Free ALDI Meal Plan week of 3/19/23

Welcome to your free ALDI meal plan for the week of 3/19/23! This week we’re cooking up everything from comforting chicken stew to spinach ricotta quiche, and so much more.

Vegetarian quiche, comforting stew, and fish on Friday: Our ALDI menu plan has everything you need this week! Read on for all of the easy recipes, and pick up a printable shopping list (or easy add-to-Instacart list) that walks you through six complete dinners for four, $70 out the door. Bring your family together around home-cooked meals, and save time & money in the process.

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You can use any meal plan as an easy starting point, too. Modify your own family’s dinners around what’s in stock (or on sale) in your area, what’s on hand in your pantry, and/or special dietary needs and preferences.

Free ALDI meal plan week of 3/19/23 – 3/25/23

Cook along with us for the answer to the never-ending question: What’s for dinner?

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

Before jumping straight into this week’s menu, though, let’s talk briefly about new ALDI Finds & updates.

Easter Candy and Spring Gnomes

ALDI Finds for the week of 3/15/23 include just so much Easter candy — plus Hawaiian bagels, spring gnomes, chicken schnitzel, and more.

*** All of my favorite ALDI Finds of the week, here. ***

Check out this week’s picks (and pix), and let me know what you want to Find.

And here’s what’s new on the Amazon front over here:

Last week’s fun & weird Amazon finds include a depressed duck nightlight, a vintage orange juice flower vase, and more.
This huge list of HUNDREDS of subscribe & save filler items is updated every Thursday.

But with no further ado, here’s your ALDI meal plan for the week of 3/19/23. *** Be sure to sign up for our weekly emails, so that you never miss a new one.

ALDI Meal Planning week of 3/19/23 – 3/25/23

Pick up everything on the shopping list below, then start cooking on Sunday. As always, six complete dinners for four, $70 out the door.

*** Print your meal plan summary + grocery shopping list below this week’s detailed plan, in Word, .rtf, or PDF format. ***
I’m assuming that you have on hand some pantry basics like cooking oil, 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. *** The printable shopping list includes a separate section of needed basics for the week.

Six easy dinners from ALDI for $70

ALDI Meal Plan — start cooking 3/19/23

Sunday

Comforting chicken stew
Serve with the baguette

Monday

Spinach ricotta quiche
Half of the grapes
Cups of leftover stew from Sunday

Tuesday

Olive Garden dressing sheet pan chicken dinner. Use ALDI brand dressing, and substitute cut up chicken thighs for breast. Note that this might cook through a little more quickly, so keep an eye on it.
Serve with leftover quiche from Monday

Wednesday

Cheese tortellini with broccoli & tomatoes. Use the rest of the Parmesan; it’s OK if it’s just slightly short.
Side salad, made with the garden salad topped with chopped carrot & celery & thinly sliced onion

Thursday

Sausage, egg, and spinach hand pies. If desired, use up your leftover single pie crust from Monday as well to make another half batch of this recipe — and have the leftovers for breakfast. Use a total of 3 pie crusts, 6 oz hot breakfast sausage, 7 eggs, 6 oz cheese, 6 oz spinach, and additional onion and garlic to taste, ending up with 9 hand pies instead of six.
The rest of the grapes

Friday

BBQ potato chip baked swai
Garlic roasted carrots. Start these in the oven before the fish; they may need additional cooking time to be tender to your liking, too

Saturday

Leftovers, family pizza night (ALDI sells nice big take-and-bake deli pizzas), carryout, mix it up!

ALDI Shopping List — Shop through 3/18/23

*** Check below this grocery list for Easy One-Stop Instacart Shopping, as well as an editable easy-print version.

Dairy & refrigerated

Two 9 oz packs Priano three cheese tortellini, $5.98
15 oz Emporium Selection whole milk ricotta, $2.29
8 oz block Happy farms cheddar, $2.09
Emporium Selection shredded Parmesan, $2.49
2 Bake House Creations refrigerated pie crusts, $4.78
Dozen Golden large eggs, $2.39

Frozen

12 oz Season’s Choice steamable frozen broccoli florets, $.99

Grocery

Clancy’s mesquite barbecue kettle chips, $1.89
Specially Selected French baguette, $1.79
Tuscan Garden restaurant style Italian salad dressing, $1.99
32 oz box Chef’s Cupboard chicken broth, $1.29

Meat

3 lb family pack boneless skinless chicken thighs, $6.87
32 oz Fremont Fish Market swai fillets (frozen), $8.99
Appleton Farms hot pork sausage roll, $2.49

Produce

2 lbs green grapes, $2.98
2 lbs carrots, $1.79
16 oz green beans, $1.79
8 oz white mushrooms, $1.89
2 bags 8 fresh spinach, $2.98
Bag of garden salad, $1.79
3 lbs yellow onions, $2.09
3 heads garlic, $1.49
1.5 lb bag bite-sized yellow potatoes, $3.29
Celery, $1.69
5 Roma tomatoes, $.90
10 oz grape tomatoes, $1.99

That comes to: $70.99

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 have on hand, and/or sale produce from a local fruit market.

Shop this week’s meal plan with Instacart

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Easy-peasy: *** Add this week’s grocery list to your Instacart. ***

IMPORTANT! READ BEFORE CHECKING OUT:

You’ll need to check your pantry for staples not included in this Instacart list. *** See needed pantry staples, below.
The list feature doesn’t allow me to add multiples of a single item or to change the weight of items, and the meat special buys don’t usually show up. So: Before adding the list to your cart, change the following
1. Meat special buys are not showing up, so:
  - Make a note to your shopper to add the bag of swai.
  - Make a note to your shopper to substitute the hot sausage roll for the regular I used as a placeholder.
  - Make a note to your shopper that you need a 3 lb family pack of boneless chicken thighs, rather than the smaller pack I used as a placeholder.
2. Change the quantity on your refrigerated tortellini to two, the quantity on the pie crusts to two, the quantity on fresh spinach to two, and the quantity of Roma tomatoes to five.
3. Green grapes are out at my store, so I put red in the list (same price). Include whichever you prefer.

Please use the add your list to Instacart feature at your own risk, and always double check your cart against the grocery list above. Note that Instacart prices are higher than in store, so your total will be higher than shown in the above grocery list.

** Pantry staples to check for before shopping: Olive oil, butter, flour, sea salt, black pepper, thyme, smoked paprika, rosemary, bay leaves, crushed red pepper, oregano, basil

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, or:
- Download in .rtf format
- Download in PDF format
If you don’t have Word, open the shopping list in Google Docs or Wordpad.

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

Things to know about these meal plans

A couple of notes

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.
If one or more of these recipes isn’t to your taste, or if you have other ingredients to use up, 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 3/12-3/18 in Sunday ad markets, and 3/15-3/21 in Wednesday ad markets). Non-advertised prices are from my local store in the Chicago suburbs. Prices and produce deals *can vary* by location & region. In either ad market, shop any time through Saturday and start cooking on Sunday 3/19/23.

Stay in the meal planning loop

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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?