I used to find (and sometimes still do) find menu planning really overwhelming. SO many recipes with different ingredients, to find what we have and what we don’t have. {I-yi-yi!}.
Then I watched a Food Nanny episode. She is a big believer on giving each night a theme. Something clicked. I don’t really like her themes, but I had themes of my own that I could pitch in. And somehow having a meal plan template for the week made it a little bit easier! Be sure to keep reading for
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Ok, back to menu planning:
My themes tend to be these:
1. Chicken
2. Casserole
3. Main dish (I have a random main dish area of my casserole book, those fit in there)
4. Pasta
5. New (I have a ton of recipes torn from magazines, and I also use my pinterest Main Dishes board pretty often to find a new recipe I’m wanting to try)
6. Soup/Salad (depending on the time of year)
7. Crock Pot
My recipe binder has these specific tabs within the main dish area.
Meal Planning can be more fun if you have something cute to do it on, like this or this. #sillybuttrue
I don’t assign meals to a certain day of the week because I can’t tolerate that kind of restriction. I do usually think through what I’ll have the next few nights, considering people’s schedules.
My recipe book also fits into these themes. All of those categories have a different tab (underneath a main dish tab — you know me, I love me a sub category). Maybe one of these days I’ll do a post on the recipe book, but I do think it’s easier if your recipe book helps support your meal planning.
Here’s how the budget fits in:
Anyway, 7 meals usually takes us through 2 weeks. It doesn’t make sense. I would guess there is at least one night a week Drew and I go out (although, not lately), and I usually have an emergency dinner a couple of times a week (pancakes, tacos, etc.). Somehow it all works out.
I only make things that I have in the pantry. Sure, I might add some fresh produce. A lot of times I’m picking meals that I already have the produce for either in the fridge or in the garden.
If I’m low on spaghetti sauce, we don’t have spaghetti. If I have no spaghetti sauce (frankly, unheard of, but this is just an example) we REALLY don’t have spaghetti. I was thinking I wanted to have more shrimp, so during a week where I don’t have a lot of groceries I stocked up on shrimp.
I try to keep a mental note of what meats we have in the freezer. I most often buy them in bulk and freeze. I also try to do a meatless dish at some point during the week since that keeps the budget small also. Once Spaghetti sauce is on sale, we’re back in business!
The other thing is that most of my meals are made 100% from scratch. Even my spaghetti sauce often starts with just tomatoes. Buy doing more of the work myself I am saving money, I know where the ingredients came from, and I know how they’re cooked.
I try to only go to the grocery store once a week, and Costco monthly (you can see my family finance posts). If there is a meal or two that I need another ingredient for, I will jot that on my list and pick it up. We obviously, just don’t have that meal until I get the ingredient.
NOTE: My pantry is REALLY large. I keep a LOT of items on hand all the time, and that is important to me, and it also makes meal planning a lot more simple because I have a lot to choose from. If you have a smaller pantry you’ll just have to make this work for you.
Do you meal plan. Any tips you can give me? If you don’t, try it for a week and see if it diminishes your stress. 🙂
Other Posts you might find helpful:
Lynness says
I used to plan my meals for a whole month at a time, but then I found I was changing them at least half the time, based on how we felt, the weather (seriously- no one wants salad when it’s snowing), and the fact that we ran out of something.
So now I kind of do the reverse of meal planning: meal recording. I made a list of all our go-to meals and categorized them by “chicken”, “beef”, and “other” (which includes fish, pork and meatless), and I just rotate between the 3 and record what we had that night. Then, when I’m trying to decide what to cook the next day, I can see at a glance that it should probably be chicken and what chicken dishes we’ve had lately and then pick something from the chicken list we haven’t had in a while that I have ingredients for. I’ve been doing this for about 3 years now, and it really works for me.
(As far as chaos, it does help that I buy chicken and ground beef on sale and cook it all up, then freeze it in meal-sized portions. I do leave some chicken and ground beef uncooked for recipes that require it, but for most, the precooked is fine and makes most of my meals ready in under 30 minutes.)
Cyndi Hampton says
Lynness, That’s a great idea!
Hilary Erickson says
that is a great idea — coming up with the idea is half the battle!
Hilary Erickson says
You can do it! I think narrowing it down to categories helped me focus. 🙂
Holly says
Hi Hilary! I have been meal planning for a few weeks now and have found that it has definitely saved us lots of money. Even if it’s just me using less gas because I’m only going to the grocery store once a week. Because we plan around church sometimes…I try to do a meal on Saturday and Tuesday that can stretch to have left overs the next day. I do not like spending lots of time cooking after church on Sunday nor do I like to be in the kitchen while trying to get ready for church Wednesday night. Inbetween, I always do a kid friendly night (homemade pizza pockets,etc.), a more elaborate meal with side dishes and maybe a salad, and sometimes casseroles (my husband isn’t fond of a meal in a dish type meals 🙁 haha) I have gotten some ideas from you though and am so glad I came across this post!
Hilary says
Oh good, I’m glad. Meal planning has helped us out so much!
Jennifer Porter says
Ugh menu planning. I hate it. I hate it when I don’t do it. I was actually browsing pinteret for new recipes for next month’s menu when I came across this post! 🙂 I CAN DO THIS!
enestvmel says
I have done it many ways through the years, your way too. Lately with our super busy schedules, I’ve been doing it a lot like you do, but instead of going to my pantry, I be sure all my meals are based on sale items at the grocery store. It helps a ton to plan ahead, and definitely helps the budget!
Hilary Erickson says
enestvmel, I do think that’s a great way to meal plan. Sometimes I get great ideas off stuff that’sin the flyer!
Jennifer Roe says
The holidays are going to be super busy. I think this may be a better way for me to meal plan for the next couple of months!
Hilary says
I hope it is helpful!
Gill says
I shop once a week if I can get away with it. Before I go I meal plan say 4 meals for the week. A meat, a fish, a veggie and something new. Like you, there are always emergency days so only having 4 allows me to move one until later in the week if necessary. I try and do at least one in the crockpot and make double so j can freeze half, that helps with emergencies in later weeks. And we nearly always have enough leftovers for lunch for my husband, so when I meal plan and grocery shop on a Sunday he spends much less that week on lunch, and I spend less on that one planned shop for dinners. Double win!
Hilary says
I think the less you shop is better for your budget. Your plan sounds good!
Christina says
I meal plan and I admit sometimes it’s so overwhelming trying to decide what we all might want to eat each day up to a week or two in advanced. This idea of using daily themes is really great. I will start utlizing this system from now on.
Hilary says
I hope it’s helpful Christina!
Danielle says
I think I’ve gotten caught up a lot on meal planning the *right* way, which I think meant knowing what I was going to cook for dinner every night. This is not how my life goes, and lately I’ve been transitioning more to the way you’re describing- have stuff on hand for a few specific meals that will make leftovers for lunch, and that way I have options each day so I don’t feel like I’m constantly reasessing and changing my fixed plan. Much less frustrating! Thank you!
Pulling Curls says
I’m so glad you’ve found this helpful! Anything that makes daily tasks less frustrating is a win in my book 🙂