And that's why you're here, isn't it?
I'll reveal all of the meals we chose during our entire Whole30 diet and the reintroduction period.
Plus, I added my rating (out of 5 stars) to each meal and any alterations I made for each recipe — if it's a rating less than 4, don't bother!
Bonus: At the end, I added a list of Whole30 grocery items you should always keep in stock (in your pantry or fridge) because you'll use them for everything. You can thank me later.
Enjoy!
Whole30 Meal Plan Recipes:
Week One:
Daily Breakfast
Roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- My rating: 4.5
- Breakfast was honestly the easiest transition into Whole30 because you don't have to give up a whole lot to get a solid, hearty breakfast in to start your day. Plus, the bigger the breakfast, the less hungry you'll be the rest of the day. And that's great news for the Whole30 diet, because there are some compliant recipes that are so "light" that your stomach will be growling before you even go to bed.
- One thing I learned a couple weeks into the program is something as simple as Everything Bagel Seasoning (make sure it's Whole30 compliant) is an easy way to add interest to your eggs, avocado, and even salads!
- My rating: 3
- I love zoodles and shrimp, but this particular recipe was bland. It didn't have a lot of bold flavor and just did not satisfy whatsoever. I was hungry again an hour afterwards.
- Photo cred: the recipe site
Red Drum and Side Salad
- My rating: 2.5
- This rating is simply user error related.
- We had caught Red Drum fish along the Gulf Coast and it's not my favorite fish to eat. It doesn't have much flavor and there's not many Whole30 compliant seasonings I could use to make it better.
- The side salad I threw together just wasn't a good option, either. I think some of the ingredients weren't super fresh and to be honest, it would've been so much better with some of the ingredients we couldn't have (like goat cheese and honey in our balsamic vinaigrette). I basically just picked through the salad like a child and barely ate it.
Steak and Mashed Potatoes
- My rating: 5
- The garlic mashed potatoes are very good and you don't even realize there's no dairy (butter or milk) to make it creamy. And of course, if you know how to cook a great steak, you can't go wrong there for a fantastic Whole30 compliant meal.
- Our favorite way of cooking steak is on a cast iron. Pre-Whole30 we used butter to get a nice sear on the steak edges, but using ghee didn't seem to be a great alternative flavor-wise, and it definitely wasn't high-heat tolerant. So we switched to using Avocado Oil. We also only buy tenderloin steak as our preferred cut, including filet mignon.
Lobster Tail and Mango Salsa/Guac/Cucumber Bites
- My rating: 4
- Since we weren't going out to eat on the weekends, we decided to buy something we normally never eat or cook at home. So lobster was the choice and we got a great deal on it at WinCo. However, in general, lobster is just "okay" to me, even if it's at a five star restaurant. Still a fancy dish, just not my thing.
- The cucumber bites I had on the side were a great pair with the lobster. Basically I just made mango salsa, guacamole, and stacked both on top of sliced cucumbers.
- My rating: 4
- Baking apples soaked in cinnamon, nutmeg and coconut oil pulls out the natural sweetness for a genius after-dinner dessert. We spiralized our apples, too, so they would be thinner and cook all the way through faster. Topped it off with roasted pecans and a drizzle of full fat coconut milk to give it that creamy flavor, as if you had ice cream with it.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Smoothies
- My rating: 4
- This was our go-to meal anytime we ran out of things to eat or just wanted a quick bite that didn't require much prepping. We purchased triple the amount of bananas, double the strawberries, and double the blueberries every time we went to the grocery store. Because making a full smoothie for two people (multiple times per week) uses up fruit super quickly, and we always wanted our freezer stocked with plenty of frozen fruits to use on the fly.
- For our typical smoothies, we used a combination of frozen and fresh fruits, plus almond milk - that's it. Occasionally I would add in Whole30 compliant beet powder, cocoa powder, fresh squeezed OJ, or coconut milk to mix it up whenever appropriate.
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Week Two:
Daily Breakfast: roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- Same review as before.
- My rating: 3
- I love chicken tortilla soup (even without "tortillas") but this recipe in general wasn't the best option. It was too tomato-y and didn't have that chicken tortilla flavor I was expecting. There are probably better versions of this soup that you can make Whole30 compliant instead.
