How many dinners should I actually plan for a week?

Most people do best planning four to six dinners rather than a rigid seven, leaving room for leftovers and the night everything falls apart. Cooking a double batch turns one dinner into two meals, so you rarely need seven separate recipes anyway. Planning slightly under your week is realistic and cuts waste, since the extra ingredients are the ones that tend to rot. GroceryChef builds a full week but makes swapping and leftovers easy, so the plan bends around a normal, messy week.