I received a question a while ago from a reader who was having a tough time thinking of meal ideas for her menu plans. I can totally sympathize with her! I’ve always thought that cooking would be so much easier if someone else would just come up with a plan for me (and not just any plan…one that fits my budget and my family’s tastes!).
I plan my menu religiously (here’s why) and some weeks, I have no trouble churning out 7 meal ideas. Then there are those other weeks where I sit at the table with a bad case of menu-planner’s block, fresh out of inspiration.
Here are a few things that help me get past that block.
1) I use my master menu plan.
If you’re like me, you have a lot of recipes in your repertoire, but you have trouble remembering them all. I’ve found it to be very helpful to have a list of all the main dishes that I make so that I don’t have to flip through all my cookbooks and my recipe binder to get an overview of my options.
My current meal idea sheet is in desperate need of updating (you can see all my new recipe additions scribbled on in pen!), but it still serves me well.
There are more meals listed on the back of this, but as you can see, I have my meal ideas divided up into groups based on the type of meat the recipe requires or the type of food (like soup or pizza). This makes it easy to find recipes that use what I have on hand in the fridge or freezer.
2) I browse through the sale ads.
Sometimes seeing something on sale will help me think of a meal or two that I want to make. For instance, if a roast is on sale, I’ll consider making Beef Au Jus sandwiches or BBQ beef. The master meal plan can come in handy here too…if a particular cut of meat is on sale, I can easily scan through my list of recipes that use that cut and decide what I want to make that week.
3) I look through cookbooks and cooking magazines.
This is definitely a time-consuming option so I usually only do this when I am really hard up for some meal ideas or when I’m feeling like we need something new.
I often check Cook’s Illustrated’s magazines or books out from the library, so I browse through those to find recipes, and I also use Taste of Home’s magazines. I’m a member of CI’s website too, so I will sometimes browse through their online list of recipes to find something new.
4) I ask my family for suggestions.
My kids are slowly getting to be more helpful with this (although Joshua’s response is usually “Rolls and fruit salad.”, because he’s more into side dishes than main dishes!) and my husband sometimes comes up with some good suggestions as well.
_____________________________________________________
How do you keep your menus fresh and interesting? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.
Sarah says
First I should explain that I do not create specific weekly meal plans in advance. I buy what’s on sale and we decide what to make the night before. If I find I don’t have all the ingredients for a meal, I’ll either substitute, or put the ingredient on the shopping list for next time.
In addition to books and magazines, I get a lot of inspiration from the internet. Blogs such as yours and The Pioneer Woman are full of great ideas. Also each time a friend or co-worker talks about a really great meal they made, I beg for the recipe. Finally, when I’m fresh out of ideas, my husband does the cooking. He’s great at just making stuff up as he cooks.
Jessie says
We usually don’t plan a menu either, but I’m really trying to start that, because I think it would help tremendously with our food waste. However, last night I knew that we had some leftover pesto that we had already eaten a few times with chicken, so I said to myself “hmm, i wonder if I can put it with fish?”. So I searched for “pesto fish” on the internet and found a great recipe with sole. Bonus: I used up the heavy cream in my fridge that was past the expiration date but not too old to cook with! The internet is my savior when it comes to recipe ideas. We are also loyal Cooks Illustrated fans though (gotta love the bowtie! ^_^).
Bellen says
I’ve been using this meal plan for the past 35 years – took me about 7 years to figure it out.
Starting with Sunday I rotate – Beef, Chicken, Pork, Pasta,Chicken, Fish & Other.
I use 3-4 oz servings of the protein. Each meal has a starch -potato, rice, noodles, biscuits – and a veggie – alternating canned or fresh depending on what is available from the garden. We do not have dessert.
Taking advantage of sales, WinnDixie has great BOGO deals on meat, I stock up. Knowing in advance what I will be serving has brought my dinner costs down to about $3 total for 2 people.
Chicken meals are easy. Pork, including boneless ribs, chops, stirfrys, sausage, kielbasa, is a little harder but with 6-8 meal ideas it’s easy not to repeat. Fish includes fillets on sale only, tuna, canned salmon. I make tuna casserole, tuna patties, salmon patties, an Impossible pie, clam chowder, fish chowder. Beef includes pot roast, meatloaf, beef tips, hamburgers, salisbury steak, stroganoff , soup with barley- beef is the hardest due to price but accompanied by potatoes, noodles, gravy and other extenders it is doable. Other is pizza, tacos, soup, leftovers, breakfast foods including eggs or waffles or pancakes, quiche, grilled cheese, chili which is made in bulk.
Veggies are also rotated – salad, green beans, corn, spinach, beets, zucchini, raw veggies altho except for salad none are eaten twice in a week.
All leftovers, altho I try not to have any, are used up for lunch or in soup.
