A Practical Glossary of Meal Planning Terms

Meal Planning

The practice of deciding in advance what you'll eat over a set period — usually a week. It typically involves choosing recipes, writing a grocery list, and sometimes preparing ingredients or full meals ahead of time.

Batch Cooking

Preparing large quantities of one or more foods in a single cooking session for use across multiple meals. For example, roasting a full sheet pan of vegetables on Sunday to use in lunches and dinners throughout the week.

Meal Prep

A broader term that covers any advance preparation — chopping vegetables, marinating proteins, portioning snacks, or fully assembling meals — done before the moment you need to eat. It often overlaps with batch cooking but isn't limited to large-batch recipes.

Mise en Place

A French culinary phrase meaning 'everything in its place.' In home cooking, it refers to measuring, chopping, and organizing all ingredients before you begin cooking, which reduces errors and speeds up the actual cooking process.

Template Meal

A flexible meal framework built around a consistent structure — such as a grain, a protein, a vegetable, and a sauce — where the specific ingredients rotate. Template meals reduce decision fatigue while keeping meals varied.

Macronutrients (Macros)

The three main categories of nutrients that provide energy: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Tracking or balancing macros is a common approach in structured meal planning, particularly for fitness-related goals.

Macro Cycling

An eating pattern in which the proportion of macronutrients varies intentionally from day to day or week to week — often aligning higher carbohydrate intake with more active days. It requires more planning precision than a fixed macro approach.

Prep Day

A designated block of time — often a weekend morning — set aside specifically for batch cooking and meal prep tasks. Consolidating prep into one session reduces the daily effort required to get food on the table.

Pantry Staples

Shelf-stable or long-lasting ingredients kept on hand to build meals without a special shopping trip. Common examples include canned beans, dried pasta, olive oil, rice, and basic spices.

Freezer Meal

A fully or partially prepared meal that is stored frozen and reheated when needed. Freezer meals extend the value of a single prep session and provide a practical backup when time or energy is limited.

Portion Control

Intentionally sizing servings to align with a personal or dietary goal. In meal planning, this often means pre-portioning food into containers during prep so that grab-and-go meals are already correctly sized.

Leftover Repurposing

Using leftovers as ingredients for a different dish rather than eating the same meal again. For example, roasted chicken from dinner becomes the protein in a next-day grain bowl or wrap.