July Real Food Meal Plan – flexible, frugal monthly meal plan with printable PDF

July brings the dog days of the kitchen, when I want nothing to do with it. About half of my recipes for July are no-cook, and almost all of the rest are quick stovetop dinners, because it’s like a torture chamber in there. I will chose what I cook based on how much time I have and how hot the house is (too freakin hot). We’ll be getting home from splish-splashy summer fun late so it’s also important to get dinner on the table right quick. You’ll see that almost all of these meals are in the most perishable tier, since we have hit the time of beautiful bounty in the garden. I knew that this was coming, and will continue, so I budgeted a tad more in these months for food. I also know that I am going to have to be really careful (read miserly) with my budget to make it to that last shopping trip with any money left. If you want more tips on how to stretch your produce and food budget check out my More With Less 7 Day Meal Plans.

July Real Food Meal Plan from The More With Less Mom

Ideas and resources for menu planning in July, many seasonal summer and real food recipes. Very simple ingredients, from scratch. As always, these are all frugal recipes intended for a tight budget. Real food/from scratch/traditional diet/nutrient dense/whole food/blah blah blah. My monthly meal plans use an alternative meal planning method, recipes organized into tiers based on how perishable the ingredients are, not sorted into particular days.

*Don’t forget to read about how I meal plan at
Frugal, Flexible Monthly Menu Planning!*
Frugal, Flexible Monthly Meal Planning from The More With Less Mom

2,000 Pins and counting!

In this post: Seasonal Produce ~ Recipes ~ Download PDF ~ Other Plans ~ Pinterest Boards


Seasonal fruits and vegetables for July and how long they last:

Apricots 6-7 days
Blueberries 6-7 days
Cantaloupes 3-5 days
Cherries 1-2 days
Corn 1-2 days
Cucumbers 3-5 days
Green beans 1-2 days
Figs 3-5 days
Lettuce 7-10 days
Nectarines 3-5 days
Peaches 3-5 days
Plums 6-7 days
Strawberries 1-2 days
Tomatoes 6-7 days
Watermelons 6-7 days
Yellow squash 3-5 days
Zucchini 3-5 days

Download the seasonal fruits and vegetables guide image from The Vintage Mixer to your phone and have a handy reference with you

Epicurious Seasonal produce maps by state
CUESA Seasonal vegetables by month

*New feature! Use my custom Google search to scan over 150 sites
for real food recipes for your meal plan.


Recipes from the July Meal Plan

Download this cute printable from Oh She Glows to keep track of what is the perishable-est

*Attention real food purists/whole foodies – the recipes I link/pin are all from scratch, but some of them you may have to make substitutions or modifications. For example, I link recipes that have sugar, but you can substitute whatever your favorite sweetener is.

Tier 1/Most Perishable (ie corn, cukes, green beans, lettuce, mushrooms, spinach, yellow/summer squash, zucchini)

