Details

1. What this is, and is not

A three-week plan of 21 dinners and 7 breakfasts for healthy adults cooking for one or two. Each dinner also makes the next day's lunch.

It is not a medical diet and not a weight-loss plan. It was not designed for pregnancy or breastfeeding, for children or anyone under 18, for older people with small appetites, or for anyone following a diet set by a doctor or dietitian.

2. How the menu was chosen

• One oily fish dinner every week (salmon, mackerel or trout). With its leftover lunch, that is two portions of oily fish a week.
• One red meat dinner a week, at 125 g of raw mince or 200 g of stewing beef per portion. No processed meat such as bacon, ham or sausages.
• At least three plant-based dinners a week, and beans, lentils or chickpeas on most days.
• At least two portions of vegetables in every dinner.
• Pasta, bread, wraps, pittas, noodles and couscous are wholegrain.
• Salt is measured: a quarter teaspoon or less per recipe, and half a reduced-salt stock cube where stock is used. Coconut milk is the light kind, and cheese is weighed.
• No added sugar in any recipe.
• Packs are planned across the cycle. Where a recipe uses half a pack of meat or fish, the other half is frozen raw on the day of shopping and used in a later week. Ingredients are frozen, not cooked meals.

3. The targets

These are the UK government's dietary recommendations for adults. The figures on this site are daily averages across a week.

4. How the nutrition was calculated

Every ingredient was matched to a food in the UK government's Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID, 2021), the standard UK source for what is in food. The figures were then added up from raw weights.

• A day is one adult eating a breakfast, the previous night's leftovers for lunch, a dinner, and a snack of an apple, a 125 g pot of plain yoghurt and 25 g of nuts. On the vegan menu the yoghurt is soya, and the day also includes a 200 ml glass of fortified soya drink.
• Kitchen measures were given fixed weights: half a mug of dry rice is 100 g, a handful of frozen peas is 40 g, a tablespoon of oil is 11 g, and tins are weighed drained.
• Salt is the salt already in the food (sodium multiplied by 2.5) plus the salt the recipe tells you to add.
• Stand-ins were used where the dataset has no exact match. Black beans use kidney bean values, plain soya yoghurt is adjusted from the fruit version, and gluten-free bread, pasta and wraps use typical supermarket labels.
• Cooking losses are ignored. Real values will be a little different.

5. The results

Daily averages for each week at medium portions.

Standard menu

Vegetarian menu

Vegan menu

Gluten-free menu

The gluten-free table follows the diet chosen in Dietary requirements. All six combinations have been calculated.

Every recipe: standard version

A dinner portion is one person's share of the dinner. The leftover lunch is about the same. Change your dietary requirements to see another version.

Download the full figures, including every day of the cycle: standard, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free (CSV).

6. Portion sizes

The recipes are sized for a day of about 2,000 kcal: the reference intake for an average woman, and less than many men need.

If you are still hungry, add more of the starchy part of the meal: an extra slice of wholemeal bread, more potatoes, rice or pasta, or a second piece of fruit. We checked a day a quarter bigger, about 2,500 kcal, and the weekly averages stay within the targets.

If you want to lose or gain weight, or have a medical reason to eat a set amount, speak to your GP or a dietitian. Small, medium and large settings are planned for a later version.

7. Salt

The 6 g figure is a target for average intake over time, not a hard limit for each day, so the plan reports weekly averages. Every week of every version averages under 6 g at medium portions, mostly between 2.5 g and 4 g a day.

At the bigger day described in part 6, the weekly average still stays under 6 g, but up to 5 of the 21 days go over, the highest at about 7 g. Most of the salt comes from food that already contains it: bread, wraps, pittas, stock cubes, soy sauce and cheese.

If you have high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease, ask your GP or a dietitian for advice that fits you.

8. Vitamin D and other gaps

Vitamin D. The food on this plan supplies about 4 µg a day against a target of 10. That is normal: very few foods contain much vitamin D, and most comes from sunlight on the skin in summer. The NHS advises that everyone should consider a daily 10 µg supplement in autumn and winter, and some people should take one all year. Ask a pharmacist if you are not sure.

Omega-3. The standard menu meets the advice on oily fish. The vegetarian and vegan menus do not include fish, so they lack the long-chain omega-3 it provides.

