This week, I wanted to share the details of our 2025 “Minimal Meals Month” challenge.
If you’ve been around a while, then you know we love a good challenge. There’s something fun and interesting about pushing and stretching yourself to see what makes you uncomfortable and what helps you become more creative.
Back in October 2022, my family and I undertook several different challenges, but one of them involved selecting 34 total ingredients with which we would strive to make the entirety of our month’s meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and desserts.
Apparently the challenge was fun on some level, because when we were discussing our vision boards for 2025, my eldest son suggested we do another minimal meals month. Of course, I was game!
I broadened the challenge a bit this year because I’m also interested in shelf cooking and pushing myself to reduce grocery expenses during a “no-spend January.” So this Minimal Meals Month will allow for the usage of any items already on our pantry shelves or in our freezers, etc.
Essentially, the following list includes items I’ll be purchasing, as needed, during the challenge timeframe:
- Pretzels
- Apples
- Pasta
- Bananas
- Berries
- Yogurt
- Veggie burgers
- Avocado
- Bread
- Tofu
- Rice
- Cheerios
- Lentils
- Preserved fishes
- Non dairy milk
- Peppers
- Cucumbers
- Greens
- Black beans
- Chickpeas
- Mango
- Potatoes
- Broccoli
- Tomatoes
- Oranges
- Peanut butter
- Jelly
- Olives
- Tortilla chips
- Carrots
Some of the items on the list like jelly and Cheerios probably won’t need to be purchased since we have a decent supply of those items at the present. I’ll also try to minimize purchases of bread by making my own sourdough with what flour I have on hand. Similarly, I have a decent stock of black beans and chickpeas, so we may only really need to focus on purchasing the fresh produce items.
Given this list of ingredients, I’m also going to try to stick to the following outline for a meal plan to simplify cooking:
Sundays: leftovers
Mondays: lentils
Tuesdays: tofu bowls
Wednesdays: pasta
Thursdays: veggie burgers w.taters
Fridays: black bean bowls
Saturdays: soup
I’m looking forward to seeing how this month shakes out and will try to update, with pictures of what we’re eating, as I am able!