Free ALDI Meal Plan week of 12/19/21

Welcome to your free ALDI meal plan for the week of 12/19/21: This week, we’re cooking up everything from a cream cheese pasta bake to black bean & potato tacos — plus so much more!

HEADS UP: There will be no new ALDI Meal Plan for the next two weeks: I will be on vacation! See you again on January 5, to start out our meal planning right in 2022.

It’s your very last ALDI Meal Plan for 2021! Save time & money with meal planning, and relax in the knowledge that dinnertime decisions are covered.

• Be sure to sign up to receive a weekly email alert about each new plan, too.

Use this menu plan as a starting point, modifying it as necessary according to what is in stock in your area, what you have on hand in your pantry, and your own family’s dietary needs and preferences.

Free ALDI meal plan week of 12/19/21 – 12/25/21

Use these meal plans to help reclaim some of your precious time, and you may no longer dread the perennial question: What’s for dinner?

*** Subscribe to the weekly ALDI meal plans here ***

But first, what’s new this week?

Porch signs, Christmas cheese, love cats, and more

Holiday porch signs, value pack crab cakes, Christmas cheese, and sooo much more: Check out all of my favorite ALDI Finds of the week, and let me know what you’re planning to buy.

What else is new around here? Well, this week you may have missed:

• Love Cats (a-love cats, baby)
• Project Hail Mary, a short book review
• 100+ cheap Amazon subscribe & save items (updated every Thursday)

Now that we’re caught up with all of that, here’s your easy weekly ALDI meal plan for the week of 12/19/21!

ALDI Meal Planning week of 12/19/21 – 12/25/21

Pick up everything on the shopping list below, and start cooking on Sunday: As always, six complete dinners for four, $65 out the door.

• Print your meal plan summary + grocery shopping list below this week’s detailed plan.
• I’m assuming that you have on hand some pantry basics like cooking oil, common condiments, and spices. *** Read through the recipes before you shop to make sure that you have the necessary pantry staples on hand for this week’s ALDI menu plan; see a list in the printable grocery list below.

Six easy dinners from ALDI for $65

ALDI Meal Plan — start cooking 12/19/21

Sunday

• Comforting kielbasa potato soup
• Side salad, made with 5-6 oz of spinach, chopped carrots, chopped green onion

Monday

• Black bean & potato tacos, topped with shredded cheddar & chopped green onion
• Easy black bean soup (use chicken broth), topped with sour cream and chopped green onion

Tuesday

• Fajita-inspired sheet pan chicken thighs (use two bell peppers and two onions, instead of three peppers and one onion)
• This is not a green bean casserole (reduce cooking time a bit, and cook at 425 at the same time as the chicken)

Wednesday

• Low carb taco casserole
• Roasted potatoes & carrots (chop a couple potatoes and a couple of carrots, toss with olive oil, seasoned salt, Italian seasoning, thyme, and black pepper to taste; start that sheet pan roasting in the oven while roasting the cauliflower; roast about 40 minutes, stirring & adding shredded Parmesan to taste halfway through)

Thursday

• Slow cooker BBQ chicken drumsticks, served with additional BBQ sauce if desired
• Cut up the pineapple

Friday

• Cream cheese pasta bake with French fried onions
• Side garden salad

Saturday

• Happy holidays! Have leftover pasta bake, or splurge on your own family’s traditional Christmas dinner. 🙂

ALDI Shopping List — Shop through 12/18/21

Note: You’ll end up with a bunch of potatoes left over, but the 10 lb bag is on sale this week — so, enjoy more potatoes next week, too!

