Organizing for one shopping list per batched recipe making.

Now my grocery list is very extensive. I live in a 6 bed room house and on a nightly basis cook for 6 to 12 people. I strive for meals that feed 8. But as you can tell I like to do it in a organized way and a budget.

So i love my Pinterest . I scavenge the pages and pages of information for everything from my wire wrapping inspirations to recipes. So for today i have complied a list of Diabetic friendly meals. My father is Diabetic and others in the house want low carb. Luckily these are very similar.


Step 1. Gather your recipes.

• Crockpot-stuffed-green-peppers
• Diabetic Chicken Enchilada Casserole
• Diabetic Smoke Sausage-Lentil Stew
• Paleo-crockpot-chili
• Crustless Chicken Pot Pie

Step 2. Open up your spreadsheet. I use google docs on the internet so i can access it everywhere i go. I even have it on my phone so i don't have to print out the list when i'm done.

Sub step a: I choose a different color to label the ingredients from each recipe.

red =  green peppers

orange =  casserole

yellow = stew

green = chili

blue = pot pie

Substep b: for each recipe calculate how many serving you will need (i usually have to atleast double recipes, but you can half also...you just have to do math) Or if you are spreadsheet save then you can have it calculate that for you.

Subset c: set up your spreadsheet. in the first column I put how many I need of column b which is the ingredient itself. i then have the background colored changed to correspond to the recipe. 

So it looks like this:

Subset D:

Next Select every ingredient in column B. and sort your data alphabetically. my list for 5 recipes looks like this: 

 It is very colorful but Now i can condense the list and see what i need in cross recipes. Like many of my recipes called for Bell peppers, Chicken breast, carrots, and garlic. I know a lot of people choose recipes centered around seasonal food and this is a great method to make sure you buy enough of an ingredients to cover all your recipes.

Step 3. Shop your cupboards first. I keep my cupboards stocked with staples. Canned tomatoes, tomatoes sauce, canned vegetables, spices. Once that is off your list I bet your list is getting smaller.

Step 4: Go food shopping. If you are a coupon-er, this is where you can shine by now organizing your recipe list and coordinating with coupons. 

here is a copy of my final grocery list. I keep mine in ABC order but you can go further and separate it by department. The ones crossed off is my pantry shopping. Not to bad and now not overwhelming.