- Photo cred: recipe site
- My rating: 5
- You'll want to save the All-Purpose Stir-Fry Sauce recipe for this salad - it's awesome on salmon, salads, skewers, and other recipes! Only thing I omit is the fish sauce because we're just not a fan of it.
- This salad was so delicious, we saved it to our Favorite Recipe Pinterest board for future use after Whole30. However I did omit the Sugar Snap Peas from the recipe because I wasn't sure that was compliant. We used organic Spring Mix salad instead of a mix of greens like the recipe entailed.
Salmon and Roasted Veggies
- My rating: 4.5
- Used the All-Purpose Stir-Fry Sauce to marinate and glaze the salmon for a sweet crispy edge. By far my favorite way to make salmon now and the flavor goes great with anything.
- Veggies: brussel sprouts, carrots, beets
- I cooked the salmon in my Air Fryer at 400 degrees and roasted the veggies in the oven at 400 degrees. I recommend heating up the beets and carrots for a couple minutes before you put in oven to ensure they cook faster and all the way through in time for the salmon to be done cooking.
Greek Chicken Skewers and Greek Salad
- My rating: 5
- This was a delicious skewer marinade and the greek salad was the perfect side. We will be eating again post-Whole30!
- For the greek salad, I sliced red onion, English cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and kalamata olives mixed in homemade greek dressing.
- Photo cred: recipe site. Keep in mind that the skewer recipe is Whole30 but the photo they used looks like a non-compliant greek salad with mozzarella and pita bread.
Steak and Mashed Potatoes
- Same review as before.
Kitchen Sink Salad
- My rating: 3
- We had leftover salad mix and needed to make a meal out of it, so I added random things to it from our fridge (like fruits, nuts, avocado, veggies) and it turned out okay. I think it would've been a lot better if I took the time to find a homemade Whole30 salad dressing that would be appropriate for the salad, but I just poured a little red wine vinegar and olive oil on top which wasn't the best combination for a fruity salad.
Smoothies
- Same review as before.
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Week Three:
Daily Breakfast: roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- Same review as before.
- My rating: 3.5
- I gave this a 3.5 instead of a 3 (which is really how I felt about it) because I think it might have been better if I properly chopped the cabbage to be much thinner, like coleslaw. I have a food processor but it's missing one of the tools I need to use the shredder blade, so I sliced the cabbage by hand. The flavor wasn't bad, but the texture of the salad wasn't my favorite. I felt like I was just eating cabbage and wished I had three times as much chicken and mandarin oranges to mask this cabbage-centric meal.
- Photo cred: recipe site
- My rating: 4.5
- I love me some pot roast. This time around, I decided to buy a higher quality chuck roast than I normally do, and the difference was evident.
- I omitted the marinara sauce they recommended for this recipe because the kind I had wasn't Whole30 compliant, and we omitted the gravy ingredients. We also added celery to this dish.
- Photo cred: recipe site.
Roasted Red Drum with Carrot Ginger Soup
- My rating: 4
- The soup was delicious. It's definitely a different type of soup than I'm used to making or eating, but it was tasty and I would make it again. It's a great side dish or can be it's own meal. .
- Photo cred: recipe site
- My rating: 3.5
- The salad wasn't as good as it looked. It just seemed blah, not a lot of flavor (and even though we omitted the mint and parsley from this salad, I don't think that's the kind of "flavor" I needed to make this dish better). I tried adding avocado and cracked salt/pepper to it the next time around and it helped a little, but overall a plain salad with not much excitement.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Steak and Mashed Potatoes
- Same review as before.
- Same review as before.
- My rating: 4.5
- I omitted the pumpkin spice because mine had sugar included. Instead I added a little bit of ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to give it that pumpkin pie flavor. I kept this in the freezer and chopped off a small piece every afternoon when I was craving something sweet.
- Another time I used this recipe, I used pecans instead of cashews, and it definitely tasted more like a pumpkin pie.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Smoothies
- Same review as before.
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Week Four:
Daily Breakfast: roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- Same review as before.
