegetables, fruit and proteins
- Ground beef (mince)
- Chicken breasts
- Grape tomatoes
- Green onions
- Feta cheese
- Cottage cheese or Greek yoghurt
- Sour cream or crème fraîche
- Cheese varieties as needed for recipes
Once you begin shopping at Aldi regularly, you’ll likely notice a meaningful reduction in your grocery bill—especially helpful for families.
Here’s this week’s Aldi meal plan:
The Aldi Recipes
Click to print the shopping list and meal plan (PDF)
- Spinach Ricotta Pasta
- One Pot Mexican Chicken
- Pork Yuk Sung Lettuce Wraps
- Butternut Squash and Chickpea Curry (vegetarian)
- Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs
- Cheesy Baked Tortellini
The easiest way to get these meal plans each week is to join the email list and receive the plan as soon as it’s published. You can also join the community Facebook group to share ideas and tips with other Aldi shoppers.
Feel free to mix and match recipes from previous weeks or use the collection of meal plans to build your own rotation. Sign up to receive weekly plans or try the quick meal-planning course and download a blank meal planner to customize your menus.
Thanks so much for reading and cooking along. If you try any recipes, leaving a comment and rating is appreciated. You can also follow along on social channels to see what we’re cooking and pinning.