Menu Planning Suggestion: Predictable Meal Plan

As you know, I am a strong believer in menu planning! It saves money, time, and energy. However, I was getting frustrated with menu planning recently because I had to sift through all my recipes to come up with a plan. And then I tried to balance out the flavors/nutrition/protein during the week. And then I tried to pay attention to only cooking one or two more expensive meals a week. And then.....

As you can see, it got to be too much!

I read in a magazine an idea that seemed to make menu planning easier: Have a predictable meal plan.

Basically, come up with a food schedule: Monday is taco night! Tuesday is leftover night! Friday is pizza night! The schedule lets the whole family know what's for dinner...even the menu planner.

I felt this idea was a little too boring for my taste so I altered it a little bit. I decided to have each day of the week be an assigned category of food, and then I posted this master menu plan right next to the family calendar. On the calendar, I write down the menu I'm going to cook:


Sunday: Homemade pizza and a show night
Monday: Breakfast for dinner
Tuesday: Soup night (this will change to sandwich night when the season changes)
Wednesday: American or Italian night
Thursday: leftovers (we get home late this night)
Friday: Mexican night
Saturday: my husband and daughter cook

It has made menu planning SOOOOOO much easier and faster! I'm in love with this approach!

1 comment:

Just a Mom said...

Nice! I'm trying to get into planning. When I read the caption, I thought you were going to say that you planned out weeks, then rotated the weeks. Another approach!