The Weekly Food Shop List: A UK Checklist and How to Build Your Own

Most weekly shopping lists fail the same way: they're a list of foods, not a list of meals. "Chicken, veg, pasta, snacks" gets you home with a full trolley and still no idea what's for dinner on Wednesday.

A good weekly food shop list covers six sections: protein, dairy, fresh veg and fruit, the freezer, the cupboard and breakfast basics. Pick two or three items from each, add whatever your five dinners specifically need, and check the fridge and cupboard before you write anything down. The list below is a base to start from, with Aldi shelf prices from our own price tracker for the staples.

The list, by section

• Protein: chicken thighs or breast fillets, mince (beef, turkey or pork), eggs, tinned tuna, tinned beans and chickpeas, dried red lentils
• Dairy: milk, Greek-style yogurt, cottage cheese, a block of cheddar
• Fresh veg and fruit: onions, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, a green veg such as broccoli or spinach, bananas, and one or two fruits that are cheap that week
• Freezer: frozen peas, mixed veg, berries, plus any batch-cooked portions from last week
• Cupboard: rice, pasta, chopped tomatoes, stock cubes, oil, and the spices your recipes use
• Breakfast and bread: porridge oats, a loaf or wraps, and whatever you'll eat on repeat

What the staples cost

These are Aldi prices from our tracker, with the month each row was last checked. The oats and tomatoes rows are older than the rest, so check the shelf.

Our Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda posts itemise those shelves if that's where you shop.

Turn the list into your list

A useful list comes from meals, in four steps:

• 1Choose five dinners first. Five, not seven: it leaves a night for leftovers or a takeaway, so one off-plan evening doesn't wreck the week.
• 2Add up the shared ingredients. If three dinners use onions, count the total rather than writing "onions" three times. The same goes for tins, mince and rice.
• 3Check before you write. Look through the fridge, freezer and cupboard, and cross off what you already have. This is the step that stops a third jar of curry paste.
• 4Round up to whole packs, then give the leftover a job. You can't buy 300g of spinach from a 450g bag. Decide now whether the rest goes into a Thursday omelette or the freezer.

Then group the list by section (veg, meat, dairy, cupboard) so you're not doubling back past the eggs.

What a week costs

A balanced solo week at around 2,000 kcal typically comes to £50–55 at Aldi prices. That's fresh food, not cupboard staples, with enough variety to stick with. The cupboard and freezer items above are closer to a stock-up that keeps for weeks than a weekly spend, so don't count them every time.

If you'd rather start with the base layer, our protein staples list prices a dozen of the fridge, freezer and cupboard items in one go.

Three ways to make the shop smaller

• Cook one dinner twice. A chilli or curry that makes four portions covers two lunches as well. Our batch cooking guide has the maths and the storage rules.
• Lean on the freezer. Frozen veg keeps for months, so you use what a recipe needs and the rest waits.
• Repeat breakfasts and lunches. Two of each on rotation takes fourteen decisions off the week. Our guide to cutting food waste covers planning around what you've got.

Where Plan X Prep fits

Writing this list by hand every week is the part most people drop. Plan X Prep builds the list from your week's meals: it's grouped by supermarket section, amounts are rounded up to whole packs ("2 × 3-pack of courgettes"), every item has a price, and each one shows which meals it's for. The shop is split into fresh and weekly items and a pantry stock-up, with an estimated total you can compare against the weekly budget you set.

It checks your kitchen first. Anything in your Pantry tab comes off the list, and you can tap "Already have" on the rest. Prices are Aldi's, with Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda filling the gaps, from 2,000+ real product prices checked monthly. Plans also reuse ingredients across the week, so fewer half-used packs end up in the bin.

See how Plan X Prep works.