I try to have ‘extras’ at dinnner at least everyother day – sauteed mushrooms, some type of relish or salsa, flavored butter, sauce or gravy.
I do bake cookies and brownies no more than twice a week and they are eaten for snacks in the evening. I make a pie once a month – no cakes.
Fruit is used at lunch and afternoon snacks. usually fresh but also canned that I might doctor – spiced canned peaches, cinnamon applesauce.
I cook from scratch 95% of the time and we eat out, lunch only, once a month.
Hope this helps someone.
Taleitha says
As a newly married wife (almost one year!) and a baby on the way.. I have tried and tried to get some sort of system with grocery/menu planning. My husband loves to cook and try new things as do I, and this has created a problem with me trying to develop a plan. But with your tips, I see I can stick to a basic plan and still have room for creativity. Thank you and God bless!
Jess says
This is very helpful! My meal planning needs a bit more structure. Thank you!
Michelle says
I find that I MUST plan ahead if I want to give my family a home-cooked meal rather than hitting the drive-through before or after our numerous sports events. Also, I find that each time I hit the grocery store, even if I’m just going there for one ingredient, it ends up costing at least $20 (“oh yeah, we need bananas…and look, cereal is on sale…”), so planning ahead saves a lot of money.
Instead of a list like you have, I made a 3×5 card file. On each card I have the recipe name, the cookbook in which it is located (along with page number), and then the list of ingredients I’ll need to buy for it. The cards are color-coded–pink for beef, white for meatless, blue for seafood, green for chicken, and I’ve also marked which ones can be made in the crock-pot or are really super fast to put together.
Now let me add that I don’t keep this totally up to date; I also have a file folder of loose recipes that we’ve tried and I plan to make again. (And someday I’ll get around to putting them into the card file.) But when I have menu-writer’s block (I love that phrase!), I can grab my little card file box and get some inspiration.
Cate says
I get a lot of my meal ideas from bloggers–that’s part of the reason I love Menu Plan Monday! I can browse through the links at my leisure and just see if anything appeals to me. I also often ask my husband if there’s anything that particularly appeals to him for that week. I do sometimes have those weeks where nothing sounds good, though…when that happens I usually try to find a new recipe that I’ll be excited about.
Rachel says
I live alone and people are constantly telling me that they are amazed that I even cook for myself. I guess they expect me to live off of takeout and frozen dinners. I’m sure that would be “easy” but it’s so expensive and not very healthy.
Meal planning totally helps me to cook on a regular basis. My techniques have evolved over the years but I have a few things that help me make up my menu. I usually take a look at the flyers from my local grocery stores (I get the majority of produce from one and mostly canned/packaged from another one) and see what’s on sale. I take a look through my cupboards/fridge to see what I need to use up (bag of potatoes, cream, etc…). That usually helps me come up with one or two meals right there. I usually have at least one meal with chicken, one vegetarian and then the rest varies based on flyers/sales/cravings.
I’ve made a big recipe binder divided into categories (Asian, Indian, meat, salads, breakfast, casseroles etc..) that can inspire me for meals. I also check out a few websites…I actually made some kind of greek chicken pitas once based your meal plan here!
The best way I’ve found to keep my meals fresh and interesting is to look on different food blogs. I’ve made it a goal to try out at least one new recipe every two weeks so this helps out a ton. Some good websites that I use are:
http://www.tastespotting.com
http://www.kayotic.nl/blog (her peachy chicken is incredible)
http://www.seriouseats.com
Movingonup! says
I love your meal ideas list. I have a folder that I keep recipes that I cut out of cooking light and I go through them once or twice a week to find new recipes. I’ll take two or three to the store and pick the ones based on ingredient availabilty and price.
Sabrina says
First of all, I LOVE your ideas and honestly you’ve been pretty inspiring to my meal planning lately. I would love to be able to plan the whole week out but we’re just not there yet. My two year old is still kind of finicky and he frustrates the heck out of me during meal time. I do plan two or three days of meals in advance for the other three of us in our home. I find that planning it out is a huge weight off my shoulders and I’m sure planning an entire week would be super satisfying.
I’m kind of a magazine freak and get loads of ideas from them. I cut out the ones I like and I have a binder where all of the loose recipes go. I also see what meats we have available in the freezer and then do internet searches based on the protein and other veggies we might have in the fridge that day.
Thanks for all the great ideas in the comments too. I love the notecard idea and maybe that will lead to weekly mealy plans at our house too!
valletta says
I guess I have a more European approach to cooking….I use what I have in the pantry (keep stocked) and what’s local and seasonal. I don’t usually plan ahead more than 1-2 days or for dinner parties.
Simple, good quality ingredients, simply prepared.
My family is from Spain and my husband’s family is from Italy. And watching them cook anything and everything, using basic skills (roasting a chicken, homemade pastas, sauces from scratch) was the best kitchen education I could have. And frugal too!