Arugula, Italian Tuna, and White Bean Salad from Cooking Light 30 min grape tomatoes, red onion, arugula no cook serve room temp
Arugula, Watermelon and Feta Salad from Barefoot Contessa arugula, mint, shallots, watermelon no cook
Bacon Tomato Cucumber Salad from Simply Healthy Home cucumber, tomato no cook serve room temp
Bacon, Peach and Arugula Sandwiches from Food Network arugula, basil, peaches stovetop 20 min serve room temp
Chickpea Burgers with Cucumber Sauce from Coffee Clutter and Chaos cucumber stovetop
Chickpea Salad Sammiches from Post Punk Kitchen carrot, celery, tomato, lettuce 10 min no cook
Cold Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Lime Sauce from Running on Real Food cucumber stovetop serve cold
Colorful Lentil Salad from $5 Dinners carrot, garlic, onion, tomato stovetop
Confetti Chickpea Salad from Budget Bytes carrot, scallion, yellow squash, zucchini 10 min serve room temp
Early Summer Pasta Salad from Real Food Co basil, tomato, cucumber no cook serve room temp
Gazpacho Sandwich from Giada tomato, basil, shallot, cucumber, bell pepper, arugula 25 min no cook
Greek Pasta Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette from Just a Taste red onion, cherry tomato, cucumber, bell pepper make ahead 3 hr serve cold or room temp
Greek Quinoa Salad from Joy In My Kitchen tomato, cucumber 30 min stovetop serve room temp or chilled
Grilled Tomato-Basil Fish from Cultured Palate tomato, basil grill
Italian Panzanella from Martha Stewart basil, cucumber, tomato 2 hr 15 min no cook serve room temp
Lemony Orzo-Veggie Salad with Chicken from Cooking Light pre-cooked chicken, cucumber, bell pepper, scallion 20 min precooked chicken stovetop
Pan-grilled Veggie Sandwiches with Ricotta, Arugula and Balsamic from Dave Lieberman zucchini, arugula 40 min
Quinoa Garden Salad from Gnowflins pre-cooked chicken, cucumber, bell peppers, tomatoes no cook soak the day before
Rolled Chicken Sandwich with Arugula and Parsley Aioli from Giada arugula, chives, parsley no cook 10 min
Sesame Chicken and Cucumber Noodle Salad from Mother Earth News & Simply Ming cookbook lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper, pre-cooked chicken stovetop
Southeast Asian Tomato and Cucumber Salad from Healthy Green Kitchen no cook tomatoes, cucumber serve room temp
Tuna Butter Bean Salad from Stone Soup red onion, greens wicked quick < 15 min no cook
Tuna Nicoise Sandwiches from Martha Stewart lettuce, onion, pre-boiled eggs 20 min no cook serve room temp
White Bean and Roasted Chicken Salad from Cooking Light tomato, basil, red onion no cook serve room temp
White-Bean Salad with Zucchini and Parmesan from Martha Stewart zucchini, green beans, basil < 15 min no cook serve room temp
Zucchini and Bean Salad With Bulgur from Real Simple zucchini, shallot 20 min no cook serve room temp
Zucchini Lasagna with Farmer Cheese from Martha Stewart zuchini, tomatoes, basil no cook serve room temp

Tier 2/Less Perishable (ie beets, bell peppers, cabbage, peppers, scallion, tomatoes)

Tuna Melts from The Pioneer Woman red onion, bell pepper, jalapeno 20 min oven serve hot

Tier 3/Pantry or Make It Whenever (ie carrot, celery, onion)

None this month, off to the farmer’s market we go!

What is this REAL FOOD I keep babbling about? Real food is how your great-grandma cooked. It’s just home-cooked meals, from scratch. Nothing weird or super hard, just making food yourself from “real” schtuff, not paying someone else to prepare something for you and add weird stuff and franken-food ingredients. You have control over exactly what goes into your family’s dinner, and your body. Good stuff, like tomatoes. And mozzarella. And dark chocolate. Lots of chocolate. But no glitter. That would be bad.

Download the Printable PDF

Download Free Printable PDF July Real Food Monthly Meal Plan from The More With Less Mom
Download PDF. This has the links in the order listed above. Keep in mind I don’t limit myself to particular days, so this is not in order by date. Save it to your desktop and you will always have a quick reference when you’re hunting dinner.


Other July Real Food Meal Plans

Bi-Weekly Whole Food Meal Plan from The Nourishing Home on The Better Mom
Real Food Meal Plan from Don’t Waste the Crumbs
Real Food Meal Plan from Real Food Real Deals


July Meal Plan Pinterest Boards:

Meal Plan July (just look at all that tastiness!)

Recipes to Try Summer


In this post: Seasonal Produce ~ Recipes ~ Download PDF ~ Other Plans ~ Pinterest Boards

Share with me: How have you changed the way you run your kitchen to save money?

Get the monthly meal plan with printable calendar, as well as a 7 day meal plan with shopping list, automatically in your email when you subscribe.

More With Less Mom

*Also see our
Free Weekly Meal Plan Printable Template from The More With Less Mom Free Weekly Meal Plan Printable Template from The More With Less Mom

Shared with Busy Monday, Fat Tuesday Forager Festival, Frugal Family Linky, Hearth and Soul Hop, Homemade Mondays, Melt in Your Mouth Monday, Thanks Goodness It’s Monday

We hope you enjoyed our July Real Food Monthly Menu Plan post for seasonal eating

More With Less Meal Plan
Real Food Monthly Meal Plan

Photo credits: 60s wallpaper from Wikipedia

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Comments

July Real Food Meal Plan – flexible, frugal monthly meal plan with printable PDF — 6 Comments

  1. Melissa, Thank you so much for sharing my chickpea burgers recipe! I am adding you to my monthly reading. AND going to try some of these recipes! Yum!!!

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