Vegan menu: what else you need

• Iodine: the menu supplies about 40 µg a day against a target of 140. Choose a plant drink with iodine added, or ask a pharmacist about a supplement. Do not use kelp or seaweed supplements for this: the amount of iodine in them varies too much.
• Vitamin B12: the menu reaches the target only through fortified soya drink and yoghurt. Check both say B12 on the label, or take a supplement.
• Calcium: met through fortified soya drink and yoghurt. Organic plant drinks are usually not fortified.
• Omega-3: walnuts and rapeseed oil supply the plant form. A supplement made from algae supplies the form found in oily fish.
• Vitamin D: as for everyone, above.

9. Swaps and diets

Set your dietary requirements and every recipe, shopping list and figure changes to match. Choose everything, vegetarian or vegan, and tick gluten-free with any of the three.

• Vegetarian: meat and fish are replaced with beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, eggs or cheese. It meets the same targets on food alone. It is very high in fibre, so build up over the first cycle if you are not used to it.
• Vegan: dairy is replaced with unsweetened fortified soya drink and soya yoghurt, cheese with seeds or avocado, and four recipes are rewritten: the omelette becomes a potato, chickpea and tofu hash, and scrambled eggs, shakshuka and pancakes have egg-free versions.
• Gluten-free: gluten-free bread, pasta, wraps, pittas, lasagne sheets, flour and oats; rice noodles for wheat noodles; tamari for soy sauce; quinoa for couscous. Gluten hides in stock cubes, mustard, spice mixes, curry pastes and soy sauce, so each recipe lists the labels to check. Oats must be labelled gluten-free, and a small number of people with coeliac disease react even to those: ask your healthcare team before including them. If you have coeliac disease, crumbs matter too: use a clean board, pan, toaster bag and butter knife.
• Other swaps listed on a recipe, such as a different fish, stay within the same food group, so the balance holds. They have not been calculated separately.

10. Allergens

UK law names 14 major allergens: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya and sulphites. Each recipe lists the ones in its ingredients for the version you have chosen, plus the foods that often contain hidden allergens, such as stock cubes, spice mixes and curry pastes.

Brands differ and recipes change, so always check the labels on what you buy. If you have a severe allergy, do not rely on this site alone.

11. Leftovers and food safety

• Cool leftovers quickly and put them in the fridge within 2 hours. Eat them within 2 days.
• Reheat once only, until steaming hot all the way through. Stir halfway.
• Rice is stricter: cool it and put it in the fridge within an hour, eat it within 24 hours, and reheat it once.
• Freeze raw meat and fish on the day you buy it, flat in a labelled bag. Defrost it in the fridge overnight and cook it within 24 hours. Do not refreeze it raw.
• Cook chicken, turkey and mince until there is no pink inside.

12. Who checked this

Nobody independent, yet. The figures on this page are our own calculations and may contain errors. The recipes have not all been test-cooked. We will name the reviewer and the date here when a review has been done. If you spot a mistake, please tell us (part 16).

13. Limits

• The recipes are first drafts. Quantities, timings and pack sizes may need adjusting once cooked in real kitchens.
• The figures are estimates. They depend on stand-in foods, assumed weights and the brands you buy, and they ignore cooking losses.
• Gluten-free figures use typical label values, so treat them as rougher than the rest.
• Omega-3, selenium, zinc and folate have not been calculated.
• The plan is for healthy adults. It cannot take account of your health, medicines or needs.
• The AI that helped write this can make mistakes, which is why the working is shown here.

14. Sources

• The Eatwell Guide and Government dietary recommendations (GOV.UK)
• Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (GOV.UK)
• SACN: Salt and Health (GOV.UK)
• SACN: Carbohydrates and Health (GOV.UK)
• 5 A Day: what counts (NHS)
• Fish and shellfish (NHS)
• Vitamin D (NHS)
• The vegan diet (NHS)
• Food allergy and intolerance (Food Standards Agency)
• Food storage, leftovers and rice (Food Standards Scotland)
• Oats (Coeliac UK)

All checked November 2026.

15. Changes

• November 2026: first version published, with standard, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free menus.
• 10 November 2026: full vegetarian and vegan methods written for every swapped recipe; source links updated.

16. Report a problem

Found a mistake, a step that did not work, or a figure that looks wrong? Email feedback at 21recipes dot uk. Say which recipe or figure, and what happened. Changes will be logged in part 15.