Dairy & refrigerated

Friendly Farms 16 oz sour cream, $1.69
Priano shredded Parmesan, $1.99
8 oz Brick Happy Farms cream cheese, $1.29
12 oz bag Happy Farms shredded cheddar, $3.49

Grocery

18 oz Burman’s BBQ sauce, $.95
2 boxes 32 oz Chef’s Cupboard chicken broth, $1.98
24 oz Reggano marinara sauce, $1.29
12 oz box Reggano farfalle (bowtie pasta), $.99
6 oz can Chef’s Cupboard French’s fried onions, $2.25
El Milagro flour tortillas, $.98
7 oz can Pueblo Lindo chipotles in adobo, $1.29
4 cans Dakota’s Pride black beans, $2.76

Meat

Parkview Polska kielbasa, $2.59
3 lbs chicken drumsticks, $4.77
3 lbs chicken thighs, $4.77
2 lbs 80/20 ground beef, $7.58

Produce

Pineapple, $.99
1 lb green beans, $1.89
3 lbs yellow onions, $1.89
3 heads garlic, $1.49
10 lbs russet potatoes, $2.99
Bunch green onions, $.79
2 bags 8 oz spinach, $3.18
Bag of garden salad, $1.15
2 containers 8 oz mushrooms, $3.78
2 lbs carrots, $1.29
Head of cauliflower, $1.99
3 pack multi-colored bell peppers, $2.99
1 avocado, $.59
1 medium sweet potato, $.27

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That comes to: $65.94

Or, maybe less…! These meals can run even less if you supplement this week’s ALDI purchases with: Clearance meat you already have in your freezer, pantry staples you picked up on sale, produce you already have on hand, and/or sale produce from your local produce market.

Printable ALDI meal plan & grocery list

Print this week’s meal plan:

• *** Download this week’s printable ALDI shopping list and meal plan in Word format.
• If you don’t have Word, you can open this in Google Docs or in Wordpad.

Edit and add in your own meal ideas, remove items you already have on hand, change regional pricing to match your own store, etc. *** The day(s) next to each item show which meals use each ingredient, so that you can easily see what to delete from the shopping list if you’re skipping a night.

Things to know about these meal plans

A couple of notes

1. I try not to repeat main dish recipes more often than once a month, but you will see favorite easy recipes again in these weekly ALDI meal plans as the same meats and produce items come up again on sale. Part of the fun of meal planning lies in mixing old stand-bys with something new each week.
2. If one or more of these recipes isn’t to your taste, or if you have other ingredients to use, adapt the recipes in this ALDI meal plan to your family’s preferences. Or, just use the ideas here to supplement your own meal planning! See: Pantry staples to stock up on and how to modify a meal plan for your family.

** ad markets & dates

This week’s ALDI meal plan reflects prices from the current week’s ad (running 12/12-12/18 in Sunday ad markets, and 12/15-12/21 in Wednesday ad markets). Non-advertised prices are from my local store in the Chicago suburbs, but non-advertised prices and produce deals *may vary* by location & region. In either ad market, shop any time through Saturday and start cooking on Sunday 12/19/21.

Stay in the meal planning loop

More ways to stay connected:

• Subscribe here to receive weekly email messages about new ALDI meal plans.
• Browse all of the weekly ALDI meal plans here *** Note: prices may have changed since originally posted.
• Come over and join us on Facebook in the Almost All ALDI group.

Happy ALDI shopping & cooking this week! If you find this meal plan useful, why not share it with your friends on Facebook so they can save money with ALDI meal planning as well?

Resources for meal planning & ALDI shopping

Let’s close things out with just a few resources to help you with your meal planning & ALDI shopping:

• Master list of meal planning resources
• Come join us in the Almost All ALDI Facebook group for recipes, meal planning ideas, ALDI food finds, and more.
• Get cash back for ALDI shopping with cash back offers on the Ibotta app and through the Fetch Rewards app.
• Pick up a pack of meal prep containers, & pack up any dinner leftovers for easy weekday lunches!
• Cute & handy ALDI quarter keepers.
• Check out my Amazon shop for some of my favorite useful items for your own meal planning. Also useful: Two pack insulated grab bag totes, or two pack clip to cart bags.
• Almost All ALDI, the eBook.
• How fun are these ALDI themed t-shirts I have for you guys?!

Lastly: You can always access your current regional ALDI ad here.