Lettuce Burgers with Garlic Aioli
- My rating: 4
- Just like any juicy burger, the quality of a lettuce burger depends on how you make it. We made the spicy garlic aioli sauce using a Whole30 approved mayo brand (Primal Kitchen) and had a traditional style lettuce burger: tomato, onion, pickle. Our burger patty was pretty thin, so I think it would have been much better if it was a bigger, juicy patty to proportionally complement the other ingredients — instead it felt like I was eating mostly a lettuce wrap with cold veggies and bold sauce.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Salmon and Harvest Roasted Veggies
- My rating: 4.5
- Same review as before. But this time we used a different recipe for the roasted veggies including brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, and cinnamon thyme apples. This recipe calls for chicken so I just omitted it and used the roasted veggies as a side dish. It was delicious.
- My ratings: 5 (wings); 2 (chow mein)
- There's really nothing like wings cooked in an Air Fryer. It's a total game changer, and this recipe for Crispy Chinese Wings was no exception. I'd even have to argue that Air Fryer wings are way better than any you can get at a wing restaurant.
- The alterations I made to this recipe were: omitted the baking powder, used black pepper instead of white, used dried red pepper flakes instead of dried chili peppers, and used Whole30 compliant curry powder instead of "five spice powder" which was a perfect alternative. Spray with olive oil and put in your Air Fryer at 380 degrees for 20 minutes and you're golden.
- The spaghetti squash chow mein on the other hand was a total bust. I like spaghetti squash as a noodle substitute, but don't recommend using this recipe.
- My rating: 4.5
- This was a great soup. A bit spicy with the serrano pepper, but the flavor was great. I added in a scoop of full-fat unsweetened coconut milk and topped it off with some cilantro before eating. Would totally eat this again and an overall great fall soup.
Balsamic Chicken and Mushrooms
- My rating: 4.5
- This was a great, simple meal that is delicious by itself but also paired nicely with our extra Harvest Roasted Veggies we had leftover to pair with it.
- Since this isn't a Whole30 recipe, here's how I easily substituted the ingredients to be compliant: used coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, omitted the brown sugar, and used ghee instead of butter.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Steak and Asparagus
- My rating: 5
- Same review as before. But this time instead of mashed potatoes, we did baked asparagus because we realized how many potatoes we were eating every day during the week and needed to tone it down a bit.
"Brownie" Bites in Coconut Flakes
- My rating: 5
- No it doesn't taste like a brownie. But if you take away your expectations of what a chocolate dessert tastes like before you started this program, this Whole30 compliant dessert is the bomb. It's the perfect amount of chocolatey sweetness that is just what I needed to curve my cravings. I could eat these post-Whole30, especially knowing that it's "healthy" for you. I found unsweetened coconut flakes and crushed them up to use in this recipe (be careful about the bagged shredded coconut which usually has sugar).
- Photo cred: recipe site
Smoothies
- Same review as before.
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Whole30 Reintroduction Meal Plan
The easiest way to do the reintroduction is to keep sticking with your Whole30 weekly meal plan, but just add on things to meet the requirements of each reintroduction day. The majority of the reintroduction phase, you will still have to continue eating Whole30 meals - you're just adding on to your menu for specific days.
We decided to skip the two "optional" food groups because we knew for a fact that those items didn't cause us any negative symptoms that we needed to "test out" during reintroduction. Plus, they're things we typically limit anyway. So we started with legumes, then non-gluten grains, then dairy, and finally gluten.
Here's how we did our Whole30 reintroduction period:
Week Five:
Daily Breakfast: roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- Same review as before.
- Same review as before.
- We did this recipe again because I already had the ingredients to make it, and we liked it enough to repeat.
- Same review as before.
- We did this recipe again because I already had the ingredients to make it, and we liked it enough to repeat.
Smoothies
- Same review as before.
- My rating: 4.5
- I didn't follow the lettuce wrap recipe linked, but used it as my inspiration. I basically just browned ground beef with a homemade Whole30 taco seasoning. Then I put the taco meat on a bed of chopped romaine lettuce and topped it off with diced tomatoes, red onion, avocado and the Cilantro Avocado Dressing to make a taco salad.