I try to get two meals, sometimes three, out of each cooking session (last night’s roasted chicken carcasse went into stock pot for chicken broth today). Also, prep is key! “Mise en place” is all the choppin’ and preppin’ like you see on cooking shows. I sometimes will do this on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon (chop carrots, onions, herbs, celery, garlic, etc) and this makes quick pasta dishes, salads and soups sooo simple all week.
I think basic cooking skills are the best investment one could make for frugal cooking. My grandmother and husband can make a meal out of absolutely nothing!
Katja says
Hi!
I also do menu planning (most of the weeks….) and I keep it in a small notebook rather than on a paper. This way I can look back at previous weeks and get inspired.
Linda says
I don’t really plan out my menu for the week. I just don’t know what I will feel like having on Wednesday! I decide what I will cook in the morning. If meat is need to be taken out of the freezer, it is taken out in the morning. If I have leftovers from Tuesday’s chicken, I will make a chicken meal (pot pie, stew, paninis, tacos, etc) on Wednesday with the leftovers. With additional leftovers, I will pack these into my husband’s and kid’s lunches or we will have a leftover night to get rid of all the leftovers. This reduces my food waste.
I only buy meat on sale or at rock bottom prices. I go to Aldi’s (thanks for the tip! We just got one here), PriceRite and Super Walmart. The Super Walmart will match the flyer prices and helps me not have to run around to a lot of stores. On the way to Aldi’s, there is a super Farmers Outlet where I can purchase alot of produce that Aldi’s does not carry. This works for us! When my kids want a special meal, they request it and I make it, if I have all the ingredients on hand.
One more point, I have a well stocked pantry. I think this is an important part of having a low food bill. By having my pantry stocked, I have enough flour, sugar, etc on hand until the next sale. I bake a lot and I don’t buy a lot of junk foods. I buy one bag of chip type snack each week…when it’s gone, it’s gone. My neighbor has chickens and ducks, so they keep us well stocked with those. They only cost $2.00 per dozen…a little more than Aldi’s but well worth the quality and taste. Especially the duck eggs. My kids love the duck eggs fried and ususally have one in the morning with toast before school. My food bill is about $60-$70 per week for 4 people.
WilliamB says
I am not a menu planner.
My goal, when I taught myself to cook, was to be able to walk into a strange kitchen and make a meal from whatever I found there. IOW, to have the basic skills, techniques in my head, and the ability to improvise.
When I was first learning how to cook I did some menu planning: I’d select a couple recipes to cook that week and then shop for it, or I’d see what was on sale and find a recipe from one of my three cookbooks (“365 Ways to Cook Chicken,” “Joy of Cooking,” and one Chinese cookbook) and make that. Being dead broke at the time, this was important. Gradually I moved to buying what looked good[1] and then figuring out how to use it. As I got better I could improvise with a wider variety of ingredients and more new ones per dish
Then I got stuck at the improvisational stage! I expect I could train myself to menu planning if I had a reason to, but I don’t so I haven’t.
When I buy what looks good I usually have a general idea of things I could do with it and will browse my cookbooks and magazines for specific recipes along those lines. If I’m really stuck I’ll do a Scroggle search on the ingredients I want to use. The web has such a random collection of unverified information, though, that I consider this either time consuming as I compare a half dozen similar recipes to find a reliable one, or just a crap shoot.[2]
I have about 100 cookbooks. My method is to read through the recipes, marking the ones I want to try by writing a short title (braised chix & chestnuts) on a 3M tag, stuck along the top of the book. So when I need to peruse the book I just need to pull it off the shelf and read the tags rather than leaf through the book. If the recipe is good I move the tag to the side of the page; if the recipe is not good I through out the tag. The initial phase is time-intensive but the long-term payoff is large.
I also have a recipe binder for recipes from online or of my own invention. It’s a 3 ring binder organized by dividers – chicken, Asian, etc. I put the printed-out recipes in a sheet protector. Every few years I go through and ditch the recipes I don’t expect to use again. (Specifically: I retype the recipe, with my variations, in my own shorthand version, then print those out in 3 columns to a page. This means I can put a lot more recipes per page, making it much faster to skim for a recipe. For my own recipes I include header notes, to support my idle fantasy about writing a cooking column in my retirement.)
I get one cooking magazine, Cook’s Illustrated. I mark the magazines as I do the cookbooks. I also put the short title in an excel spreadsheet, along with magazine date: one column for recipes to try, one for ones I like. If I didn’t do this I would never find – or find again – CI recipes and the subscription would be a waste of money.
In general I have a problem finding a recipe I used before. I spend a disproportionate amount of time skimming recipe labels for a half-remembered success. I’m considering making a list of cookbook recipes, as I did for CI recipes, but the upfront time cost is daunting. But you know? reading what others do has encouraged me to find the time. I’ve embargoed buying new cookbooks – I must have several thousand recipes ID’d for trial – so it’d only be a one-time event.
