Our Menu Planning System
September 21, 2009
About twice a month, I do our family’s menu planning. Breakfasts and lunches are pretty standard, so all that’s needed for those is to simply jot down any necessary items that we’re running low on (Oatmeal, Cereal, Bread, Bagels, Eggs, English Muffins, etc.) Dinner is a bit more involved, but not too time-consuming or difficult, and that is what I will explain here.
The Steps
- I visit our blog page of meal ideas for inspiration. I choose one or two menu items from each category (Soup, Salad, Chicken, Chinese, Fish, Beef, Mexican, Casseroles, and Italian) and jot down my selections. I do not designate a particular day or week for each item, but simply plan that I will make that item some time in the next two weeks.
- I look closely at each recipe and add the ingredients to my grocery list.
- Using the grocery list, I take inventory of what I already have on-hand and scratch those items off the list.
- I go shopping for everything on the grocery list.
- I write the meal options on the “Menu Notes” section of my memo board.
- As I prepare each meal, I erase it from my memo board.
- When I get down to 1-3 meals, I repeat the process.
What I love:
- Having regular themes to give me direction in what to prepare.
- Having a master list of meal ideas to provide specific options to choose from.
- Having a central place, right here on my blog, to go for recipes when I do my menu planning.
- Balance in preparing a variety of foods, instead of falling back on the same old meals every week.
- Always having ingredients on-hand to make anything on my menu list.
- Simplicity and efficiency. Today I spent 15-20 minutes making my menu plan and grocery list over the weekend, and another 15-20 minutes taking inventory and deleting items from my grocery list. I even cleaned out my fridge and spice cabinet in the process, so the actual inventory time was actually less than that. Then I was off to SAMS Club for at least two weeks worth of meals. Can’t get much easier than that!
So how about you?
Have you tried this or done something similar? How have you tweaked it? How did you like it?
Leave me a comment and let me know!
9 Comments
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My Blessed Home 
This is so funny that you blogged about this. We just started the same system over the weekend. Although I don’t pick from themes, I tried to vary the meals. We picked out enough meals for two weeks. I went through all the recipes to make sure I had all the ingredients and then went shopping today. I too can’t stick to planning ahead for the whole week, but this way we still have choices, and I know i have everything. I’ll let you know how it goes in two weeks. I did feel that I did a great job shopping and getting what we needed without buying alot of extras. Even saved 5% of bill with coupons!!
I think you have inspired me. I have not tried this yet. I am now in my second trimester so I think I will give this a try. I am goin to try the two week plan and not the month long one.
Katie, That’s great! It helps to do that initial bit of work, to save yourself the day to day planning and running out for ingredients. Nice job on the coupons too!
Susan, I hope it works for you!How are you feeling?
We do something similar. I have a whiteboard on my fridge where I list 10-14 meals. I check my master grocery list and then that is it. I generally try to have some “themes”.. But I do feel a blog post coming on and MORE themes.. 🙂
Michelle, I think I have turned the corner. i have felt great for almost a week,which makes me inspired to try something new.
Vicki, I can’t wait to read your blog post! 😉
Susan, I’m so glad you’re feeling better. That first trimester can be a real trial!
Hi Michelle,
What do you do for the very young ones when you serve salads? How young do you find that your children can eat salads? My oldest is starting to enjoy them, but he’s almost 4. Thank you!
Hi Jenn, we offer the children salads (with everything cut up tiny) as soon as they have enough teeth to chew it. They’ve all been a little different, and it does take some time before they begin to like lettuce, but they’ll often start acquiring a taste for the other ingredients pretty early. They will also likely eat the other side dishes and/or some fruit along with it.
thanks so much, the experience factor you have is such a blessing for me! this is pretty much what we’ve been doing, but I was worried my daughter might forever only eat the croutons 🙂