- My rating: 4
- It tasted like a 3.5 but think it's due to user error. Overall, the ingredients were fine, but I highly recommend getting sirloin steak or skirt steak for this recipe — not flank steak. I'm honestly not sure why we chose to get flank steak (maybe we've used flank for a beef broccoli recipe in the past?) because the recipe clearly calls for sirloin or skirt. But our flank steak was very chewy and too thick for this, so I think it would have been a lot better if we had chosen a different steak option. Also, most meats are always better when you marinate them overnight, but this one didn't say to do that. So I recommend you also marinate it longer before using this recipe.
- Photo cred: recipe site
Salmon and Side Salad
- Same review as before (for the salmon).
- Salad rating: 4
- Note for the Salad recipe link: Before the reintroduction of non-gluten grains, I used this recipe as a guide, but omitted the quinoa and put it on a bed of fresh spinach - so basically just a salad with cherry tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, and the dressing. It paired well with the salmon. For the reintroduction of non-gluten grains, I added the pre-cut veggies to quinoa to make this full recipe and put it on top of a bed of spinach for a true salad. I ate the salmon on the side instead of mixing it in.
REINTRODUCTION: LEGUMES
- Breakfast: Peanut butter, banana & cocoa powder smoothie (using sugar free and gluten free peanut butter powder, almond milk, chia seeds and collagen powder)
- Snack: Veggies and organic hummus
- Lunch: Black Bean Soup
- Dinner: Black Bean Soup
REINTRODUCTION: NON-GLUTEN GRAINS
- Breakfast: Added quinoa to daily breakfast bowl
- Snack: Popcorn
- Lunch: Beef Broccoli (added rice)
- Dinner: Salmon and Salad (added quinoa and corn to the salad)
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Week Six:
Daily Breakfast: roasted potatoes, eggs, uncured bacon, and half avocado sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning
- Same review as before.
Chicken Fajita Lettuce Tacos
- My rating: 4.5
- I used this recipe as inspiration but didn't follow completely. I bet the recipe is delicious but I had my own idea for making chicken fajitas. I cooked the chicken on a cast iron with avocado oil, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder. Once the chicken was done, I cooked the veggies on the same cast iron and just added more avocado oil and seasoning. I used yellow bell peppers, green bell peppers, red bell peppers and onions. Once it was time to eat, I added all of the ingredients to a lettuce wrap "taco" and topped it off with avocado and a squeeze of lime juice.
Salmon and Side Salad
- Same review as before.
Smoothies
- Same review as before (non-legume and non-dairy).
REINTRODUCTION: DAIRY
- Breakfast: Greek yogurt and milk added to smoothies
- Snack: Cheese board
- Lunch: Alfredo zoodle pasta with Shrimp
- Dinner: Alfredo zoodle pasta with Shrimp
REINTRODUCTION: GLUTEN
- Breakfast: Breakfast taco with flour tortilla
- Snack: Avocado toast
- Lunch: Burger with a bun (no cheese)
- Dinner: Burger with a bun (no cheese) and Beer
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Whole30 Pantry Items:
Here are the grocery items you should always keep in stock in your pantry or fridge during Whole30, because you'll use them all the time.
- Medjool dates
- Oils: olive, avocado, coconut, sesame
- Ghee
- Coconut milk (unsweetened) - cans preferred
- Almond milk (unsweetened)
- Nuts: pecans, almonds, walnuts, cashews
- 100% cocoa powder
- Everything Bagel Seasoning (Whole30 compliant)
- Sea salt and cracked pepper
- Seasonings: cumin, red pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, thyme, turmeric, curry, paprika, chili powder, ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc.
- Dried herbs
- Coconut aminos
- Vinegars: rice, balsamic, white wine, red wine, apple cider (yes, they are compliant)
- Broths/stock (no sugar): chicken, beef, vegetable
- Produce we ate often every week:
- Avocados
- Minced garlic
- Onions: red and yellow/white
- Potatoes
- Carrots (large)
- Bananas
- Strawberries
- Eggs
Don't miss my Top 10 Hacks and Important Tips to Make Your Whole30 Experience Successful and Easier.