The Tic-Tac-Toe Meal & Shopping Planner

This one is less about a recipe and more about strategy. Watch this tutorial.

*you can expand to watch in full screen in the bottom right corner, it looks like [ ]

If you have been around Healthy Cooking 101 or the Eat. Dream. Do. Club for a while, you have probably heard me talk about the Tic-Tac-Toe board, the meal matrix, the meal planner, or the shopping planner.

They are all pointing to the same thing.

A very simple visual that helps me figure out what to buy, what I already have, what I can make, and what might be missing from a meal.

And yes, it started with an actual Tic-Tac-Toe board.

Because everybody knows how to draw one.

Why the Tic-Tac-Toe board works

The whole point was to make whole-food eating easier to see.

Draw a Tic-Tac-Toe board and you have nine squares.

Across the top are the foods that usually need to be eaten first:

Leafy Greens · Vegetables · Fruit

These are your perishables. They are the foods you are more likely to buy often, grow in your garden, pick up from a CSA, grab at a farmers market, or replace throughout the week.

They are also the foods I tend to look at first when I am deciding what needs to be used.

What is already in the fridge?

What is growing outside?

What is going to go bad first?

That is usually where dinner starts.

The middle row

The middle row is:

Nuts + Seeds · Grains · Beans

These are the foods I keep around more consistently.

Nuts and seeds can add crunch, healthy fats, protein, and texture.

Grains are the wild card. Rice, quinoa, oats, rye, spelt, wheat berries, corn, and others can all help build out a meal.

Beans bring fiber, texture, and staying power. They are one of those foods I can almost always find a place for.

This middle row is useful because it gives you the foods that can help turn a few fresh ingredients into an actual meal.

The bottom row

The bottom row is:

Eggs · Seafood · Meat

These are the animal foods on the board.

You may use all three. You may use none. You may eat eggs and fish but not meat. You may build most of your meals from the top six squares.

The board is not telling you what you have to eat.

It is helping you see your options.

How I use it at home

A lot of the time, I work backwards.

I will look around the kitchen and think:

I have celery.

I have carrots.

I have onions.

I have beets growing outside.

What else could I add to make a meal?

Then I mentally move through the board.

Do I have greens?

Do I have a grain?

Would beans work here?

Do I want eggs, fish, or meat?

Do I need something crunchy?

Do I already have enough?

That is it.

It becomes a mental checklist.

And once you use it often enough, you stop needing a recipe every single time you cook.

Use it for shopping too

The same board works at the grocery store.

I can look at the nine squares and fill in what I need.

Leafy greens.

Vegetables.

Fruit.

Nuts and seeds.

Grains.

Beans.

Eggs.

Seafood.

Meat.

I am not trying to buy every possible food in every category.

I am making sure I have enough options in the kitchen to build meals without starting from scratch every night.

That is the part that matters.

What else can I add?

This is one of the questions I ask the most.

You have salmon and a sweet potato.

What else can you add?

You have a salad.

Could it use beans?

Nuts?

Egg?

Grain?

You have leftover vegetables.

Could they go into a bowl with rice and beans?

You have greens that need to be eaten tonight.

What else is already in the kitchen that can go with them?

The board helps you move from, “What am I supposed to make?” to, “What can I add?”

That one shift makes dinner a lot easier.

The foods change. The board stays the same.

That is why this tool has stuck around.

The foods change with the season.

The board stays the same.

In October, that might look like kale, apples, squash, beans, rice, pumpkin seeds, eggs, salmon, and chicken.

In another season, those foods may look completely different.

You are still working from the same nine squares.

Keep it simple

This planner is fundamental to how I cook and how I teach.

You can use it as a shopping list.

A meal planner.

A meal matrix.

A mental checklist.

A way to use leftovers.

A way to see what is missing from a bowl.

A way to make dinner without overthinking it.

Draw the nine squares on a piece of paper if you need to.

Keep it on your fridge.

Use a dry erase marker.

Look at it before you shop.

Look at it when you open the refrigerator and have no idea what to make.

And start practicing.

The more familiar you get with your whole foods, the easier it becomes to mix, match, and build meals that work for you.

Shop the season. Fill the board. Build from there.