@Linda: I really envy you those eggs! Happy eggs are $4.25-$5.00/dozen around here, and my source is not conveniently next door. Do you find that duck eggs taste or cook differently?
[1] For produce, what looks good is what’s in season, which means its plentiful and cheap as well. Threefer!
[2] Can I talk about this dice game on a family site?
Jess says
Thank you. I am a compulsive cookbook buyer/cooking magazine subscriber/recipe clipper and I need a way to tame the chaos. Thanks for your suggestions.
Anyazs says
We’re serious menu planners. Every weekend the plan goes on a chalkboard on the fridge, and I post it on my blog. It’s great because while we’re at work, we can look at the menu and know who needs to be home on time to start cooking and what needs to be done. This has eliminated so many 5 o’clock emails trying to remember who’s on point and what we’re having!
Oh, and this is not for everybody, but we drink wine with dinner every night, and plan that out, too. This way whoever’s home first knows if something needs to be opened to breath or put in the fridge. (We’ve had many white wine slushies from bottles that were chilled last minute in the freezer and then forgotten about!)
WilliamB says
Dear ghu, now that I see it in print, I should be embargoed from posting for a month for abusing the priviledge.
Sorry for monopolizing the conversation. I should have reviewed better before posting.
Kristen says
William, it’s quite all right. You see, you used paragraphs, so it’s all still readable.
I don’t think any of my commenters have ever done this, but I’ve seen blog posts and comments that were one ENORMOUS paragraph, and my soul, that’s hard to read.
You are a very different cook than I am…I only turn out tasty stuff because I have good recipes, not because I’m really creative! I can cook because I can read. lol
Jennifer says
I personally LOOOOOVE the weekly meal planner tool on Springpadit.com – they collect a ton of recipes you can just browse and automatically add to your personal list, and every week at the beginning of the week they post a pre-made meal plan with recipes on their blog.
Allie says
I completely relate to Joshua. I love sides more than main meals too. I don’t really do meal planning either, mostly just shopping on impulse and then integrating what looked good to me into meals. Admittedly, I am a champ at turning sides-type things into a regular meal (usually by adding rice, beans and/or pasta to round it out) and luckily my boyfriend doesn’t really mind the shocking absence of traditional entrees from our usual fare.
minnow says
WWMM
…okay, late post but when I’m really in a rut I look to my mother in law’s recipes. I know my family’s like the back of my hand and they are my go-to’s…but I love to give my that sense of comfort and home that come from a childhood favorite…especially if I’ve recently shoved a series of “interesting” experiments at him. =) haha
Readygurl says
I usually make a meal plan every week…but need to tweak my recipes. I find myself having to hit up the store more then once…either I run out of the staples like breads, milks and fruits…or I end up running out of recipes or leftovers. I recently became vegetarian and found that helps with the cost weekly for my family. But those of you who aren’t veggie but don’t mind meat free options. Paul McCartney has a meat out monday campaign and you can get veggie recipes there…and they are yummylicious.
just google meat out mondays…..
annafaith says
My menu planning is a year-long endeavor. I begin in April, picking and freezing local strawberries, plant a garden, purchase local produce through October, can and freeze, and store any items I can from these sources. This is the basis of my yearly menu planning.
Each week I purchase only meat and other grocery items on sale. Sam’s Club is a favorite for such items as dairy, produce, sugar, toilet paper, etc. Some items are just cheaper in bulk. From my “grocery store at home” I plan my weekly menu.
My cooking is mostly from scratch, including baking bread regularly. For years my grocery bill was $50.00 a week for the two of us. (As the children (three of them) left home, $50.00 was always enough). Recently, we added a yellow lab. to our family. We have added $10.00 per week to accommodate him.
Megan says
My main strategy is to have things on hand. We get a quarter cow about once a year. We also utilize venison from my husband’s deer hunting adventures. I can beef, tomato juice, whole tomatoes, jellies, salsa, jalepenos, etc. We freeze sweet corn, squash, apples, and other produce when they are in season. I also keep a stocked pantry with 2-3 cans of frequently used ingredients that I don’t make (cream of mushroom, saurkraut, canned fruit, etc), baking goods, and extras such as rice and pasta. I stock up when certain things are on sale too- but I have found going overboard gets me in trouble.
I’ve been shopping every 3-4 weeks- with short store runs for milk or special occasions. I accomplish this by making a “menu” of sorts by planning enough meals to get me through to the next shopping trip and making sure that I have all the ingredients.
I loosely plan menus. I try to choose from my monthly list, and then plan by week. If something goes awry, I just switch things around knowing that I have all the ingredients that I need to be flexible.
Oh- I do cook mostly from scratch- even if I’ve made food ahead and frozen it. It’s sooo much cheaper!